Back to NC Bowl Games!

Adam Gold will be back soon enough.

Monday I believe will be some of his greatest interviews from the year. Yeah. Then we're back to live shows Tuesday with Adam Gold and you can always catch him doing hurricane stuff if you you really miss him that much which I understand. Yeah. You guys have a good synergy, a great show going on.

It's fun times. You're making things healthy at least hopefully day drinking doesn't come up as much during the normal Adam Gold show. It's the week between Christmas and New Year's people, okay? Yes. If we mentioned day drinking it doesn't mean that we would do that you know every day, all day, all year.

See we have to capitalize on it because we can't day drink all the time. Yes. So when you can you gotta jump on it. And obviously never during the show. Of course not.

There's video on us now. Yes. I don't even bring drinks in the studio anymore. Yeah. It's sharp on that here. I know. Too much cool equipment which is smart because I would spill. But yeah so it's it's getting near the end of the time however we still do have a long weekend.

A lot of people get the New Year's Day because it falls on a Sunday that second day off so you don't quite have to put pants on yet. Yeah. And I gotta say as nice as it was to have the Sun out and even I think it's gonna get like close to 70 this weekend.

So crazy. It wouldn't be a terrible weekend to have like a little ice and 15 degrees because it's a great weekend to just veg on the couch. Yeah not do anything. It'd be a great excuse because it has been bowl week all week but it's now it's like sports weekend including we've got ACC men's hoops tipping right now. We've got the Duke's Mayo Bowl about to kick right now. If you're an NC State fan you just got to sit and go nowhere.

You got a Mayo Bowl straight into a huge conference game versus Clemson. Yep. So yes it is North Carolina so you expect nothing less than a you know 60 degree temperature change in a week or whatever it was. Right. Yeah.

30 at least. I wouldn't for one hate a morbid excuse to sit and watch all the sports that are going to be on today including I think it's like five bowl games today. A great ACC basketball slate. We had ACC women's last night and then obviously NFL football kicks in all weekend long and the college football playoffs that take place tomorrow. So it's all there and you know like if a game goes bad a second half is bad. New Year's Eve weekend you know you got movie marathons on.

Absolutely. The Godfather is on somewhere right now. Everywhere. I don't know if it's AMC there's probably somebody's probably doing the Star Wars. Yeah oh you better believe The Office is gonna be somewhere. Somewhere is running the whole Friends series the whole Office series like there's good TV options. One of the funniest things to me about all of those things is that they're all accessible on streaming things that I pay for regularly. Yeah. But I would never turn on a stream to watch you know a random Star Wars movie now or a random Office episode but if it like comes on it's like halftime of the game.

I'm there. You know what I can catch up on the DVR. I love The Office. I can watch that.

That's one of those shows I can watch forever and always. We should do a ranking of the all-time greatest like cable and their heyday was when you didn't have streaming options. Yes. Where you were beholden to the offering on the cable options. You watched it and you missed it.

But on in those days they they showed out during New Year's weekend. You were gonna get you know I mean I guess the Avengers stuff has all been in streaming but you were gonna get a Godfather run. You were gonna get get a Law & Order marathon all day somewhere. Yep.

Get all your options. We'll focus on the sports mostly sometimes we'll talk other TV options and let's get it started as we jump out the gate. They're literally off in the Duke's Mayo Bowl. They just kicked. No time off the clock. I believe that's I can't tell who's wearing what.

I believe I'll tell you who's got the ball first in a second. Oh well of course yeah it goes to commercial. Yes they go straight to Mayo.

Straight. They know that the main character in the Duke's Mayo Bowl is the Mayo. So as they show kickoff and they immediately go to last year's Mayo dump.

Uh-huh. They've got Dave Dorn on the screen that says does not like Mayo. They've got Maryland coach Mike Lockley it says puts Mayo on sandwiches. Mayo is all the discussion. Yep. There's a large hat already out there and State is on defense.

We'll let you know how it goes. We've got lots of things to talk about because this is just a culmination of North Carolina Bowl week. Bowl week across America. Tis the season to celebrate college football.

