The next Joe Burrow

This is The Drive with Josh Graham Podcast.

Tune into The Drive weekday afternoons 3-7 on Sports Hub Triad. The SEC hype machine! It's been doing its thing with former Wake quarterback Jamie Newman over the last few months. Of course, Jamie's now a Georgia Bulldog. I look at the Heisman odds and I see Jamie has the 5th best odds out there.

And I've had this passed along to me by several people online via email and via Twitter at Josh Graham Radio. Paul Feinbaum had Quincy Avery on from the quarterback takeover program and they were talking about Jamie Newman yesterday when things, I believe, jumped up a notch. He's probably one of the best cosplayers ever. But I would put him as a blend between Jalen Hurts and Cam Newton, right? Great runner, really physical. He's gonna be able to do some things in the throw game. Gonna do some decent things in the throw game.

Again, that's courtesy of Paul Feinbaum's show. Jamie isn't the Heisman contender. The SEC hype machine, it's overselling Jamie. I've watched Jamie the last few years at Wake Forest. And I've also covered pretty much every one of Cam Newton's home games the last few years.

Followed the Panthers closely. As somebody who's covered both and spent time with both, I don't really see any comparisons between the two. Even between Jamie and, let's say, Jalen Hurts, who was the offensive player of the year in the SEC before torching Big 12 defenses. And Norman. Jamie isn't a Heisman contender and he's nothing like Cam. He's not a freak athlete. He's good, but he gets banged up a lot, okay arm, and the running portion of it is more a product of the offense than it is Jamie's athleticism.

I think Sam Hartman, he can run it just as well as Jamie can, if not better. When you do the tale of the tape with Cam and Jamie it's just not close. 15 pounds lighter, Cam's what's a five star out of high school, Jamie a three star.

Jamie, he doesn't leap over piles or anything like that. Cam was doing that. When you look at the college stats, Cam had three times as much rushing yards in his one year at Auburn than Jamie had last year. Jamie I think produced just half, roughly half the rushing touchdowns that Cam had. It's just no contest.

I want to set expectations in a fair place. I'm concerned how Jamie's going to fare against SEC competition because the ACC unquestionably was down last year. The ACC was in as bad of a place as they've been in my lifetime, or at least since they've expanded to 12 and now they're at 14. Since they've had divisions, it hasn't been this wide of a gulf. Now that isn't because Wake Forest was good last year.

Understand what I'm saying. Two things could be true. The ACC could be in good shape and Wake Forest can win. We saw that in 2006. But last year, Wake was an okay team and they were at the top of the Atlantic standings at times with Clemson because the conference was down. Look at the games Jamie played against ranked competition last year. You don't have to look into many games because they only played one ranked team. That was Clemson. I want to be fair, Clemson's talent level is far different than what Wake Forest has, or really any other ACC team, but against the Tigers, Jamie was 6 of 14, 41 yards, 2 interceptions. The second best team Wake played was in the bowl game. Yankee Stadium, it's Michigan State, Pinstripe Bowl, Jamie 12 of 27, 175 yards in the contest. Now you think this guy's going to go into the SEC and just torch up Tennessee? Start torching Florida?

I just don't know if that's something very realistic. He isn't surrounded by a normal Georgia crop of talent that we've seen the last few years. It's going to be more than he had at Wake Forest. But when you watch the draft a few, about a month ago, you might've noticed there was an offensive tackle out of Georgia picked in the top five picks. You also might've noticed that late in the first round, another offensive tackle went. Three offensive linemen altogether were drafted out of Georgia. Those are guys who were no longer in place with the Bulldogs, of course. They lost DeAndre Swift at running back.

The replacement? Redshirt sophomore, Zamir White, coming off of two ACL injuries. He looked good in the bowl game against Baylor, but injury is certainly a concern.

Durability. George Picketts, I'm a Volitnikov voter, so I pay close attention to the wide receivers. He really stood out.

Looked awesome. The same way Justin Ross stood out at Clemson against Bama in the title game his freshman year, that's what Pickens looked like against Baylor. But that was really the only game he had double figure catches and really stood out among the rest. Looked like an elite receiver. So we'll see if Jamie can take some of those guys to the next level, but I don't see a national title contender. I don't see a Heisman contending quarterback. I don't see Cam Newton.

I don't see Jalen Hurts. It's a good quarterback who's gonna get drafted, but the SEC hype machine is overselling the former Wake QB. Shifting things to, with all this Jamie Newman talk, I'm interested in who might be the under the radar quarterback, the one that's off the radar screen right now, who potentially could be Joe Burrow this year. Joe Burrow, at this time a year ago, had a six round grade attached to him by Mel Kiper.

Who could that guy be now? Because when I look at 2021 mock drafts, it's crazy that we still have those this early, but it does get a lot of reads, it gets a lot of clicks, so I get how that works. Of course you have Trevor Lawrence there. Carolina Panther fans want Carolina to tank and draft that quarterback.

I think my poll bared that out. Hundreds of people voting on it and most of them said that they want to tank in order to get Lawrence. Justin Fields probably a top five pick. A lot of people are talking about this North Dakota State quarterback.

