Concerns about NC State football's offense

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Visit us at capitalfinancialusa.com. This is the Adam Gold Show. I am Adam Gold. Dennis Cox is the producer of this program. Joe Giglio joins us in about 15 minutes. Gives us plenty of time even to invite conversation here.

919-860-5326. The poll question of the day, which we do every day and answer it at 1 o'clock, is which of these four fan bases should be happiest? Was it happiest?

Is that the way it was phrased? Most excited? Whatever. From Saturday's results, North Carolina, North Carolina State, East Carolina, or App State, which should be happiest?

And the real answer is none of the above. We actually had some people write in and say that. It was a trick question, sorry. But... We had a couple people say Duke.

Yes, but that was not the question. Yeah, Duke fans should be happy. They won 30-0 over Temple. Temple is obviously not very good.

But I did say this. I think Duke looked like a competent outfit. They looked like they knew what they were doing. Riley Leonard I thought was really good.

Jordan Moore, quarterback turned wide receiver, looked pretty good. There were some good things. Some legitimately good things about the Blue Devils.

But that was not the question. The question was which of these four fan bases is happiest after week one? State, Carolina, App, or East Carolina? Now, Carolina is the winner at 37%. And I'm like, well, yeah, you are 2-0.

Okay, you are 2-0. And the win, the App State win over App State on the road, that's a big deal to have won that football game. Okay, but I think if you're Carolina, you're probably going, oh my gosh, how are we ever going to stop anybody? And we should have lost, right? Carolina should have lost.

State should have lost. You have to feel good about your offense at least, right? Yeah, but you felt good about your offense after week one. You feel worse about your defense today. You gave up six touchdowns in the fourth quarter.

It's really hard to feel great after that. If I was going to give an answer to this question of one of the four, yes, Carolina won. Yes, NC State won. And we'll hear from Dave Doran here in a sec.

If I was going to give an answer to this question, I think I might say East Carolina for this reason. And we're going to talk with Patrick Johnson in about an hour from 94-3 the game in Greenville. Like their defense was legitimately good against NC State.

Legitimately good. Chip Patterson. We will never doubt Chip Patterson who joins us every Wednesday.

That'll be tomorrow, right? What did Chip say? This game will be dictated by East Carolina's defense. Me?

Dummy? Nah, man, it's going to be dictated by NC State. I don't know, maybe at some level it was because they certainly were not creative. But man, East Carolina's defense looked really, really good. The offense is exactly what we remember, right? They've got some dynamic playmakers, a quarterback that is mostly good.

But then again, Holt Nailers does go, oh, what was that about on occasion? But their defense was really, really stout. And in the second half, there just wasn't much for NC State.

There was one drive in which the, actually, I'm not even sure that it was a long drive. The one where Jordan Houston fumbled the ball on third and goal. I think that came after a turnover, did it not?

Maybe not. I think both turnovers came early. Both interceptions from Aylers came early. So what was the second play of the game? Yeah, we had the, and both interceptions were just poor.

Just very poor. There was maybe one drive in the second half at all. The second goal-to-go situation came off a punt and a long punt return inside the 25. So it was a 24-yard drive. Now the first play was phenomenal.

The run was tremendous. But so if I was going to say, here's an answer to this question, given those four, then I would say that East Carolina would be the happiest. And then it's a tie between NC State and North Carolina. NC State still, in spite of what we saw, still, like, I think week one is a factor. I wouldn't be surprised if Dave Doran intentionally limited his playbook because they don't want to show a lot over the first, at least the first three weeks before they get to Texas Tech.

And then head down to Death Valley with not a whole lot on tape. Now, it was a risk that nearly bit them because to not get any points out of two goal-to-go situations is egregious. And you can't be a great team and get nothing out of those two situations.

You can't. And who knows if they can be a great team? It's disturbing to me that Thayer Thomas looks like their best receiving option. Yeah, right. That's like, no, no offense to Thayer Thomas. He needs to be a second best at best wide receiver to me as a slot option. But you need to have more dynamic players and maybe Devin Carter just was blanketed by East Carolina. But I want to give the Pirates credit there. I thought the Pirates were really, really good in the second half. And I think it bodes well as we get deeper into the season and Mike Houston's fourth year looks like it's even though it's a loss should have been a win.

