Danny Manning's fate

This is The Drive with Josh Graham Podcast.

Tune into The Drive weekday afternoons 3-7 on Sports Hub Triad. My take on Danny Manning's status at Wake Forest has turned in a way unlike any of the other opinions I can remember expressing on this show. Now, whenever somebody in the opinion business changes their mind on something, they are usually met with being mocked, ridiculed, called names such as a flip-flopper, or being two-faced.

I view it this way. I'd much rather be willing to have new information reshape my opinions than just stick to a take because it's something I said a month ago. Take Danny Manning. A month ago, I was 90% certain he was going to be fired. I would have been stunned if he remained in place as the Deacs basketball coach. Today, given everything that's happened around us, I'd be surprised if Danny was fired.

And I'm not alone on this. I put this out on social media, trying to figure out where people are at with this, simply asking the question, Will Danny Manning be Wake Forest basketball coach next season? We have hundreds of votes on this.

You can find it at Josh Graham Radio at Sports Hub Triad. 58% of the vote says yes. Yes. Will Danny Manning continue to be Wake's coach? If I framed it as, would you want him to? I bet you it would be overwhelmingly no.

If I sent that out three weeks ago, I bet you it would have been overwhelmingly no. But today, I'd be surprised if Wake Forest fired Danny Manning. It doesn't make financial sense anymore to make a change. His buyout total is reportedly $15 million. Shelling that out, in addition to shelling out whatever it will take to hire Danny's replacement, just doesn't make sense today. Like what business person is going to line up, looking at where the stock market is at, looking at where our economy's at today? Who's lining up to say, yep, I'll give $9 million.

Yep, I'll line up and give $15 million. Here's the thing that makes Wake Forest different than other universities, other power five schools that might be in this circumstance. Wake Forest's alumni base, their alumni base, is not as big as say a Florida State. It's not as big as let's say in North Carolina as an NC State. Like if North Carolina donors wanted to change with the football coach the way they did with Larry Fedora a few years ago, like it would take five, six, maybe up to ten donors to try and get that done.

Wake Forest, they just don't have as many go-to donors as other schools have. So you're talking about Ben Sutton, you're talking about Mitch Shaw, you're talking about those people who are business owners and they have to be shook right now. Who's committing millions, plural, to get a basketball coach fired today? Who's going to do that? What smart business person would?

Also think about it from this aspect. It would be not only unlikely, unplausible to think, implausible, it would also be bad public relations to do so. Like as people are trying to get by paycheck to paycheck, as there are many Americans relying on this stimulus package and a check arriving in the mail from the government in the next few weeks, how do you think it would play? As everybody is at home looking for anything in sports to be mad about, looking for anything to discuss for one of the greatest basketball players in college ever being fired and being bought out at the tune of $15 million in today's crisis. It would be awful PR. Robert, how do you think that would play?

3-3-6-7-7-7-1-600 on Twitter at SportsUpDryad, Aaron Gabriel also in the control room as well. How bad would that look? $15 million, Josh, I don't even have $15 on me right now, so I can't even fathom how well that would not go over.

So you're more of a credit card guy. Yeah, I'm going to put it on the card. Yeah, that's what Wake's going to do.

John Curry. Yeah, Danny, just put it on the card. That's what we're going to do. Also, make sure for certain there's going to be a next season before you start making decisions about next season's team.

Also, this is a part that I don't think gets discussed enough. While it's difficult to imagine a basketball coach being fired, especially bought out, and another one being hired as this is all going on, I think it's also affecting what's usually a much more active transfer portal. Now, there are some who have entered the portal, Alex O'Connell at Duke being an example of that. There are players who have decided still to go pro like an Obie Toppin, like a Trey Jones. But at Wake Forest, I don't see Olivier Sar or Chondi Brown leaving.