From city to city the passion is unrivaled. Coast to coast and beyond the nation comes alive for Capital One Bowl week. And so does the state of North Carolina because we had six, count them, six bowl games. We won the Celebration Bowl NC Central 41 to 34 for Jackson State. We won the Gasparilla Bowl Wake Forest over an SEC team. Doesn't matter which one it was an SEC team. We won the Birmingham Bowl ECU over Coastal 53-29 and it wasn't that close. We won the Military Bowl 30-13 Duke over Central Florida and then it all fell apart in the Holiday Bowl. 4-1 Oregon 28 UNC 27 in the Holiday Bowl. But technically if you're counting score in Vegas we did cover so we still are undefeated in the money-making. Mac Brown was right.

There were two winners. And we're trying to make it 6-0 in Vegas 5-1 on the field in NC State Maryland. Looks like Maryland already got a nice chunk play.

I don't know how many yards it was but it was a decent amount. The series is tied between these old ACC foes 33-33 and 4. Last time they met Maryland won 42-21.

And Maryland has done a good job of dashing state's dreams in the past. We'll see if NC State can join Duke and UNC at the 9-win level. We've been joking about it being North Carolina Bowl Week. Obviously none of these are top-tier bowl games. Some of these are good bowl games. None of them are great bowl games, right? None of them are technically New Year's Six or obviously not college football playoff.

But I'm gonna ask Luke to talk about this later. By the numbers this has to be the best season in the state of North Carolina collectively and the numbers I'm talking about are wins. We had nine win seasons for UNC, Duke and I'm giving NC State the win over Maryland and making that nine. That's 27 wins. We had eight win seasons at Wake Forest and ECU. That's 43 wins. Six wins for App State and that's a down year for them. That's 49 wins divided by those six teams. That's an average of over eight wins spread across six teams. Charlotte, I don't really count them, but even with them dragging the average down, there's no way we've ever had all those teams up that much. Eight and nine win seasons, I know they they don't get you in New Year's Six Bowls necessarily, but they're not the norm over the history of Duke, State, UNC, Wake and ECU football, right?

So like it's weird the way that it came about. Duke is obviously celebrating, but because Duke football isn't highly celebrated, it doesn't quite feel as good because like App got those huge wins and with the story at the start of the season, even though one of their big games was a loss to UNC, it was just so fun. They're winning at Texas A&M, they're winning in crazy fashion to game day, but then technically it wasn't a great season for them.

It was a disappointing season for them. ECU fan, we had one call in. Great season, a great you know culmination to Holt Naylor's career and the turnaround for Mike Houston in the future is bright and all that, but you still look at, man if we had beat NC State. And then in the Navy game, you know whichever, there were a couple other close ones. And even Duke, who likes all their wins and loves it, still looks at like multiple games and it was like, I think we tallied eight points, decided there's three ACC losses, like there's disappointment there. UNC, same thing, if you told UNC at the beginning of the year you win nine games and your quarterback will be the freshman of the year and one of the best quarterbacks in the country, you'd be like that's a great season. But because they were at one point five and one.

Yep, going into OTs. Yeah, or whatever it was and losing four in a row to close the season, it feels like a disappointment. So it's it's an odd time to be a North Carolina football fan, the state of North Carolina, because if it was a really really really good season and it really doesn't feel that way. It's almost like sometimes you play golf and you know you add up your score and it was a decent score for you, but like you didn't make any birdies, you didn't you didn't make a ton of pars, you just didn't have a lot of double bogeys or troll bogeys. So like your score ends up being like pretty good for you, but you're not walking away being like, man I crushed it that round. Yeah, that's kind of how it feels.

Or like, even better example, you had a good scoring round of golf but like you missed birdie putts, like you had the opportunity to have a really good round and instead it just feels like you had a slightly unsatisfactory round, even though it was a really good round for you. That's what it was for North Carolina this year. We'll see if NC State, even if NC State ends up with just eight wins, that's not gonna change the the average that much. It's overall collectively, what you'd like is for the for the best season for North Carolina football would be one team either in the college football playoff or in a huge bowl game against somebody else. Another team you know with with nine wins and and in a coverage championship game or whatever. Like you'd like for there to be a crown jewel for the great season and there isn't that for this for these North Carolina teams. It's just a bunch of pretty good and well above historical average seasons spread out among all these teams at the same time. So I don't know, it's it nobody roots for all of those teams.