You missed two kicks. It looks to be better than the previous three, even though they did win seven games last year. So I think there's a lot of good there. It's I think it even though apps scored 61. I got a hard time feeling good about that.

If you're at Yeah, I just do what you're saying. You gave up 56 points at home. Forget about the kickoff return on the onside kick. You just gave up 56 points at home.

Okay, who are you playing? There's no way I can feel good about that. You were going to score on North Carolina all the time you were going to score.

So it's hard to feel good about that to me app is for. And I think the only reason why maybe they're behind Carolina and NC State is because state and Carolina both one. Yeah, I mean, at least they won in Dave Doran say something about that. Right.

Then Doran Doran say, you know what? We won. That's good. I've been on the other side of that. And we played South Carolina and one of our openers. We had 500 yards to their 250 yards and felt like we killed them and lost the game. Lost it Clemson on the missed field goal where we forced five turnovers in the game and felt like we, you know, manhandled them on the field and lost the game and it's a bad feeling and I've been there.

So to be on the other side of that. I'm not going to apologize for winning a game on the road. There's no such thing as an ugly win. Nobody discredits you for winning a football game at the end of the season in any form or fashion. I mean, I don't disagree with any of that. I have no problem with that sentiment.

You shouldn't know it. Steve Logan used to come into this studio every week and say the hardest thing to do is to win a football game. It's just hard to win a football game.

So yeah, I get it. Don't apologize for the win. Don't apologize for the win.

But I'm telling you the coaching staff goes home and go and they have to be going. Why couldn't we on four tries from inside the two? How do we not score? How do we not score four times inside the two and I don't want to hear about the will we read nine points like no, I don't want to give four tries inside the two.

No points. Like the other the other series I get but and that's the credit to East Carolina man. Their defensive line was great by the way that drive on the Justin Houston fumble at the goal line was 12 plays 74 yards up to that. So that was the drive. That was the only part of the second half. Yeah, that really looked good for NC State. Yeah, end of the third quarter and early fourth. It didn't didn't end well, but it looked good. That was it is Carolina.

I think if we're going to answer that question legitimately and give somebody an answer. I'll say he's Carolina. I was I voted in the poll Dennis. Oh, you did I did I always vote in the poll. Very nice.

So my vote was East Carolina. Was it all Isley Brothers were three plus three. Is that what it is?

That's correct today. Very nice. The album very good. Good feel good vibe.

Speaking of good vibes Joe Gilliam from the og 99.9 the fan in Raleigh in studio with us. How are you real week one? Not that week zero garbage. I hate week zero. Not such thing as week zero. I actually thought some of those teams who played in week zero had themselves a little bit of an advantage.

I think it was helpful. They're like exhibition games. I'm looking at you Florida State. Well, well, we'll talk about Florida State. They should have lost the game too, but that's fine. We'll talk about them. We'll talk about them later. All right, so it's an easy way to recap week one. They should have lost they should have lost. That's very true as though there was a lot of that going around including the game.

We're about to talk to talk about. NC State didn't lose them. They were they did win the game. I mentioned it before that for the East Carolina's defense is really impressive in the second half, but from an NC State perspective. What what didn't you like about their offense? It's very predictable.

Number one. We saw that at the end of last year and they had a Mecca Amizie last year, right? And I didn't like how they didn't move a Mecca around. They just made him basically make plays out of an island. Well, a lot of their offense looks the same to me and now you don't have that hammer that you had an Amizie and you're asking a whole lot of a Devin Carter.

You're asking a whole lot of a key on the same you're asking too much of you know, a Michael Allen and a Jordan Houston. I want to see more combination routes more more of a scheme some different formations. I want to see more Thayer Thomas. I think we're going to see more Demi sumo going forward. Gosh, it's going to take me until about October 12th to say his name, right? Yeah, I got no chance that is hyphenated part of it.

I got to check up with Annabelle Myers about that. So but yeah, I think we had talked to Dave Doran on our program Thursday before their first game and I said there's in so many words. It felt like sumo was going to be the guy and he had compared Dave had compared sumo to Matt days.