I don't have any inside information to say that they're not, but in times like this, I think it becomes difficult, more difficult to try and leave, to veer towards more uncertainty of where you're going to end up if you don't have to. So if those two guys stay, then you have a very strong argument as the director of athletics to say this is the path that we're going down. We have arguably the most talented roster Wake Forest has fielded since Danny's arrival coming back to Winston-Salem. You got Chondi, you got Olivier, you also have Isaiah Musias coming back. You feel good about Odie Igwama who showed some things last year.

You're bringing back two injured bigs who were out pretty much the entire year in OKK and Ingram. You have this point guard out of Chicago that some are excited about. I have sources who are telling me Danny is recruiting his ass off. That's the exact term that I was told as he's looking at what the transfer market might be. As many are doing right now, Duke just landed a recruit. They get a transfer coming into their program that they're excited about.

So I think his name's Patrick Tape. He's a big man. Duke, they need more big men if Vernon Carey's going to go pro like I'm expecting him to.

So Danny's working hard. Wake Forest, I don't think they're going to make a change. And this is just such a massive opinion switch that if you want to call me two faced, if you want to call me a flip flopper, that's fine. But in the opinion business, you got to adapt to the information you're given. I think Wake Forest fans would agree that the information now turns us into a totally different conversation than it was three weeks ago.

We were living in a different world three weeks ago than where we are today. There is another big headline that we're expecting to drop during today's show. The NCAA, they are set to vote.

This is the D1 council. They are going to vote on whether spring sport athletes whose seasons were cut short, you're talking about baseball, softball, etc. Now, whether they're going to get an extra year of eligibility, considering there are scholarship limits, you have a new class that's coming in next year, there are a lot of challenges with this. It seems the public believes that this is something that's going to happen, that this is a slam dunk. To those people, I'll say, you must not know the NCAA as well as I do, because not only do I think this isn't a slam dunk, college sports is a business. And I think the NCAA is going to act in favor of its business, it would just be too much of a cost for me to think the NCAA is going to do the right thing. So while I can acknowledge the right thing to do in a perfect world is to give all these baseball seniors and spring sport athletes another year of eligibility, I know that's not how the NCAA is thinking. I looked at a projection that USA Today Sports put out, they projected 85% of spring athletes would return rather than going on to a business career, going pro and whatever sport they play.

They want to return because of closure, they want to return because it's an uncertain job market that they're entering right now, they want to return for financial and academic incentives, pursuing a grad program with one more year left in school. March Madness, the college basketball tournament that was just canceled, it is a primary fundraiser, one of the primary fundraisers for college sports. We talk about football being a primary fundraiser, March Madness is as well. It's a tournament that was projected to distribute $600 million to D1 members.

This year, because it got canceled, it distributes only $225 million. That's a 62.5% cut that schools were expecting to make. Some athletic budgets out there in D1 use that distribution of March Madness revenue for 30% of its budget, some even more than that.

So you expect me to believe they're going to take on added sums, the NCAA, or even schools for scholarships? For each school, considering how many spring sports are played, you'll be talking about an additional $500,000 to $600,000 put on the tab when you don't have March Madness as one of your primary fundraisers. Spring sports, what I'm about to say is very sobering.

You're not going to like what I'm about to say, but it's the truth. Spring sports aren't revenue generators the way that football, men's basketball, heck, even women's basketball is. Football, men's basketball, women's basketball, those are the revenue generating sports.

Here are all the spring sports. It's not just baseball. And I understand there are some who say, oh, but there are some scholarships that are half scholarships, many of those athletes, they've already paid their way to be there.

That's all good and well. But here are all the sports you would have to be accountable for. It's not just baseball. You're talking about beach volleyball, golf, lacrosse, rowing, softball, tennis, track, men's volleyball, women's water polo. You would have to rule and say all of them get an extra year left. And the athletic department, they have to take everybody.

You can't just pick and choose your sport. So this hasn't come down yet. It's going to come down over the span of the show. We expect a vote from the NCAA Division 1 Council. I would love to see them get the extra year, but knowing the NCAA and covering sports as long as I have, I'm not optimistic. I'm banking more that they're going to veer towards their business interests. The business interests say that college sports, it's just too expensive.