That being Trey Lance. Newman's projected as being a first round pick right now. I don't see anybody talking about the quarterback I'm about to share with you, who I believe can be this year's Joe Burrow. That's Florida quarterback Kyle Trask.

He's under the radar, I don't understand why. Not on any mock drafts, not really in the Heisman preseason mix. His sophomore numbers last year, they were better than Burrow's junior year numbers. His first year with the LSU Tigers, not as good as what Trask did with Florida a year ago.

LSU was 10-3, Florida was 11-2. Joe Burrow, he only had 15 touchdowns on the season. Making 16 touchdowns, 5 interceptions, threw for 2800 yards, 58% completion. This being his junior season, not his senior year. Kyle Trask, 67% completion, that's 9 percentage points better. 100 yards better in terms of passing yards, 9 more touchdowns with 25, he had 7 picks, his team went 11-2. This is a name to keep an eye on, he can fly up draft boards.

He's also stocky, a little bit taller, got some more pounds to him, he looks more like the prototypical quarterback. The Gators, they return a ton of talent. His leading target is back at tight end.

Two best wide receivers are back, a scary front on defense. They're one of the five DBUs out there. Who do you consider to be the real DBU? Is it Texas, LSU? Strangely enough, I see Miami referring to itself as DBU, Clemson was doing that a little bit, I found that strange. Everybody claims to be DBU, Florida has a lot of guys coming out of there as well.

Aaron, who do you consider that to be? As a Chiefs fan, I got to go with LSU. Yeah, I think it's LSU as well. The Panthers, they have Donte Jackson over there and Grant Delfit was coming out, Eric Reid, he was a Panther a year ago. I think it's LSU, probably Texas after that.

Moving it along though, the schedule is so favorable for Florida this year. If you're talking about being a Heisman candidate, if you're talking about being a top five draft pick, you got to have a damn good team. Like look at the last few number one picks. Burrow, Heisman Trophy winner. Baker Mayfield a few years back, Heisman Trophy winner.

Kyler Murray, Heisman Trophy winner. Heisman's had the last three number one picks. So Trask, you look at the schedule, they do not have to face Alabama, no Auburn. They're out of conferences, Eastern Washington, South Alabama, New Mexico State and a rebuilding Florida State team with the new head coach Mike Norvell. Their toughest games, Georgia neutral site, LSU, that's going to be in Gainesville. And they don't have Joe Brady, they don't have their defensive coordinator, they don't have Burrow, they don't have Clyde Edwards-Hilaire, they don't have, they do have Jamar Chase back who won the Blitnikov, really good wide receiver. But they lose Justin Jefferson, they lose Thaddeus Moss, lose some guys, that's just the offensive side of the ball I'm talking about.

So you got to think, Florida being at home, that's going to be favorable for them in the swamp. So I like them right now as my favorite to win in the SEC East. If that happens and they find a way to get into the playoff, Kyle Trask, it's all about what expectations were ahead of you going into the year and how you overachieve them. Overachievers generally win the trophy.

Trask, he has the credentials to do that because he's not on the radar right now despite having better numbers than Burrow his junior season. 11-2 football team, a really good Gators team coming back. Winning the SEC, it gives you a massive bump as NFL scouts at times view that conference as being the NFL's AAA team. The biggest effect coronavirus has had on the sports landscape in the state of North Carolina this week comes in eastern North Carolina as ECU cuts four programs in order to save money. They have a $10 million budget or deficit according to John Gilbert, the AD, this week. They cut men's and women's tennis, men's and women's swimming. And it seemed that that's going to save them, according to the projections over time, about $5 million and try to work against that deficit. But I was fascinated by this story written by our next guest today, the title of which at newsobserver.com and in the pages of the Observer, cutting tennis swimming could cost East Carolina more money than it will save. And there's an interesting quote from a sports economist, Andy Schwartz, who said, regardless of what we assume, the savings that they say they're getting far, far overstate the actual savings from the numbers that they presented based on some potential assumptions about what would happen in the absence of sports. They could be very wrong, end quote. Luke, appreciate you spending the time with us.

He's on Twitter at Luke to cock. Why ultimately were swimming and diving and tennis chosen as the four programs to cut your thing? Well, so the reason is, in large part facilities, you know, Minjas Netatorium, John Gilbert said is in need of renovations, the tennis complex is in need of renovations to stay at the standards. But what I wrote about and how this ends up working is, especially in the case of swimming, tennis is probably a net money loser for the university, just not by the million dollars that the athletic department thinks it is. Swimming probably ends up bringing in money for the university because what happens is, in both of these sports, you have a lot of foreign students. Men's tennis and swimming and then men's and women's swimming and diving are not full scholarship sports. They have about five scholarships for 10 people in men's tennis and about half of the 27 people on each of the swimming rosters are on scholarship. Now, those scholarships get split up, so it doesn't work out neatly by bodies, but the net effect is you have a lot of people paying full tuition. The athletic department doesn't see the benefit of that, but for the university, the cost to educate one more student, let's say, you know, the difference in cost to the university between if I enroll and if you and I enroll is not that much. The dorms are there.