That's pretty good, which is yeah high praise indeed from Dave Doran. So you saw a little bit of his Miss ability if you were my dad hates it when the announcer says that so. All right, so but he couldn't get it over from the two after an incredible run on that drive, which is the second drive that they had with a goal to go situation. Yeah, he had the incredible run then they took him out of the game even though there was like an eight minute delay and review. They but but he was back on the field and he actually know that sequence was the one where Jordan Houston fumbled.

No, no, it was previous one. Okay after the after that run got him down. They did they took him out. There was a for some reason there was a review or whatever. There was a delay and they put but they put him back in the game. I was angered that they took him off the field initially like why is he coming out? Just give him the ball again and they gave it to him again and again and again and again. They went nowhere. I think they ran it looked like they ran the same play. Now. I'm sure they round maybe a different play.

They've talked about after the game that they ran. You know, we only have so many plays like so I think what he's saying is we only had so many plays installed how much of my design. I don't want to a lot of people say Bill Belichick is a genius in football and I often say while Bill Belichick is smart. It's he is look to he looks even smarter by comparison to his peers.

And you're certainly welcome to argue with me that college coaches aren't Bill Belichick's peers, but right off. I often find myself even in radio Adam. You've been in radio a long time.

You've been in successful in radio a long time. So I might say to myself in this situation. What would Adam Gold do in this situation?

If I'm Dave Doran, I would sit here and say to myself. What would Bill Belichick do in this situation? We've seen Bill Belichick win the Super Bowl when the money's on the table by going to the slot receiver in a timing play with a quarterback. Oh, I don't know that they've worked on countless reps countless hours and practice knowing what I know about Thayer Thomas knowing what I know about Devin Leary. Right. I think that's the play and here's the other part about it and we can continue on what without pick play exactly. Give me a pick or you go in I go out either way. The imagination needs to improve and the predictability needs to be less. NC State loves to run the ball on first down no matter who the offensive coordinator has been.

It's a first down run. You got to be less predictable than that as I love to say I make a radio's wage south, you know salary. That's what I make for a living. I don't make six figures. I don't want to surprise you right now.

I don't want to shock you right now. I don't even make seven figures like a lot of these coordinators do now. I'm going to give them credit. Those guys making seven figures that they can watch tape and figure out what you're going to do and that's where you got to be less predictable and that's where I would want to see NC State moving forward because you're at a point now where you can't change the parts. And credit to ECU, love what Mike Houston did in the portal. A lot of those skill players, they got out of the portal and they didn't get them from traditional spots either.

That's using your brain and building a little bit better mousetrap. I know how State felt about Demi Sumo in the offseason. That's why they didn't go get a running back out of the portal. They did get one receiver from Maryland.

You can't trust anyone from Maryland. There were some skill deficiencies I thought on NC State's side that could have been addressed in the portal this offseason that was not and I thought that was another one where I left my head kind of scratching my head a little bit. Two things about, one about Thayer Thomas and then one about the predictability and this has been a pattern for a long time. But let me just get back to Thayer Thomas. Is it fair or just inaccurate that my concern is that if Thayer Thomas is their best wide receiving option that they probably can't be great offensively. Like to me, Thayer Thomas is a perfect slot or a second guy like Hunter Renfro was at Clemson but they had other guys. They had other dudes on the outside, Mike Williams. So they need to get more out of Devin Carter.

Yeah, I totally agree but I also would like to see those parts move around the chessboard more and that's where I always go back to when I was in school and Tory Holt. Michael Caine was a master at moving Tory Holt all around the formation. Everyone in the building knew Tory Holt was going to get the ball.

Everybody. And Corin Robinson after. And yet he still found a way to move those pieces around and that would be my hope for NC State because I left Greenville on Saturday thinking they look like an 8-4 team. They don't look like the ACC champions to me. They can't. There's no way. I'm going to stop. I'm just giving you my initial reaction.

That was my initial reaction. Now I said this, I alluded to this earlier. How much of the predictability and I recognize that there's a pattern. How much of the predictability is we're going to try to win this game without doing too much. And then we've got two weeks before the next. Yeah, they got three weeks of basic football here. Texas Tech is going to be at least a challenge because it's a power five team.