It is too much of a cost to pick up an extra year for these seniors that have had it deprived from them because of the coronavirus. Coming up, ESPN reportedly is seeking an active quarterback in the NFL to be its next Monday Night Football analyst. And it's not Cam Newton.

I'll tell you who it is next. College basketball writer with the athletic Brendan Marks now joining us read his stuff in the athletic covering Duke, North Carolina, and follow him at Brendan R Marks on Twitter. Brendan, I wanted your thoughts on this poll I put out a few hours ago, simply asking, will Danny Manning be Wake Forest's basketball coach next season? We have hundreds of votes on this and 57% of the people who voted on it say, yes, that isn't, they want him to be the basketball coach.

They just expect them to because the buyout is close to $15 million. So the last three weeks, I can't think of a story where my opinion has changed as much as this one has where I felt so certain he was going to be fired, especially after David Glenn's report that buyout negotiations had already begun. And now I'm at a place where I, quite frankly, would be surprised if Wake Forest made a move. How has your opinion changed in the last few weeks on Danny Manning's status?

Yeah, Josh, and I appreciate the smooth intro music, but I feel the same way as you. I'm very much in the same boat where I think when you looked at the records, when you look at the apathy surrounding the fan base, when you look at, you know, Connor O'Neill did an awesome story about attendance issues at the Joel. I think when you looked at all those things, moving on from Danny Manning was a pretty easy choice, even given, as you mentioned, the pretty obscene buyout. But now I think when you look at the fact of the buyout and also that the state of the world today is complicated things because a new coach, any new coach who were to come in, doesn't matter who it is, is going to have so many logistical problems of recruiting, of talking to their players, of talking to the other coaches. It's just not really feasible, even buyout aside, to make this sort of move right now. And when you combine the buyout with the logistical limitations, I don't see a situation where Danny Manning isn't back next year.

And yes, that is as crazy to me as it would have sounded if I had told myself that a month ago. Let's not forget, last week, Jim Christian's buyout was $1 million, a little bit more than $1 million, and he has less of a resume than Danny did. And Boston College decided, yeah, we're going to keep this guy in place. Now, I understand circumstances are a little bit different at Boston College, which just fired a football coach a few months ago than they are at Wake, but $1 million to buy out a coach with less of a resume in the same period of time versus $15 million for Danny Manning.

We're going to have to wait and see and put a pin in that for the time being. However, do you think what's happening will make anybody on the fence about whether to go pro or whether to remain at school, do you think it's going to affect their opinion? And if you think it will, is it more likely they're going to go pro or stay?

You know, this is such a hard thing, and it's something that I've tried talking to the coaches and the parents and, you know, as much as possible talking to players about this in the week since the season has all sort of come to, you know, an abrupt ending. And the thing is that there are certain guys who this additional period, you know, this being able to play into March, it definitely would have helped them. At the same time, there are guys who maybe it would have hurt them playing a little bit more or not being able to have been playing into March. Workouts certainly would have helped some guys. They would have hurt some other guys. So I think that overall, what you're going to see is that guys are going to be willing to make the decisions that they were already leaning towards. You know, I think one guy who really gets talked about a lot right now is cash Stanley Duke. He's somebody who were he able to do workouts in front of teams and go to a combine.

He would have posted explosive numbers. I mean, the guy is going to jump out of the gym. That's surely going to help him. But at the same time, if Duke plays into March and maybe he struggles, does that hurt his stock? So, you know, I think it's a thing where it's going to end up being more of a case by case basis. But at the same time, if a guy was leaning towards leaving, I think that's still going to be the inclination.

And if a guy was leaning towards staying, then the same would certainly be true. He marks with us here. He's on Twitter at Brendan R Marks. Some newsworthy headlines. Patrick Tape transfer, grad transfer going into Duke.

That was announced this weekend. So Duke's shoring up some of its post play. Vernon Carey, he was named NABC Freshman of the Year. Duke's had three straight NABC Freshman of the Year, dating back to Marvin Bagley, Zion Williams.