The meals are going to be cooked anyway. The classes are going to be taught anyway. It's an incremental cost. So Andy Schwartz, who knows these things better than I do, ran the numbers based on East Carolina's financial report and found that even though these sports last academic year, so 18-19, on paper cost the athletic department $2 million. They actually brought in probably, depending on the assumptions you use, could have brought in as much as $22,000 for the university because you're bringing in so many students who are paying tuition. So it's one of those examples of how saving the athletic department money can cost the university money. Now, I should be fair and say John Gilbert's rebuttal to this point is, A, the facilities, which were going to absorb an enormous amount of money in the future to bring them up to Division I standards, and B, that these sports are, you know, are subsidized in part by the money that the university gives the athletic department.

So there's a bit of a circular argument there. If the sports are making money for the university, then it helps the money it gives the athletic department, but certainly from an accounting perspective, there's some impact there. I realize that is a very wonky and complicated and relies on a lot of accounting, but the reality is these cuts will help ECU's athletic department with the deficit it has. They're probably not going to do much for the actual university that the athletic department belongs to.

So it's a kind of a small picture, big picture kind of situation. What effect or I guess what type of ramifications could exist on a Title IX front because you were talking about full ride scholarships and while men's and women's swimming and diving, as you mentioned, aren't full scholarship sports and it's not a full scholarship sport, I think on the men's front, isn't it a women's tennis full ride scholarship? Aren't there only available in that sport? So the net loss of scholarships here, gender wise, I believe off the top of my head, it's 11 and a half for each swimming sport and five for men's tennis and eight for women's tennis. So you have a net loss of women's scholarships of three. So you are moving further out of Title IX compliance.

I asked Gilbert about this. And so Title IX compliance is this really complicated thing that involves prongs and baskets and there's all kinds of ways you can argue you're in compliance. What Gilbert said is they believe they were in compliance under what's called proportionality. And what that means is the number of scholarships they offer is proportional to the student body. And by counting cross country athletes twice and track athletes twice, East Carolina is 50-50 between men and women. You have to remember these numbers are really skewed because football has 85 scholarships and women's lacrosse, which has a ton of athletes, only has five scholarships. But it's also why they added women's lacrosse too. They were in deficit and they added women's lacrosse out of fear of retribution from the NCAA or Title IX. Right. And that helps in certain ways, but it's really only five scholarships.

So on this particular prong, it doesn't help them that much. The prong that Gilbert claims they're in compliance on, East Carolina, by what's called double counting, which is counting cross country and track athletes twice and sometimes three times, is at 50-50 men's and women's scholarships. The school is 57 percent female. So there's no like Title IX police that come and look at your numbers and take you to Title IX jail. But if I were an athlete in women's tennis or women's swimming, I would be talking to a lawyer and I would be filing a Title IX case that I would have a really good chance of winning.

Luke DeCock is on Twitter at LukeDeCock, read his stuff, newsobserver.com, also in the pages of the Observer. Let's shift things to NC State. I was talking about them earlier this week because it seemed like they knew they were going to be in for a fight from the very start. It seems like before North Carolina's AFAM case, the protocol was to be as cooperative and as cordial to the NCAA as possible to get a good ruling. But NC State was handed the first NOA in response to the FBI investigation into college basketball last summer and the language in some of these NOAs, it's very combative language, unlike some of the previous ones we've seen from the NCAA over the years. So now it's going to be handled by the IARP, which is new, and the only case they ruled on as an independent party was James Wiseman at Memphis last year, and Memphis got hit pretty hard as a result of that. Did NC State simply roll the dice here where they can't appeal, even though I know they're trying to argue that they can after the fact, going to this independent party because they simply felt like they could get a fair shake or they couldn't get a fair shake from the NCAA? Again, there's a whole lot to unpack there.

There's four different unrelated things you touched on. Number one, I should correct and say Memphis received penalties from the NCAA, but their case is now with the AARP. It has not yet been adjudicated by the IARP.

That whole Wiseman case is still very much out there. He was declared ineligible by the NCAA, but Memphis has not yet been penalized. So that's the first case in the IARP. NC State is the second. Now, depending on who you talk to, NC State didn't really have a choice in the matter. That once the NCAA decides that a case is subject to referral to this new independent board that does not consist of people who have connections to universities, that that's pretty much the way it goes. And then the third part there is, yes, the exchanges between NC State and the NCAA were extremely contentious and extremely freighted with very inflammatory legal language on both sides, with the NCAA accusing NC State of acting in an adversarial way and the NC State accusing the NCAA of being basically prejudicial in its traditional infractions process. So, which brings us to the IARP. This is new. This came out of the Rights Commission.

This is 15 people who have no association with schools. They're arbitrators, former judges, lawyers. And I actually spoke with Naima Stevenson-Sparks, who's the NCA executive in charge of sort of liaising with the IARP. She's not in charge of it. It's its own deal. But she's the go-between. She's also in charge of the traditional process and learned a lot.

That column's online now. But the gist of it is, once you go into the IARP, there's all kinds of things that can happen. They have a complex case unit that can reinvestigate the whole case. There are advocates who are basically like district attorneys who prosecute the case.

It does not operate on a traditional NCA timeline. It can have its own timeline, like a complex litigation in a courthouse. And even she admitted she doesn't know what's going to happen because no one knows.