But how much is really showing no cards going until they get to Clemson? I would really hope that wasn't the case. I would truly hope that wasn't the case. But you can't put anything past coaches.

They, you know, but I would really, really, really hope that wasn't the case. Why? The game was important.

No, I get it. But you install the play as you install your game plan. Full credit to East Carolina's defense in the second half. Flew to the ball, hit people, made sure they knew who was actually pushing whom around in that second half.

Full credit. NC State though, there was no reason to not kick the field goal on the second goal line situation. And there was no reason to run the same play four different times or a variation of the same play four times. You have a great tight end in Chris Tootle, a great red zone target in Chris Tootle that I think they had one play that was a bust on that Houston either went the wrong way or didn't move the right way. And they tried to get a pop at the back of the end zone. And that's how ECU scored one of their touchdowns.

Again, my dad coached high school football for twenty five years. There are only so many two point plays. Right. I'm not I'm not being a jerk. I'm not trying to act like I know everything either.

I'm just trying to tell you if you've ever watched high school football for if you ever need a two point play, you should call a high school coach because they know them. Right. But there's there's eight of them.

Maybe. Yeah, that's a lot. So, you know, ECU scores on the tight end slip the second touchdown that they got. I'm sitting here going, yeah. Hey, you know, you're allowed to do that, right? That's in your playbook, too.

Okay. I'd even take a terrible Tim Beck screen at that point. Like, I was just like, I'm going to spend 60 seconds here. I agree that the field goals, the better, the smarter play with ten, ten and a half minutes to go. The field goal is the smarter play.

But I am I'm okay with the maybe egotistical. We're going to show you who we are aggressive. Put the game away with a touchdown. I'm okay with it. But I agree with you that it's the smarter play just to kick the field goal. Two scores with ten minutes to go is not if there were five minutes to go, then it's a no brainer.

I think with ten you can make the argument that the touchdown is a good play. I didn't like the explanation on Monday and which was I wanted to show the faith in my offensive line. You're not the offensive line coach.

You're the head coach of NC State. And you owe it to your defense who won the game for you to say to them, I would I had as much confidence in you as I did the offensive line. But can you spin it that way anyway? Your ultimate goal is to win the game.

But can you spin it that way anyway? I had so much faith in my defense that if we don't get it, they ain't going 99 yards on us. The other way to say it is if we get to ten points, there's no way they're scoring twice on us. Okay. And I heard the explanation about the analytic chart and Dave uses a chart that's provided to him by an independent firm as one of his former coaches actually started the business.

And I don't disagree. There's a coach that started a business about the chart? Yes. That's a bigger scam than search firms. Well it's not necessarily, it's a book. It's a whole book that they tailor, like 80 of the 120 FBS programs use this service. So what? I'm just defending it for a second. It's a bigger scam than search firms.

It's a booklet. And I remember the first time this ever came up was when they went for two in arguably the high water mark of Dave's career. They beat Lamar Jackson on a Thursday night. And when they were up, I think they were, it was to go up, it would have put them up 12. And I'm like, why wouldn't you just kick it and go up 11? That makes them, and it was like, oh, because the chart says, and I go, okay, now hold on a second.

What chart is telling you not to make this 11? And I actually ended up talking to the guy who was the coach. It was this coach at Montana.

I think it was Montana. And he said, you build into that chart that you're playing against Lamar Jackson, that he does have the ability to do things that other quarterbacks don't have to do. So it's more of a comprehensive game plan, giving you the odds in each scenario, as he said, the chart says, you go for inside the three. Brian Kelly doesn't have that chart. That's why he kicked the extra point, tried to kick the extra point after driving 99 yards with no time left in the clock, rather than have one play to win the game. There's going to be so many college football fans who enjoy everything that's coming Brian Kelly's way this year. He's a legitimately good coach. I think he'll be fine at LSU. He's actually an excellent coach, but I wonder, kind of like Scott Satterfield at Louisville and the mistake that he made, I kind of wonder if Brian Kelly next year, after it gets really hot there, because they are not a school of patience. If he doesn't decide like a shock of smart, it's best I find the nearest port in the storm and get out of here.

Well, he'll probably try to do something for his family. So Florida State won, sort of. I mean, they won. And that's actually impressive that Florida State didn't lose that game.