And now it's here with Vernon. And looking at some guys with North Carolina, Cole Anthony announced he's not going to make his decision one way or the other right now. Armando Bacot told us after the season, yes, Robert hit the cut. I keep forgetting about that.

Every time we mentioned Armando Bacot's name, we have to play that. Anyway, he says he said after the year ended that he plans to return to Chapel Hill. Let's go case by case. You're not being confined to this, but where you're leaning right now, I'm going to list a number of players.

You just tell me if you plan if you think they're going to stay or you think they're going to go. And let's start with Wendell Moore Jr., who Coach K says he expects to try and test the water. I'm going to go stay on Wendell Moore. I think that he has a great opportunity to be something of a Trey Jones-like sophomore leader at Duke next year. Duke has a lot of interesting forwards coming in, but his experience would certainly be helpful. I think he has a chance to really help his stock if he has a good season next year. Vernon Carey. I think there's an outside shot that he doesn't go in the first round of the NBA draft.

I think that that's ludicrous for teams not to do that, even though people will label him as being 15 years too late getting to the league. He has skills that translate. He's a rebounder. He's gone.

Carol Baskins. Oh, boy, I'm following this with severe interest on social media right now, seeing how police are actually responding. Moving on, let's get to how about Matthew Hurt? Is it as much of a lock that this guy's coming back since Coach K didn't even mention his name among those he expects to test the waters? People close to that situation have told me that Matthew is planning on being back at Duke next year.

I think there's an opportunity there. Duke is losing so many interior guys that if he can put on a little bit of muscle and prove himself in the paint, I think that really helps him. This is still a guy who's hitting 40% of his threes. He has that stretch for potential. I think you just want to see him develop his body a little bit more. It's going to be easier for him to do that at the college level with Nate James and with Coach K than it would be in the pros. And I think there's just a better chance for him to develop his upside right now.

I'd be very surprised if he did make that jump, and I think he could be a nice piece for Duke next year. Two more. Cole Anthony. Gone. See ya. I know people said that his dad Greg said midway through the year there was quote-unquote absolutely a chance he's coming back.

There is not. He's gone. As you and I have discussed, I think that's probably in the best interest of both Cole Anthony and UNC. Cole's a great player.

UNC's a great program. Unfortunately, all the injuries this year, him missing time, the talent around him, it wasn't the year that it was expected to be. He's still going to go on and do great things in the pros. And the last one is the one you noted, Cassius Stanley.

Gone. I think Cassius Stanley is somebody who there's a massive, massive disconnect between the way that NBA teams, insiders, executives, decision makers value him and the way that the general media seems to look at him. He's a factor in the athleticism. He's a guy who at 6'6 gives you great length as a point guard option. Obviously, we need to work on his handle, work on his shooting a little bit, but he has the athleticism that you bank on. He has the IQ you bank on. I could actually see him being one of the first guys taken out of Duke even ahead of somebody like a Vernon Carey or a Trey Jones.

It's Brendan Marks here from The Athletic. Before we let you go, what's the best thing you've either watched or read this weekend? Best thing I've read or watched. Tiger King was intriguing.

I won't lie and say that it wasn't. Personally, my girlfriend and I have been watching Dave on Hulu about the rapper Lil Dicky. I've liked that. And also last night, we rewatched Bull Durham. Can't go wrong there.

It's a humdinger. Do what's best for the ball club. Brendan, appreciate you spending time here. We'll chat sometime soon, I'm sure. Sounds good, brother.

Stay safe. You got it. That's Brendan Marks from The Athletic. Robert, you've been raving about this Dave show. What is it on FX?

Yes, you can watch it on Hulu. This last episode, I bawled like a baby at the end of it. It's fantastic.

I do like Lil Dicky's music. And where do you stand on the Carole Baskin front? Oh, she's definitely out. Not because I think she's going to the draft, because I think she should go to jail.

Check her septic tank. Have you watched any more of this show? Nope. That first episode. Wait, wait, wait. We might have watched another episode.

I thought you said you watched another episode. I'm not far into it at all. I'm just now getting my girlfriend into it.