This is a whole new process. We assume, and she basically acknowledged not in so many words, that many of the Adidas cases, so we're talking Kansas and LSU and potentially Arizona, all the NC State, all Louisville, that these cases will all end up in the IARP because the exchanges between Kansas and the NCA have been as inflammatory as those between NC State and the NCA. That remains to be seen. And then as far as the appeals process you mentioned, the IARP does not have an appeals process that was not written into the legislation when the NCA created it. And NC State has basically not only threatened to sue the NCAA in lieu of an appeal, but hired not only Cadwell Adder-Kaff, which is the law firm that did the Martin Report for UNC, but litigators from other firms, including Loretta Lynch, the former Attorney General of the U.S. So to whatever degree UNC lawyered up, and NC State initially hired Sharnik Bonking, which is the law firm that UNC hired in their case. NC State has gone above and beyond now, and they have this all-star team of very expensive litigators who are, it's basically, you know, sort of a nuclear deterrent for the NCA. They basically said, we can unleash these litigators on you if necessary.

So I know I realize it's a very long answer. The reality is, yeah, NC State's headed down a path that not even the NCA knows that much about, and is very much, along with Memphis and probably Kansas, going to be test cases for this new process. And NC State may not have any recourse at the end of it. My guess is, whatever happens in this process, NC State will end up suing the NCA. But that is pure speculation and sort of an educated guess on my part.

It can not be explained in a more consumable way than the way you put it there. Luke Tkach with us from the Raleigh News and Observer. Am I wrong to think if NC State had the old approach that schools, I think, I mean, Miami was as cooperative as you can be until they saw things going south with the Nevan Shapiro stuff, and many other schools were as cooperative and cordial as you can be with the NCAA, until North Carolina seemed to create this new way to approach things when they got away, in some minds, scot-free. Am I wrong to think if NC State just said, hey, we were wrong, the people aren't here anymore, and we're going to accept the punishment that you hand down here, and just go the traditional route that they probably would have been better off? Well, NC State, I mean, you could argue, I don't know that I necessarily would 100%, but I think there is some truth to this argument. You could argue that NC State tried to go that way. And NC State, in its filings so far, has basically said, look, hey, we testified on your behalf in court that we were the victim of Adidas.

At your request, we sent our compliance director to court, we provided all the documents, we've done additional investigations on our own, and yet you still come back at us. Basically, NC State's argument, and not to go into too many details, is that the NCAA is basically, the Committee on Infractions is basically accepting things as fact, one of which is Adidas is considered a booster, and therefore NC State is at fault for anything Adidas does. NC State believes it should be able to argue those points in front of the committee, and that's why we've kind of ended up where we are. So I think you could make the argument, and NC State probably would, that at least to some degree, NC State has tried to go that traditional path. You know, the reason UNC didn't the second time around is they went that path with the football stuff in 2010 and got slapped around pretty good. And so when they came back around to AFAM, they had a different law firm, they had a different posture, you know, a new chancellor, a new AD, and decided, hey, you know, we're not going to accept that we're going to be, you know, we're going to fight this. And basically they said, we are going to litigate you to the death.

And they won. And NC State has basically now, after being sort of rebuked by the NCAA, taken that same path, and hired some of the same lawyers, many of the same lawyers. So, yeah, I mean, that is what the NCAA calls its pure review process, has always been this sort of collaborative, cooperative process. And NC State would argue that they tried to go down that route and fought for the reasons you state that Godfrey is no longer there, Orlando Early is no longer there. You know, they could, if they wanted to, argue that they weren't any good when Dennis Smith was there.

So what benefit did they get? They tried to go down that path, I think, in their opinion. And the NCAA, you know, still held them to what they thought was too high of a standard, and the resulting sort of exchange of insults and volleys pushed it to this new process. It would be fascinating, just as a thought exercise, to imagine NC State and the NCAA still in the traditional process.

You know, I think that would absolutely devolve into a Lollapalooza lawsuit where NC State was basically threatening the existence of the NCAA. This new process kind of offers a different path where maybe both sides can get out of this with their, you know, safe space and get out of this with their pride and tax. Luke, stay safe as Phase 2 begun just about 45 minutes ago. I really do appreciate the insight. Sure thing, Josh.

Happy to come on. You got it. That's Luke the Cock. He's on Twitter, at lukethecocknewsobserver.com, in the pages of The Observer. Your one-stop shop for sports talk. This is The Drive with Josh Graham on SportsHub Triad. Now being joined by the driver of the number 13 Geico Chevrolet, Ty Dillon, who... It's been a really strange week for everybody in NASCAR, but I'm sure you're very excited to be on the track at the Coca-Cola 600 in Charlotte coming up this weekend.

Let's go back to Sunday, though. What was the most bizarre part about that first day back on the track in Darlington? Yeah, I think just the uniqueness of not having a single lap of practice to feel out your race car, to make sure every nut and bolt and the brakes and everything were going to work when you went off into Turn 1. I think that was probably the craziest thing for us drivers that we've never really had to go through.