So I don't want to take any shine. Well, they blocked the extra point too now. They blocked the field goal earlier.

So I don't want to completely dismiss it. But I don't know how good LSU is. LSU has talent. They had two players get hurt early in that game.

They were probably more and more of their talented players. You think Florida State's good? I went into this season thinking we were underestimating Florida State.

I believe in that more now. In part because I think the days of Florida State just committing coaching malpractice are over. I didn't see as many procedural penalties. I didn't see as many dumb offensive line like, hey, if you don't do this, you might just be okay. And I definitely, their defensive line is starting to look like Florida State again. Well, defensive line and defensive back, they've been good. Even while they've been as a team, they've been bad. So there have been good pieces there. All right, final thing for Joe Giglio from 99-99, excuse me, 99-99, the fan in Raleigh. The Clemson Georgia Tech game last night. For about 38 minutes, I thought nothing has changed. Their offense is still trash.

They can't block. And then I texted a good, a mutual friend of ours who will give us and give me an honest answer. And I asked him, I said, is Clemson's offensive line still a problem? Or is nobody going to respect DJ U's ability to throw the ball?

And he responded, yes. So I realized the game was over, but when the kid came in, when Cade Kublick came in, it looked a lot different. How many games will this be the situation where it's DJ U starting and number two come coming in late? I'd be floored if DJ Uyong'olole starts the game against NC State on October 1st. Floored. It's Kelly Bryant and Trevor Lawrence all over again. It really is, I think, watching the game. We'll see.

But I think we've seen enough of Uyong'olole to know what he is. Are you flaunting the fact that you can say it and I can't? I am, yes.

Because probably the same friend you texted taught me how to say it. Oh, very nice. Oh, man. I thank you very much for coming in. I appreciate it. Anytime. I'm going to work on it.

Uyong'olole. I got it. I did it. See, not that hard.

I'm so excited. Now I got to work on State's running back. All right. No, I have no chance.

Wait, you don't have to run out. Real quick. I'm over 5,000 in place your bets. I'm doing incredibly well. The last thing you said to me on Friday was take the over… Oh, my gosh.

It's the easiest bet in the world. I did it. It won the parlay. It was very nice. Gillio is like the only person here that really appreciates this. What? I appreciate it.

Because he's a complete degenerate. I appreciate it. But besides us, we do it every day. Well, yeah, it's true. I got to go home and tell my wife.

She goes, so? Because it doesn't do us any good because there are no real units on it. I say, yeah, where are the units?

Because we can't do it in this state. All right, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Go ahead. I don't know. It's halftime, right?

It is halftime. Speaking of which. Speaking, yes. Speaking of which, so obviously… Coming up next.

Yes, coming up next. Obviously, the college football season has got off to a great start. Thursday is the start of the NFL season.

Rams, Bills. But Thursday is also Disney Plus Day. What? Yeah, Disney Plus Day.

What does that mean? Oh, you don't know what Disney Plus Day is? No, I don't know. All right, so even though the anniversary is November for Disney Plus, it's launched. There's actually going to be three years this coming November.

Okay. So on September 28th, this Thursday, you're going to get a lot of new, just a lot of new content and a lot of updates about what's coming to Disney Plus on Thursday the 8th. So Disney over a lot of its social media platforms is going to be just putting a lot of different stuff out. And a lot of it's going to be teasing to D23 Expo, which takes place later this month in California. So a lot of it's going to be teasers to that. But you're going to see some behind the scenes stuff from Thor Love and Thunder. You're going to see some other original stuff from Obi-Wan, that series. And also some, again, sneak peeks of what to expect in 2023 and moving forward. You're going to see stuff on Nat Geo, Pixar, all that stuff. Plus the live action retelling of Pinocchio. The what? Yeah, the live action retelling of Pinocchio. Because that's something we all asked for, right? My gosh.

The live action retelling of Pinocchio. I have nothing for that. Now, D23 does come up later this month. And I think, again, we're going to see a lot of teasing and stuff with that. But hey, Thursday, Disney Plus, also Thursday we'll get the next episode of She-Hulk.

I know you're looking forward to that. It's been a fun series. Honestly, they've treated the series like it's a sitcom.