And she messages me this morning. Like all caps. Carole Baskin's making 1.5 mill a year but doesn't pay her employees anything? Sounds like Joe Exotic already. None of them pay anything.

None of them pay anybody. Yeah, yeah. We're going to debut a new segment on the show. A brand new segment that you're not going to want to miss. It's next on The Drive. We've got a new segment to debut today.

It's called Daily Positivity. I think it's pretty self explanatory. There's been enough out there about what's bad. I want to talk about what's good. So we started thinking about some of the sophisticated ways we could produce this segment. Whether or not we need the guy with the deep voice say, daily positivity. Or if we need to have a bunch of audio cuts. What would you say the best transitional sound is, Robert? Can you give me an impression of a good transitional sound? I'm a big fan of the fade out whoosh. Oh, that's a good one. For sure.

So maybe we have some whoosh sounds or like a deep voice that's better than mine to put something around it. But then we thought about it and we got lazy because we've done nothing this weekend but eat in excess and watch a bunch of television. We just decided to do this. Daily positivity. Give us a call at 336-777-1600 and let me know something good that happened to you today.

336-777-1600. No need to raise your voice. This isn't about embracing debate. Just tell me what happened today that's good and daily positivity. Robert, did anything today happen that was good?

Not necessarily today but this weekend it was pretty nice. I didn't have to cook at all. My brother's girlfriend handled all of that. She cooked for me, my brother, the baby. She made alphabet soup Saturday and the baby actually spelled its first word. What was that word?

Help. It was really cute. It was so cute he just spelled it out right in the soup.

So now we pray after our meals instead of before. It's really nice. Oh, that's nice.

I could actually give you some reasons to be optimistic. Hey, you have something that's good that happened to you but I see that there's this new coronavirus test that only takes five minutes. That's good. Right?

Not four or five days so that's pretty good. Aaron, give me something good that's happened to you. Well, you know, like everybody else, spending a lot of time in the house. Really getting to know my family.

What have you learned? I don't like them. I don't like them at all. Alright.

3-3-6-7-7-7-1-600. That didn't really sound good. Oh no.

Truth sets you free. I'm glad you got to be introspective with your family. That's really cool. Earlier today, I was in a drive-thru line and there was this man who would just take forever. Like, you know how they don't pull up when the next car goes?

Oh yeah, I would usually hate them. Oh my gosh. This guy. And he took like six years to order at this restaurant.

But that's not very good. What was good was when I finally got up and the guy's voice who took my order was very enthusiastic. He was excited. Oh, I love that. He's like, hey man, would you like to try this? And usually I'd say no. But since he said it in such an enthusiastic way, I didn't even hear what the man had to say. I just said yes.

I'll do that. How was it? It was really good. Robert, give me another thing that happened today that's good. I spent a lot of time in my yard this weekend.

I got to meet my neighbors. I've never talked to this guy before. Never really had a conversation with him.

But we had way more in common than I thought. He likes doing outdoor stuff. He likes professional wrestling.

He's a registered sex offender. I mean, it was great. We're going to have a barbecue next weekend.

I can't wait to hang out. It feels like he snuck something in at the last second there. That he likes professional wrestling? Yeah.

Got to watch those people. Yeah. Aaron, got anything else good that's happened? No, I went fishing this morning. First time in a long time. Tell me how it went.

It was fantastic. I caught so much fish, I got to the point where I realized, you know what? I'm a masturbator. That's cool. You really just put the worm on there? Yeah. The hook? Yeah. I mean, because when you really get it on there, there's no substitute for being the masturbator.

Yeah. I was super excited upon the realization that I was a masturbator. Moving on from that, it's good when you're great at baiting.

The weather was perfect today, and a great day to go on a walk. So I caught up on all the podcasts I wanted to listen to. Very happy about that, including some of my old podcasts, like The Drive with Josh Graham. That's what I'm talking about. That's a little vain, but I won't say anything about it. Well, when I listen to podcasts, I'm very critical of myself, and I only hear the mistakes. I wish you wouldn't do that. Which isn't good.