But it all worked out. You run it back on Wednesday and do it again, and I got to start on the pole and was able to lead the first couple laps, and I was just telling my guys on the radio that the ability to drive it off in this corner and have confidence that I'm going to make it through it is all because of the last four years with my race team and Jermaine Racing. They've built me great race cars, and we've had very little failures, so a lot of thanks to my team for keeping me safe in a situation like that. They did a great job of building me two strong race cars so far, and we're going to do it again this weekend for the Coke 600.

Let's go back into your background a bit, Ty. You grew up in the Piedmont, so I got to know, what was your favorite local track or spot to do some racing growing up? Probably my favorite local spot, I'd say, near here was 311 Speedway. It was one of the places I got my early start at on dirt racing. Obviously, I came up to Charlotte quite a bit to do legend car racing, but I just grew up going to school inside Country Day and have spent most of my young life in Winston-Salem and still have a 336 phone number.

I enjoy the Piedmont, and there's some great race tracks, great local racing around there, and I'll always be from the Winston-Salem area. We saw Kyle Busch's and Chase Elliott's altercation earlier in the week, and that commanded headlines. Having an older brother, Austin, who's also a racer, what's the worst argument you guys ever had on the race track?

Worst argument? I know we've been mad at each other hundreds of times at the race track, and we're extremely competitive. Probably one of the younger memories was Moyer Little racing legend cars, or maybe even Bandolero's, the first thing we ever raced. He was running fifth, and I believe I was sixth with two laps to go, and I drove so far in the corner and wrecked him and got my first top five ever, and he was mad, and we didn't talk all the way home. We were driving home with our mom from Kentucky, and there wasn't a word said all the way home. It's Ty Dillon with us, getting set for the Coca-Cola 600 on Sunday. Your granddad is Richard Childress, so I've got to know, what's the best Dale Earnhardt story you've had passed down to you that he's told you?

I haven't gotten too many of the stories that people haven't already heard. I think him and his relationship with Dale is so intimate. They were best buddies, and I know how that is.

You have a lot of stories with your hunting buddies, just moments and memories that you could never take back or never get again. I know he's very missed by my family, but I was so young when he was around. I knew he was our hero, and every weekend we watched him on TV, and whether he ran good or not was kind of the controlled attitude of our family week to week. It was fun watching him and being a part of that ride at a young age, and then also going through the tragedy of losing Dale was a huge impact on our family. He was a special character. The only member I really have is him kind of picking on Austin and I at the racetrack when we were really little.

He always would come by and pinch you or give you a noogie or do something on your head or whatever it did just to kind of annoy you as a kid. Well, Ty, I know you got the military paint job going for this weekend on Memorial Day. Thank you so much for spending the time in your home area in the Piedmont Triad. It's appreciated.

Yeah, no problem. I love being on with you guys and also representing the military this weekend for Memorial Day is something so special for us. Our Geico military team always looks amazing, and we always represent a lost soldier, a fallen soldier. It'll be our honor to do so this weekend. Usually we get to have the family at the racetrack, and unfortunately with the circumstances we can't this year, but we're going to be doing our best to honor them on the race car and on the racetrack. You're the best, Ty. Best of luck this weekend.

All right, thank you guys. And there he is. That's Ty Dillon joining us, driver of the number 13 Geico Chevrolet coming off a top 20 finish in Darlington. I don't know if I spelled this out as well as I probably wanted to, but what a great racing family that is. And I'm not just talking about Austin and Ty. We've had both those guys on the show and both those guys, we wish them the best each and every week. But the fact that Ty Dillon's granddad is Richard Childress, who's from Winston-Salem, it just speaks to how interconnected the NASCAR community is in this area and how everything kind of links back to the Triad and to the city of Charlotte.

But as a little brother, man, I just can't, as someone who's a little brother myself, I can't imagine what it must be like and what it must feel like to race each and every week against your brother, to have him in the mix, to try and follow in those footsteps. And I just would like to know how often it was him on top versus Austin because I know my brother, there was a video game me and my brother played as a kid. Gosh, I can't remember which one it was though. I remember beating him in it and he said he'd never play it again. That's it.

He would always beat me at everything and then once I took him out in something, I'm not playing that video game again. That's just the way it worked. So you kind of push each other and you have that relationship that's centered around competition, that's centered around, in this case, racing. Your thoughts are welcome on Twitter at sportsuptry at 336-777-1600 being the phone number.

Luke the Cock, who's on the show today, had this column that I thought was pretty staggering considering the news of yesterday. East Carolina cut men's and women's tennis and men's and women's swimming and diving, giving them 16 programs now when before they had 20, which is more than Appalachian State, Wake Forest, Charlotte, here in the state of North Carolina, and more than any school in the conference, they reside in the American. However, the headlines this, cutting tennis, swimming, could cost ECU more money than it's going to save, which sounds like such a crazy idea. But, renowned sports economist, Andy Schwartz, he was quoted in this story saying this, regardless of what we assume, the savings that they say they're getting far, far overstate the actual savings.

From the numbers they presented, based on some potential assumptions about what would happen in the absence of sports, this could be very wrong. Swimming almost certainly, I think, makes money. And while tennis doesn't, the actual cost of having the tennis program on campus is very small once you factor in the fact that providing a scholarship doesn't cost the university as much as the list price when you factor in the dorm room, the classes, when you get a cut of the books and the meals, when you charge yourself list price and you only pay cost.