She-Hulk? Yeah, they treated it like it's a fun sitcom. Some fourth wall breaks.

It's been a lot of fun. So, but it sounds like a sitcom to me. Yeah.

She-Hulk? Yeah. I'm not going to tell you what it really sounds like, but it sounds like a sitcom to me.

Okay. So, the HBO original House of the Dragon, which is a prequel series to Game of Thrones, I will say three episodes in, solid. Really good so far.

I really have enjoyed it a lot. It's even actually broken some records over in the UK. For example, the first episode already over 4 million views. Really?

Yes. In the UK alone, which I find very interesting. I'm not sure about the United States and what their total number of watches here domestically in the US, but still 4 million in the UK.

Pretty impressive for the first episode. On the movie front, not really many new movies came out over Labor Day weekend, which I don't know. I'm trying to think back to the past. Wasn't Labor Day kind of a big weekend for movies, maybe in the past it used to be?

With the holiday weekend? I'm not entirely sure. I mean, you're asking movie questions to me?

I'm just curious. Yeah. To me, it's always been like Christmas movies. Christmas is a big one. Not Christmas movies, but Christmas is when the big movies come out. Yes.

Around Christmas and New Year's. I remember they made a big deal out of Godfather III. Yeah. My practice wife and I, in our first Christmas together, we left our apartment in DC and went to see Godfather III and thought, actually well before we walked out, that maybe the worst way to spend Christmas Day was watching Godfather III. Talk about a letdown from Godfather II to Godfather III. The worst.

Terrible letdown. Guess who the top movie was this weekend? Oh, Top Gun. Top Gun Maverick. Again?

Yeah. Top Gun Maverick. Top in the theaters this weekend. If you got the four day with the holiday yesterday being Monday, they did about $7.9 million. The re-release of Spider-Man No Way Home, which has an additional 11 minutes of content, which is what I saw this weekend, $6.55 million over four days. Amazing. So yeah, a movie that's been in theaters for months and re-released with a little added content in the top two movies in theaters this weekend. Nice.

I love it. By the way, the- Do we have digital numbers for Top Gun Maverick? Because it is now available at home. I have not seen digital numbers officially of it yet, because this was the opening week of that. But according to what I'm seeing here, sales, let's see, the digital release of Top Gun was the biggest opening week sales in history in terms of digital movies. So yeah, there you go.

By the way, in the box office, over a billion worldwide, Top Gun Maverick. Really? Yeah. Wow.

It's fun. I want to go see it. I want to go see it.

I want to watch it. Yes. Tom Cruise's biggest movie of all time, by the way.

Is it really? Yeah, and Paramount. Paramount and Tom Cruise's biggest movie of all time. Well, I mean, the first Top Gun came out what, 30 years ago?

Something along those lines. Right. Roughly 30 years ago, maybe more. Honestly? No, it was in the 80s.

I think that was 87. So yeah, 35 years ago. But it's been such a huge Saturday afternoon TNT hit. It's like you can always find Roadhouse on somewhere or Shawshank is on every day somewhere, I promise you, somewhere. So it's been on every day.

So people have watched it, and you get the next one, yeah, a lot of hype for it. By the way, before I move on to the next thing here, because with it being a weekend, because again, with that number I gave you, they count it as a four-day exam, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, but then Monday as well, well, you have a three-day weekend. Do you prefer Monday or Friday off on a three-day weekend? There's a correct answer to this.

Oh, I always would prefer Monday. Absolutely. Yeah. 100%.

Yeah. I always have an inevitability about them that I think hurts Sunday. It's like, we'll just put it in a sports sense, you're a big NFL fan, and you get to the four o'clock games, and you're excited, and you go, oh wait, I got to go to work tomorrow. You might love your job, and we love our jobs, but it's still, I got to go to work tomorrow. But if you have Monday off, Sundays are awesome.

Yes. Sundays are awesome. Not only that, but today honestly feels like Monday, and then you're like, wait, it's actually Tuesday.

Right. You follow up a three-day weekend- Well, there actually is no Tuesday this week. It actually is Monday. There is no Tuesday. We just go from Monday to Wednesday. Yeah, Tuesday's always the day that gets left out. That's true. Always.