But do you know what is good? I woke up two minutes before my alarm this morning. Oh. So I woke up very refreshed when I was naturally going to wake up versus being abrasively awoken by my alarm. I woke up at 8.15 this morning. Your alarm set for 8.17?

Yep. That's oddly specific. I wake up on the sevens. Like, Aaron, just take a look at my phone. See how close you can get here.

Because we want to do the social distancing. What's the sevens about? What is it?

8.17, 8.27, 8.37. It's like my lucky number. Is it? Yeah, that's good. I'm glad you have that, buddy. I feel like if I wake up at 7.57 versus 8 o'clock, I'd beat the 8 o'clock people by three minutes. Look at you.

Preparing. And that's good. And that's been Daily Positivity.

I'm so glad that's over. You don't think we can find positivity each day? No, it was just straining for me to be that positive.

Like, I just wanted to trash on you so bad when I couldn't find myself to do it while that music was playing. Anybody who knows me knows I'm not a big alcohol guy. I would say you're more of just a regular man, not a big alcohol guy. Yeah, I just don't drink that often, you know?

But this weekend, I had a six-pack of White Zombie in the fridge, and now this isn't what's good. Oh, okay. I didn't know if you wanted me to bring the music back or something. This isn't the positivity segment anymore. Noted.

No. But I decided to play a game. A game I haven't played in five or six years. I was watching a bunch of 30 for 30s, and the You Don't Know Bo 30 for 30 has a drinking game associated with it that me and my buddies created, where essentially you would just listen for anything that's just flatly false or clearly untrue that's said about Bo Jackson, and every time that happens, you have to drink. This thing's an hour and 15 minutes long, Robert. You want to know how many times I took a sip? Please fill me in.

Forty-six times. Oh, and it's not like drink your whole drink. It's a sip, right? Yeah.

Okay, so you're not going to succumb to alcohol. About five beers. Okay, that's not bad.

Yeah, so a good game. Like, you want to know some of the things that were said? I got a running list. Yeah, that's a very long list.

It looks like a CVS receipt. Marcellus Wiley said in the doc, people thought you were a better player if you had on a bow nose t-shirt. I don't think anybody looks at anybody in any t-shirt and thinks, oh, that guy's a better athlete because of it.

It's ridiculous. Somebody else said, a Nike exec, he was a cartoon character. Actually, he wasn't.

He's not even close to a cartoon character. He said he made Nike a part of pop culture as if Michael Jordan didn't come before. Bo Jackson actually said this statement, which I thought was great. He said Nike stock or Nike sales margin increased a thousand percent because of his campaign. A thousand percent.

So you're taking sips after each of these. I'm just sitting there. I know Michael Jordan exists. I know the Spike Lee ad already exists.

A thousand percent sales margin? Come on now. That might not be the worst of it. This one is pretty crazy. Like, again, just looking for things that are false.

This one here. A Kansas City Royals PR staffer said, this is not a human being. This is a guy who was from outer space and sent here to wear a uniform for the Royals. I think I could easily fact check that one and say, yeah, he's a human being and not from outer space.

I think he's from Bessemer, Alabama. Just a lot of them. The opening sequence. He's a rocket ship shot out of a cannon. He's untouchable. He does things every day that weren't humanly possible. He jumped over a Volkswagen.

He leapt over a 40-foot ditch. Yankee scouts. New York Yankee scouts flew down to see him swing a bat, field some balls. And after seeing him hit just one ball, they decided to leave and go back to New York. They saw everything they needed to see. Yeah, they're just going to fly. They're just going to fly to Auburn, Alabama, see him hit one ball and think, all right, we're going to go back to New York now.

That would be great if it was a movie. Yeah, this isn't. This is how he long said this. God just realized, no, God just reaches down and touches a guy like that and says, you're going to be great. Trying to figure out other ones here. Oh, yeah, thanks for that. I'm holding it in, man.

Bo Jackson himself. God blessed me with an arm like a high-powered rifle and the ability to run like a deer. I guess like is the simile, like it makes it like similar to.