Essentially, it boils down to this. This is a decision that's made by the athletic department in concert with the university. And where I think this argument holds a lot of water is with the number of athletes who pay their own way as swimmers and divers. Like East Carolina, they only have 23 scholarships for the 54 swimmers on the roster, which means over 30, over 30 of the swimmers pay their own way.

Do you know who makes that money? East Carolina University. Also, the school makes a lot of money for international students paying their way. These schools are predominantly or these programs are predominantly international students. 23 of 48, I think, current athletes have listed hometowns outside of the United States among those that lost scholarships. That's crazy.

23 of the 48. So, I hope ECU knows what it's doing here. I think it's an upgrade in administration, what they have now with John Gilbert, who I think understands the gravity of such a decision.

Even though some of the messaging bothers me, there's a lot of things with the messaging I've seen today that's really ticked me off a bit. ECU saying that programs have been affected. That was the headline. Programs have been affected.

Oh, really? Affected? How are they going to recover? Oh, they're eliminated.

Oh, got it. Messaging, such an important thing. It sounds a lot better in a headline that programs have been affected than, oh, they've just been cut. They've been eliminated. It's why you hear, relieved of their duties when a coach is fired versus, yeah, that guy got fired.

Messaging is so important. Like, apparently Dave Claussen said something earlier today. Like, I tried to watch this Wake Forest Athletics stream where Steve Forbes, Dave Claussen, and others, they're talking to Wake Forest students, trying to pump them up, get them ready for the year and such. For whatever reason, the link wasn't working, so I just gave up on it. But then I see a tweet that says, Dave Claussen, essentially, I think I'm paraphrasing here because I don't have it in front of me right now.

We have our home opener against App, but still on his schedule. They think they have the best program in the state, and I think we're the best in the state. Then I see Connor O'Neill, who posted that tweet, saying on Twitter that he was asked to take it down.

Oh, such a salacious thing. Robert, it needs the hip-hop air horn. You don't want Dave Claussen publicly saying that he thinks his program is the best.

This is where we're headed. Ed Harden, he was with us not too long ago, and he was talking about covering NASCAR races from his house. Like, when reporters, when the time comes where we can have the conversation about members of the media like myself, or like Connor, or just newspaper writers, Webb, whatever, if they should have access to the locker room.

Because you know that's going to be coming up eventually, I want you to think about what I just described to you. Wake Forest, you know, having issue, trying to, hey, get a tweet deleted, I believe is what it was because they didn't like what Claussen had to say. ECU saying, oh, someone has been affected, that programs have been affected when they've actively been eliminated. If access is limited on independent outlets, such as this one, then what you're going to get is spoon-fed content that's really vanilla from schools and from organizations. Like, if they just controlled the content, sports would not be nearly as interesting because we have the ability to tell the story independently. Like, I don't work for Wake Forest, I don't owe anything to anybody other than fairness, and that's what we try to give. We try to be subjective, we try to have fun, we try to cover teams appropriately and fairly. Right, so if we don't get the access, then it makes it difficult for us to tell the story.

But the fear I have is that these schools and also the organizations like the Panthers, the Hornets, pro teams, they feel like they're getting to a point where they can tell the story better than we can. And also, they're going to leave out all the bad stuff, which also might be the most interesting stuff. Aaron, you're the one that let me know about this when I was preparing for the show today, what do you think? I have the exact quote, if you would like to hear. Oh, I would love to hear the exact quote. Did I miss?

Was I off by a bit? Well, it's just important words, important words. Okay, what did Dave Claussen say that apparently Connor O'Neill had the delete on Twitter? Quote, they think they're the best program in the state. Oh, it's spicy, I can already sense the spiciness. We know we're the best program in the state. No! App State fans, consider yourself slapped in the face. But on notice. Like everybody who had a Kentucky degree after what Steve Forbes said a few weeks ago, consider your face slapped.

Mm, I smell beef, it's sizzling. Whoa, can't have your coaches saying that. No way, man, you got to be kidding me. Yes, I can't believe he said it either. How dare you. Gosh, Dave Claussen believes his football team is good. The audacity.

It's amazing. All right. Whoa, whoa, whoa, don't go that far. All right, now that we've had time to stew on the Wake Forest hiring of Steve Forbes, I'll tell you why it's best for Wes Miller that he remains at UNC Greensboro. That's next on the drive. Ready? Yes.

Punch up the audio for me now. You're on the drive with Josh Graham on Sports Hub Triad. Before we get to the top ten list in honor of the Dinos, Carolina Panther fans, or I should say Cam Newton fans, I can't have it both ways. I see people saying Cam should not accept anything less than a starting job. Then they get mad when they see Joe Flacco has just been signed by the New York Jets. We know damn well that Flacco ain't starting for the Jets. It's going to be Sam Darnold over there. Yeah, I still see angry Cam fans. Oh, look at this, Flacco gets signed before Cam does.