You know it's a problem every fan base has a reason to be a little bit excited and a little bit disappointed. There are tons of games on Saturday and Sunday, Saturday and Monday excuse me, no bowl games on Sunday but the ones that are the most important Ohio State and Georgia and the Peach Bowl at eight o'clock, TCU, Michigan and the Fiesta Bowl at four o'clock. I know that Georgia has basically dominated for the last two years even though they didn't technically dominate last year until they won the championship because the championship had so long eluded them right. Once they won the championship then you look to the seasons like that was a pretty dominant season even though they they didn't go undefeated they lost the one time to Alabama.

Then having the target on their backs being the defending champs and and being as down as they have been this season. Now they started to feel like they're on top but they haven't quite put together back to back good college football playoff showings and for some reason last night I was watching Scott Van Pelt and he was making his picks for the weekend and it's a pretty big spread so he was taking like six and a half points from Ohio State. I'm just saying I don't feel the same way as I do about Georgia in the college football playoff as I did about Alabama when they were in their position.

That makes sense. Even if Georgia is you know the defending champions and looked strong all season right and deserving the number one spot the number one seed and deserving of being the favorite. I just I don't know I don't fear them as much as I would fear an Alabama in that position. TCU Michigan kid Patterson told us the stat of how often the favorite does win in these semifinals. I feel like Michigan might take it to TCU but we will see. I hope it's not a Michigan Ohio State final. I don't know we'll see. I'll be excited for both those games. In other college football news Sam Hartman from Wake Forest is officially under the transfer portal. The reports are that he will go to Notre Dame.

We'll see. But yes five college football games today. The only one we care about right now is the Dukes Mayo Bowl. Yeah that's been going back and forth actually. I don't know if you noticed but there's been some big plays here lately.