That's fair. So following up a three-day weekend with only a four-day work week- Beautiful. Is wonderful. Yep. We're on the same page.

We're halfway there. So I mentioned earlier how September the 8th is Disney Plus Day. Yes, you do. Coming up on Saturday, September 17th is Batman Day. Gosh. Yes, Batman Day. Go to your local comic store. There are free comics available.

Just want to let you know that. Free Batman comics? Yeah, free Batman comics. All right. DC always puts out books that gives books to stores, and they get to put them out for free. Nice.

So yeah. Free. Free.

Go enjoy it. Free is always good. Yeah.

Who doesn't like free? And finally here, the Yes Network kind of got something a little bit wrong. Oh no. So the Yes Network crew took time out of Sunday's Yankees-Tampa Bay's broadcast to pay tribute to long-time New York sports media member, Bob Trainer. Bob Trainer's doing fine.

He's alive. Oh. Really? Yeah.

They did an RIP, Bob Trainer? Yep. Oh boy.

Mm-hmm. I wonder if he was watching at the time. Yeah. Mike Mancuso actually said friends didn't feel right about the various supports of Bob's past.

Or said something didn't feel right. So he reached out to Bob, called him, who- Are you okay? Yeah. Are you alive? He reached out.

Bob called him back and said like, yeah, I'm fine, doing well. So just a little misreport that was out there. Wow. So yeah, there's that.

Actually, I have one more thing to follow up on here. Sure. One of the things I love about college football, again, is tradition. And apparently a tradition at Florida in the swamp is they sing Tom Petty Won't Back Down.

Okay. Well, that's a great song. He's from Gainesville.

This is the crowd in Gainesville. All right, let's hear it. I think this is great.

So yeah, during a time out, it's very good. This is wonderful. I love this. A little chill? Are you getting a little chill? A little bit.

Is it possible that Tom Petty is underrated? Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Criminally underrated. The catalog is amazing. Amazing.

I've actually seen a couple of documentaries on Petty. Just such a down to earth star. Down to earth star. R.I.P.

I've said this before. If you're a satellite radio user, I think it's the best music station. Okay. Tom Petty Radio. Tom Petty Radio is the best music station, I think. I don't even think it's close, to be perfectly honest. You can hear mostly Tom Petty, but I don't see the problem with that.

We've discussed this before. You're not much of a U.S. Open tennis viewer, are you? No. Well, I watched the Tiafoe Nadal match yesterday. It's cool to see an American playing as... I mean, American tennis has been in the dumpster for 20 some odd years. On the men's side, at least.

Yeah. I'm sorry. That's unfair of me to say it that way. American men's tennis has been a tire fire. I will even include Andy Roddick, who I have tons of respect for. Just never got as much out of his ability.

Or maybe he did. But since the Agassi-Sampras days, we've just gone nowhere. And for a long time, we had one player in the top 50.

There's a lot of good, young American players now. Francis Tiafoe was one of them. His story is incredible. His parents emigrated from Sierra Leone. His dad was a day laborer who helped build a USTA junior tennis center in suburban Washington, D.C., then became the maintenance guy there and actually lived at the facility. No kidding. They allowed him to live in an office there, and he had his two twin sons, Francis and his brother Franklin, living with him. His mom didn't get over there for a while.

But anyway, so he grew up at a tennis facility, took a liking to the game, which is probably understandable. And it's just incredible. It's an incredible story. Great. It's a story that a movie will be made of. There is no question that a movie will be made of it. So he beats Nadal, he's into the quarterfinals.

I think it's his second Grand Slam quarterfinal appearance, so it's very cool. Anything else to report before he plays our bets? Oh, yes, real fast. Elon Musk might be trying to buy Fortnite. What? Which is out of Epic Games, which is based here in Cary, North Carolina. So didn't Elon Musk also buy Twitter? Not really? Yeah, it's just a rumor that's been floating around. Apparently back in 2018, there was rumors floating around that he was trying to buy Fortnite.

He would ruin Fortnite. Of course. Yeah. Yeah. But anyway. Okay, well. That's a thing.

He doesn't have any skin in this game yet. Ah. I apologize. No, you don't.