You can't have it both ways. Either he's too good to take a backup role and should accept nothing less than a starting position, or he should be able to take a backup role and team shouldn't be taking Joe Flacco over him. Cam should accept a backup position with the Jets.

So that closes up another place potentially Cam could land, I guess. Poor Joe Flacco. Robert, are you a Flacco guy still because he went on that historic run with the Ravens, won your team a Super Bowl?

Yeah, I don't understand where the Flacco lander comes from. Obviously, he's coming here to be a backup. I think he'd be a great advisor to move Darnold along.

I don't see any problem with it. I think the problem Ravens fans had with Flacco, once they paid him, it led to them being... He deserved to get paid. I mean, fans don't get that side of it, and I'm not going to be one of those people. The dude won a Super Bowl MVP, he won a Super Bowl... Out-dueled Peyton, out-dueled Brady, out-dueled Kaepernick.

Some of the best games of Ravens history were in that playoffs. And the dude got paid and we had to sacrifice a couple of years of not doing so hot. You know what? So be it. So Flacco is now a New York Jack.

Cam's just watching and laughing, I suppose. Let's get to the top 10 list. It's my top 10 dinos. Oh, yeah!

Woo! Top 10 dinos! In honor of our beloved NC Dinos. Number 10 by number 10 dino. T-Rex Ryan.

Welcome to Jurassic Park. Speaking of the Ravens. T-Rex Ryan. Gosh, I miss coaches being as interesting as T-Rex Ryan was. Like, who is the most interesting NFL head coach now? Like, you're interested in what they have to say each and every time they step to the microphone. Because at that time, you had Parcells, you had Rex Ryan.

They didn't mind firing off at the hip. Yes, Aaron? I would throw Bruce Arians, if that makes sense.

Yeah. What they need to do in Tampa is give him a cocktail as he's walking off the field or walking into the press conference room. That's the one thing you need to add to Arians deal, his persona. Number 9! My number 9 dino. Vince Carter. Alright, it's a fact.

You and I don't like each other. He's the greatest raptor ever, right? For sure, without a doubt. I mean, he didn't bring a championship like Kawhi, but I mean, the years, the dunks, the history. I would probably put Kawhi as like 1B. You'd put him above DeRozan?

Yes. You'd put him above Lowry? I don't even bring up DeRozan. Lowry, as much as I give him crap, he is probably 3 on that list.

And then you've got, like, Bosh and the older guys, but I don't know. I hold a very special place in my heart for Kawhi, just for the title. Robert is a massive Toronto Raptors fan. It's not because he's a homer.

It's not because he's a bandwagoner, I should say. He was there 10 years ago watching... Marniani, whoever you want to say. Nickelback. Toronto Raptors.

I'm trying to think of a good example, better than Andreas. John Salmon. Oh, John... Amir Johnson. Amir Johnson, we can stop there.

Amir Johnson. Alright, number 8, my number 8 dino. Jurassic Park Minwoo. That's a double work. Jurassic Park Minwoo and... Yabba Dabba Park Minwoo.

Oh, that's not what I was thinking of at all. I was thinking, you've got an actual player on the dinos. And some wordplay with Jurassic Park. Number 7, my number 7 dino.

Triceratops trading cards. The Raptors, the 2019 NBA champs. Had to work that in. I miss Mike Breen. Bang!

I hit those bangs. Mama, there goes that man. Jeff Van Gundy needs a tagline. I can't stand Mark Jackson. Like, that's all he's good for. Mama, there goes that man. I noticed he stopped doing hand down, man down, because sometimes he would say it when the defender got their hand up.

They'd only get a break. I remember, it was the series last year. Somebody closed out, hand down, man down, you know the rules. I'm like, apparently I don't.

Because his hand was up. Number 6, number 6, top 10 dinos. Rod the bodzilla. Can't I trust you to get anything straight?

You sure are hopeless. The hell was that? Fred Flintstone. That's who the yabba dabba doo was too. Multiple appearances from Fred Flintstone. Number 5, top 10 dinos. My number 5 dino.

Reptar Heels. Do you know what that TV show is? Isn't it dinosaurs?

Correct. With one of the most depressing season finales of all time. Do you want to spoil it? Everyone just dies. It's a nuclear winter and all the dinosaurs die.

The camera fades out. This is like a kid's show. I mean, it was like a family show, right? Yeah, it was a little more on the adult side, but yeah, it was still a kid's show. Is that how that show ended? I'm serious. A nuclear winter comes through because the dinosaurs ruin their home habitat.

The camera slowly pans out as the earth is covered in like this frozen tundra. Sweet. Number 4, my number 4 dino. Barney Fife. Just picture Barney making that noise with his little t-rex on it. Yeah, America's favorite deputy sheriff. Shouts to Mayberry. Number 3, my number 3 dino.

Yoshi Barra. Roll back the rock to the dawn of time and sing this song with me. The best part of making these sounds is just getting to watch all the... I couldn't work in Land Before Time, but I got... We're back in there. I got dinosaurs. I got Fred Flintstone.

I was a little upset I couldn't get Land Before Time in. These last two are really good. Number 2, top 10 dinos. Labrantosaurus. Remember, they can smell fear.