No we will keep you updated. All right there were no North Carolina teams yesterday but the ACC did go one and one. Minnesota 28 over Syracuse 20 and the bad boy mowers pinstripe bowl. Florida State beat Oklahoma 35-32. This was a great game in the Cheez-It bowl. Two you know big programs even if Oklahoma didn't have the great record they were into it they were playing hard they looked good that you know it was a high quality game including who was my man for Florida State that had eight receptions 200 yards Miller I forget his first name including one it wasn't quite a one-handed reception but it was like a 40-yard pass and he kind of got it into his body with one hand and then tucked it in with the other hand but like not at the same time almost while running when it was like over his head yeah it's an incredible run and I got beef with Oklahoma or maybe it's the ESPN production crew. I guess I'm sure this is per tradition or Oklahoma like shoots off a gun every time they do a kickoff okay but it was way too loud oh wait we do not need to mic that thing it wasn't even they like startled me it's like because it was coming through a mic it was instead of like a gunshot on a movie that's loud it had this like yeah abrasive to your ears exactly is that me doing an impersonation of like a TV speaker being blown up like it just it didn't sound too much well you know I live in the country so I hear gunshots all the time I guess I'm used to it but it was like we got it we got to stop that but the big win for Florida State again to cap a great second half of the season for them and maybe reason to start thinking of them as a top 25 team next year and actually returning to the glory of Florida State and then Washington beat Texas 27-20 and the Valero Alamo Bowl Washington came out of the game this this is what you want out of a bowl game right out of a bowl team Washington took the opening kick and they ran a flea flicker baby Oh trick plays everything out empty the bag flea flicker for the first play but here's the problem they backed it up with a timeout it's like like they came out like oh hey on fire we're running a flea flicker trick plays like let's go let's go let's go let's go and then they couldn't get the next playoff and then that game so it went flea flicker timeout interception but then a punt block to get the ball back it was crazy was all the bowl action I loved it so good bowl game yesterday another great bowl moment I forgot this from the cheese and pull the whole team like there was a dude I can't remember what player it was he had to be taken off on the cart and like I think he was having a leg stabilized and as he started to run off as the car started to move you know one or two guys from the team started running over to big to like gap him up be like goodbye and then two dudes saw that like four dudes when they like agent the whole team was like running to say like by the dude because it was almost like they realized I mean oftentimes the guys go off for the injury they know it's for the end of the year but it's like wait a minute this is our last game I'm sure they'll see him again but it was this moment that touched my heart all right like we said it's not just bowl games anymore we've got ACC men's hoops action this weekend and it is hot including UNC at Pitt right now I should have timed that up better when we weren't in a commercial break so I had to score across the bottom of the screen still know scoring the Dukes may go both you looking for an update there but UNC tried to stay on track after seemingly riding the ship over the holiday break with big wins against Ohio State and Michigan so I guess UNC wins the college football playoff based on their basketball this weekend then big game for clips a big game for NC State hosting Clemson today at four o'clock my friend Josh Goodson is always good with this and I'm sure whoever whatever fan site you follow they they've tried to make the NCAA selection process a little more transparent and in telling you the exact criteria that you need that's why all these years now we start hearing about quad one wins or like bad losses quad three quad four losses but I think even Julia will say that losses don't even matter like it's quad one wins are the biggest thing that you can get so like if you beat a team you know back in October or whatever whatever the season open November and then later they go on a big run let's say you played at that place and you beat them or do you beat them on a neutral court they have a good conference run and all sudden they rise in the ranking and a team you beat that didn't seem like it helped you that much of the time is a quad two or a quad one wins huge right but it also allows you to map out which games are gonna matter for you when you play bad teams at home obviously losing is worse than winning but like winning those games don't help you that much in terms of the NCAA formula so you can look at your schedule and say which games are the most important ones on the road it would chant you know opportunities to get quad one wins on the road and at home I don't know if Clemson is a quad one win but they might be right now Brad Brown now usually does a good job of having having his team on the bubble whether or not they get in they're usually a helpful win for other teams on on their resume that's it's often how it goes so a big win for a big game for NC State today as they try to pad their NCAA resume tomorrow a big game as well Florida State at Duke historically a pretty good game but Florida State has been terrible this year although it would be very Florida State of them to have a terrible terrible very good no no no good very bad non-conference season yeah terrible horrible no good very bad conference season yes and then turn around and be like the formidable Florida State opponent that they are of course and like make the ACC look bad by going 500 or better so let's see if Duke could shut them down and keep that from happening and Virginia Tech at Wake Forest that game it's also tomorrow at noon ACC women to big games last night big upsets last night here locally it was Duke over number six NC State 72 to 58 unranked Duke but they're now 12 and 1 and I gotta imagine I don't know I can't tell you what all their wins are but I gotta imagine beating number six NC State has got to have Duke at least flirting with the top with getting ranked we'll see if that happens they have Syracuse on New Year's Day and then Florida State upset number 13 UNC 7871 or at least an upset by the rankings UNC will take on ranked Virginia Tech on Sunday so bad losses for NC State UNC good win for Duke and we'll see NC States in that sort of maybe a rebuild year they're back to back to back ACC champs I believe pandemic I forget which years we played which years we didn't but but yes they let's we'll see what NC State could do to ride the ship and we'll see how good Duke is gonna be next up the Hornets you got to talk about the Hornets when they win a game baby 121 113 over the Oklahoma