His arm is not like a high-powered rifle. It's similar to. I don't think so. Yes, Aaron. You sure? I'm pretty sure. You can run similarly to a deer.

I've never seen a deer run on an outfield wall. So you're going to push back on that one. Yeah, I'm not drinking for that. Okay.

Actually, you know what, I will. I'm trying to figure out some of the other ones here. I can't really read my handwriting that well. If you keep reading them, I'm going to be too drunk to do my job. Okay. My apologies. Maybe one or two more. Nah.

Oh, yeah, this one's good. Kansas City PR guy again. He was a multimedia star. This is 1987. What mediums is he a star in?

Multimedia wasn't a thing until I think like the internet was created. Is that a knock? Is that fair? No? I mean, I'll take it. Yeah, I would agree with you. Come on. Stop.

Maybe they meant like newspapers, magazines, and leaflets. I mean, let's not be ridiculous here. I mean, they're saying that the first time he stepped into Auburn's baseball stadium, he did a 500-foot home run. Somebody went out there and measured it.

One, yes. Did you measure that? Two, he hit a home run his first at bat in Kansas City, and it didn't even reach 500 feet. And they said it was the longest home run in Kansas City's ballpark history. Didn't reach 500.

And you're telling me he did it when he was just a freshman in college? Stop. This would be a great game to play if it was like, what is a Bo quote and what is not?

Which one is actually said about Bo? You are listening to WSJS Winston-Salem, WCOG Greensboro, WPCM Burlington, WMFR High Point. Those signals. Making up Sports Hub Triad. Live radio takes you to strange places, and this might be the strangest place we've arrived at. Clay Travis, our morning show host, he reported that Drew Brees is being sought after by ESPN to be the next lead analyst for Monday Night Football. I said I preferred Cam Newton over Drew Brees because I think he's vanilla, I don't think he's very interesting in the same way Russell Wilson hasn't uttered an interesting syllable in a postgame press conference pretty much his entire career. So Robert, in defense of Drew, found a pump up speech to his alma mater, Purdue, and Robert, give me another taste of this. I closed it out. You didn't like it, so it is done. I know, but I need people to know exactly what it was. You guys don't even know exactly what it was. You gotta hear the whole thing.

You heard 15 seconds of it and pooped up on it. Robert is now very defensive about it. He's mad at us. It's a good speech.

Because we thought it was boring. It's essentially him saying, linebackers, don't be afraid to hit somebody. You don't even know what he's talking about. He's building up to his point about moments and how everything leads to a moment. So Robert challenged me to come up with something better, more interesting. And I've had three minutes to come up with something here. And I've been drawing upon some of the experiences I've had the last few months. Some of the advice given to me by Mike Krzyzewski, Mike Krzyzewski was giving the Cameron Crazies advice.

This was during, I think this was after the Pittsburgh game where he criticized the Cameron Crazies and said that they should do chants such as this. Let's put it like defense. Let's go. Come on Duke. Yeah. Let's go Duke. Come on. That's pretty motivational.

So just keeping tabs of that. Then you have Sawyer Dillon, who was going to go head to head with Joel Berry in a 2K game. They ended up going to overtime. It was exciting. Joel Berry is going to be our guest tomorrow. And here's some of Sawyer trying to get something out of Joel, trying to pump him up. Hey, what's up, Joel.

Looking forward to our game on Monday. I just have one quick question though. What should the Mercy rule be? Because like I know if you're down by like 25 or 30 in like the third quarter, we might want to call it, but it's up to you.

I mean, I can run up the score on you or we can just call it at 20, 15, 10, whatever you're thinking. Yeah. Sawyer, the master of trash talk. If I'm thinking about the history of sports, I think of Reggie Miller, Steve Smith, Sawyer Dillon.

That's the pantheon of trash talk and sports history. So this is what I've come up with right now. This is my pump up speech. Do we have anything to play behind this or am I going to have to do this dry?