I think I just stepped in some fear. Labrantosaurus, high up on the list. Number 1, my number 1 dino.

Dino Gaudio. It's a really good top 10 list, I thought. Lubricosaurus was close to making the cut.

Just didn't. There's some other strange ones that we had written down. Obie Triceratopin. Looking for something else here. Dino Mighty Mites. Oh, that's pretty good. Yeah, that's all I had for this week.

Top 10 dinos. What did I miss? On Twitter, at SportsHub Triand, if you want to chime in. Looking at Tiger versus Phil this weekend on Sunday. I'm going with Phil and Tom. Going with those two over Tiger and Peyton.

But I'm going to enjoy watching it. Because I just want to see how bad, or how good, Brady and Manning are at golf. I saw Brady joke with Lefkoe, Adam Lefkoe who's going to do the pregame or the pre-match show on TNT and TBS. He thought about Brady bringing his six Super Bowl rings and using a couple of the rings as ball markers.

So, you know how you're getting ready for a putt, you would put down like a quarter or something to mark where your ball was. Brady thought about using a Super Bowl ring there. Because Brady has so many of those that he could just use them as ball markers. While Peyton only had two of them. Peyton responded in kind by saying, I got to give Tom all the respect in the world for having six rings to my two.

If it wasn't for my mom, he probably has eleven. I mean, that's not too bad. That's some adequate trash talk. Because when Peyton won, it was the comeback in 2006. That great AFC Championship game.

I think it was like 21-3 or 24-3. Asante Samuel had to pick six for the Patriots. That's a name I haven't thought about in a while.

Robert, where's the Nickelback sound for that? Asante Samuel. And then when Peyton won for the Broncos, Super Bowl 50. You think about that great AFC Championship game. Tom and the Patriots had a chance to tie it with a two-point conversion. But Rob Gronkowski couldn't pull it in on the two-point try. So they won in Denver. If not for Peyton standing in the way, probably the Patriots go to the Super Bowl those two years. And the Colts and Broncos, led by Peyton, won when they got to that stage.

So who's to say the Patriots would not have? Aaron, what did you take issue with there? Asante Samuel's too good to be a Nickelback. Really? Yeah, bruh. He's not like a Hall of Famer. No, but still too good to be a Nickelback. How many times did Asante Samuel make it to the Pro Bowl?

Check this one out. That's a terrible rating of how to judge if someone's good or not. It's not a terrible rating.

It's not the best one. How many times was he in All-Pro? There you go. I would see where he stacks up. Those years when he... 2007 he was All-Pro and selected to a Pro Bowl. 2008 he was selected to a Pro Bowl. 2009 and 2010 he was selected to a Pro Bowl. So you think he's too good?

Too good to be a Nickelback. Okay. He's a two-time NFL interceptions leader too.

Okay. So he's too good. Gosh, the Patriots, they had great, great DBs those years. Remember Ty Law? Oh yeah, Ty Law, of course. But then in the secondary at safety, you had Lawyer Molloy and Rodney Harrison. We've become the radio show where we're now just listing off people that we watched 15 years ago.

Like... That's where we are. Imagine being younger and you're just like, who the hell is Lawyer Molloy? That's a Nickelback.

Lawyer Molloy's a Nickelback. What about Champ Bailey? You guys remember Champ Bailey? Champ Bailey's way too good.

He's a first ballot Hall of Famer. You guys remember Eli Ellis Hobbs? You remember Ellis Hobbs? Oh, Ellis Hobbs. Holy bleep.

That's, that's definitely a Nickelback. And the plays. I forget the big play that he had, but he had a big play.

Namdi Asumwah. Too good. Yeah, he's too good.

Too good. Was he? He got like the biggest contract the corners ever got. He disappeared.

He disappeared. Oh, I know. But like if you get paid the biggest contract you ever had, or any other player at your position's ever had, you're not a Nickelback. And I also think that happened too late too. I mean, Brock Osweiler would probably dispute that because he got paid and then got traded. Yeah, he got paid several times. But he didn't get the biggest contract in the history of his position. I don't know.

I can't remember. Osweiler got $72 million from the Texans. It was a terrible contract. It was a three-year deal, not a full five-year. Right. But guaranteed money.

You look at whatever metric you want to, it wasn't the biggest contract a quarterback's ever had. What about Tyrone Poole? You remember that guy? No.

I do. He's a Nickelback. Look at this photograph.

I think he was really an outside corner, but I can't remember. Here's what's happening here. This is rebelling behind the scenes. This is Robert and Aaron becoming fed up because we've done the Nickelback and Imagine Dragons segment for baseball. And these guys weren't able to contribute on those because they don't know jack about baseball. I've given you some baseball Nickelback names. You haven't given me one Imagine Dragon.

I don't know who Imagine Dragons is, so... There you go. That probably hurts.

That probably hurts your chances of being able to help out. But we're not doing this for NFL players. We're just not doing it yet.

It's our time. Like maybe. I'm going to start naming Nickelback boxers in a little bit. Problem with that sport is there aren't a lot of recognizable names and that's kind of the point. Razor Ruddock. That is a recognizable name. Coming up. Jamie Newman's the next Cam Newton? Keep it here on a Friday drive.