City Thunder last night LaMelo ball led the way with a 27 10 and 9 assist effort one assist short of the triple-double he also had a couple sick passes including one behind the back pass where he also they didn't really talk about this but when he behind the back pass it kind of allowed him to also like screen the dude and just be like oh no I'm just you know I'm falling into you without without it being a charge because the guy was kind of beside him it's a crafty little move and I want easy much much like something I don't know if LaMelo we asked Brian Geister a little bit later fit if he's seen this there are people making more use of the backboard pass now like not just break away this will be cool I'll throw it off the rim the glass and you dunk it but the glass is like if you practice it it's a very useful tool yeah like if you can pretend you're like boxing out a guy and so like instead of throwing over the top you throw it off the glass and then it comes down to your dude right or like Trey Young has been good about he's running and is he gonna do a floater is he gonna float it up a little bit higher he goes off the glass coming to he sees a guy coming on the weak side which is risky I want to see LaMelo ball start using the glass a little bit more that's what I'd like to see and in professional teams that actually win a lot the Carolina Hurricanes are back in action tonight the Florida Panthers are in town this game is at 730 a little bit later start streaming on ESPN Plus so not a Valley game it will still be carried on the radio on the flagship 99.9 the fam but yes check out the canes trying to go for 10 wins in a row but just know that the game starts a little bit later I should have gotten a Hurricanes guest today that's on me that's my bad oh yeah well that's fine there's a lot going on it's bowl week so ball I guess I couldn't got a player today I maybe could have you got a player yesterday I bet rod would have stopped by but right enjoys a breath of fresh air he always tells me that one energy okay it's tonight 10 in a row they're going for it they it's so crazy how what the discussion was about the hurricanes before their last like 15 game stretch I think they're getting points in yeah it's like I don't know what's wrong and I think there were a lot of smart people being like nothing even at that point they were in obviously good playoff shape and you know there were injuries guys are expected to have they weren't having Sebastian I was out even though they were winning a lot without Sebastian I know and now it's like you know I don't think the conversation could be should be the canes of the best team in the league but they weren't going to be as bad as they looked at their worst right just like they're not going to go undefeated for the rest of the year but the answer is they're probably still among the best three to five teams in the NHL leading the metro division even if they dip out of that at some point in the point totals we've seen them at their hottest we'll see them again you know maybe have a two or three game skid but they are going to be a playoff team and the all of this is cool and the wind streak if it breaks records great we'll talk about that but these hurricanes will only be judged by the playoffs yes that's how it is they know that they want it that way that's when you have raised the expectations for yourself to the point that that's what you're being judged that means you've done good things so they have taken all the steps before the step that is start contending for a cup that doesn't even necessarily mean the Stanley Cup finals are winning the cup you better be darn close to fighting for a conference championship spot yeah or you're falling short of expectations at this point I think up to this point the season there would have been nice to have gone further in the playoffs and up to this point in the Rod Brindemore era it would have been nice to go further in the playoffs but at no time was it like oh man we really blew our best chance there right I mean every chance you got a you have a chance you got to take it right but this is the first time forgive the 10 wins forget whatever losses or wins come after this between now and April or whenever the game start that is where these hurricanes will be judged and because sports radio were contractually obligated to talk about the NFL the Cowboys beat the Titans last night 27-13 kind of a blog game typical Thursday night or Cowboys technically stay alive for their division title and I know the joke has been about how bad the NFC South has been and maybe I've missed it because we're just in Panthers country we talk about how bad the NFC South has been terrible maybe somebody got off to a decent start and so it looks better but like I think that's what a Texas and Colts terrible awful the Jags are like leading the division then the Titans are still you know game and a half below 500 I think or two days below 500 and they've got a chance to win the division it was weird last night they had little blurps where they look like they were trying to be competitive and then out back to being they are every bit that that division is every bit as bad I want a what they should do is now let either of those T divisions have a playoff spot I have an exception if you don't finish 500 you get to go play at a loser start like we need to square off AFC South versus NFC South and like that's how like these are gonna be the terrible teams that get the good draft picks but like that game should determine like who gets the best draft pick like you crappy divisions play for it to win it you don't earn the number one pick by losing you earn it by beating the other sorry team exactly that's what I want we did however get to see in last night's game two chains give a shout-out to Al Michaels and Al Michaels give the love right back to two chains all right here with Grammy Award-winning artist 21 savage tonight he will be gracing the stage and debuting new songs from his new and number one album her loss now I want everybody to pull up including you out Michael's a thousand percent I mean I love doing that promo you do you have all year loves it as well I mean two chains no preempts us there's our man he did his own promo this week get to the final week of the year he said that'll stay tuned then he gave you a shout-out for all the love you've given him all year man I want you to pull up even you out twenty one savage also threw an Allen there so yes that was a great moment last night's game and of course the Panthers take on Tampa Sunday at one o'clock Josh Norman is back on the team I know there's a Twitter for it like Steve Smith was like oh let's do this go get Luke equally let's go 100% take Steve Smith getting snaps right now absolutely and I would believe that he would contribute I love 89 plus without a doubt man he has a different number because his old number is being used right now so I think it's 23 just don't do the UNC thing and just like throw another jersey don't do that don't do that