Let's play Spence. You don't apologize. You're right. Nor should you. You're right.

100% right. That thing is illegal with Bushwood, sir, and I never slide. Damn it! Okay, you can own it. I owe you nothing. All right.

We've got a lot of things going on, and it's time to play Spence. Dennis, did you have a good weekend? Just say yes or no. We don't have to dwell on it. No. Sorry.

It's okay. I somehow did very well. AC Milan was a winner on Friday over Inter Milan. I told you that the Merseyside derby was going to draw. I have no faith in Liverpool right now.

No faith at all. Liverpool and Everton was a 0-0 draw. And then the easiest parlay ever, Carolina over, State under, plus 265. We're over 5,000 units.

Dennis, you go first. Yeah, I'm minus 805. Okay.

It's all right. Champions League, PSG versus Juventus. Yes. Give me PSG, minus two and a half, plus 180. Minus two. Minus two and a half. That's a lot. It is.

Minus 360 on the money line. Yes. It is in Paris. Juventus has not gotten off to a great start, plus they just loaned one of their top midfielders to Liverpool. So they're obviously not going in there strong, so appreciate you going with Champions League to start. We are going to start in Major League Baseball. Okay. All right. Mets-Pirates, first of a three-game series, double-header tomorrow.

They were rained out yesterday. Former Pirate, Dan Vogelbach. The nose tackle? Oh, yeah. Home run, plus 500.

Okay. Mets have a bunch of former Pirates. Starling Marte, former Pirate, as well. I think Tawon Walker, the starting pitcher tonight, is a former Pirate. So we'll go Vogelbach to Homer, plus 500. All right.

Give me Aaron Judge to Homer, plus 225. Every stinkin' day. It is incredible. It really is.

It is incredible. Meanwhile, that division race. By the way, Mets only lead the Braves by one. Yeah. That has gotten real. But the Yankees lead over the Rays is also evaporating fast. That division was over about a month ago. Over.

Incredible. All right. I will go to the US National Tennis Center for tonight. Nick Kyrgios, who is so much fun to watch. You might hate him.

It's fine. But he is just absolute entertainment. Karen Kachinoff is the opponent tonight in the quarterfinals. Through four games, Kachinoff with the lead at plus 850. Through four games of the first set, Kachinoff with the lead. So at 3-1, he gets the first break, plus 850.

Okay. Give me Beau Bochette for the Jays to hit Homer against the Orioles, plus 550. Why are you throwing shade on the Orioles, man? Why are you hating on the Orioles? I never said the Orioles were going to lose.

See Beau Bochette to hit a Homer. I can't believe you're hating on the Orioles. It's terrible. It's not a good thing. It's not a good thing. All right. I will go to Champions League play.

I don't really love... It just seems like the better teams are all at home, right? It just seems like the better teams are all at home.

But one of them is not. Give me Inter Milan at plus 280 to pull a little bit of an upset over Bayern Munich in the first game of first match of group stage. I see it at plus 300. Oh, look at that. Look, Inter's good. Inter's one of the best teams in Serie A.

So it wouldn't be that big a deal, which to me is staggering that it's this big. So give me Internazionale over Bayern. Plus 300. Well, there you go. Very good. I watched. Man, it was so disappointing. Liverpool really outplayed Everton on Saturday.

But they just... I mean, Jordan Pickford was amazing in net as a keeper. He's going to be England's keeper, I think, when they get to the World Cup. I think, honestly, a match I'm looking forward to tomorrow is Ajax versus Rangers. Ajax, the villain of Deadpool, taking on the Power Rangers.

I think it's going to be a tremendous matchup. I don't see... I don't know.

The Power Rangers are plus 550 on this one. I don't know. You think Ajax is going to clean up? See, I do that to my son all the time and he gets angry at me. Like I know it's Ajax. I get it.

I get it. But I can do it all... Like I used to call Sadio Mane, I used to call him all... I know what his name is.

I used to call him Sadio Mane and he would get mad at me because I was calling him Mane. That's what you do to kids, man. Dennis, one day, you'll have kids. Will I? It will be. Will I? I can't guarantee that. But if you do, you will do the same thing that I do and you will torture them emotionally because that's what parents are supposed to do. This is The Adam Gold Show.