Is that the only way we can go about this? Drew didn't have no music. Drew didn't have any music, but also he had a football team in front of him.

You have us in front of you. Inspire me, Josh Graham. I feel like this works better if there's music.

Ah, you need a crutch. Something else. This is boring. Inspire me.

Josh Graham. I'm not inspired. I'm waiting to be inspired. You can't give me anything. I want to run through a wall for you.

He's going to join us in 10 minutes. I'm perspiring, not inspiring. Can you give me some music?

So what I say, there's nothing that people enjoy more than me getting dunked on. So I'm already working at a disadvantage where you guys are working to try and poopoo whatever I do here. The least, the least you can give me is some music that I could use. This is all I've got. All right. I'll have to deal with the daily positivity music. All right, you guys. Got a massive game tonight.

A massive non coronavirus affected game that we're going to play this evening. And I want to talk to the position groups. You need to look at me here. Quarterbacks, thread needles out there. Put it right through their eye hole. Running backs, tote that rock on first and second down, but not third because we need to preserve you so that you'll be here for years to come. Wide receivers, moss them, moss DBs left and right, then step over them like Iverson. Also don't illegally tape your head coach when he calls you on the phone and don't fly to training camp and a mother bleeping hot air balloon. Line backers, you need to be physical. You need to be tough.

But when you can't and you feel like you're in danger, protect your brain. If it's your time, don't feel shame. Putting out a YouTube video surprising everybody saying that you're going to retire. Have no issue doing that guys. Be physical.

But if you can't, you let us know. Corners, talk a bigger game than the game you actually have. Everybody's been doing this dating back to the days of Deion Sanders. Talk bigger than you play and kickers, you're going to have to kick some ass, kick the ball the way that Danny Manning's been recruiting, kicking ass on the road. You guys with me here?

You guys will either thrive as a team or you'll die individual. That's all I got. That's the, that's the best shot I had. There was no chance.

I could have given Herb Brooks Vince Lombardi quality speech there and Robert was going to give that the boo sound no matter what. No man, that was pretty rough. Rough neck? Nope. Not that good. Hmm. I tried to channel some Al Pacino there at the end. Did you? Yeah. Watched any given Sunday. I, anytime somebody says his name, I can't not think of When Harry Met Sally, the Dunkaccino commercial. Oh my gosh. That's all I can think of.

And it's not even real. How mad, how mad would you get if I asked you to pull that? Tom Rinaldi going to join us in five minutes. For those who don't know behind the scenes, Robert, he really cares about all the details of the show and this is why he's really good at what he does. If something is off by a slight second, he's bothered by it. If somebody poo poos the sound that he pulls, he will get mad at you. If somebody, if you're not a good caller, if you don't come in and have a good call, Robert will get mad at you as well. And he also gets mad at me when I suggest he finds video or audio that he doesn't presently have because that means he has to scramble and find it.

Like even me right now, this is me stalling so Robert can find the sound. And apparently he has it, correct. Something's brewing at D and D. Wow.

It's not Al anymore. It's Dunk. Dunkaccino?

Don't mind if I do. What's my name? Dunkaccino.

It's a whole new game. Dunkaccino. You want creamy goodness?

I'm your friend. Say hello to my chocolate blend. Attica kua lati light.

This whole trial is out of sight. They put me back in with hazelnut too. Carmel swirl.

I know it was you. Everyone wants my Dunkaccino. Can't get enough of my Dunkaccino. Kids from 7 to 17-o. Lining up for my Dunkaccino.

I could see that Al Pacino or Dunkaccino sang at the end of Unusual Suspects to Kevin Spacey. He said this to him. Oh, I didn't know that's what you wanted.

I thought the joke was gonna be there. Now let's give it a try. You gotta do your stalling thing.

I didn't pull this. I'm playing it on YouTube like a schmuck. For those who don't know, I just spit.

This is not coronavirus safe right now. We have to disinfect the studio. I just spit water all over the place.

I didn't expect it to be that funny sounding. If anybody asks, hey, why is the studio soaked with water? I got a feeling I know what Dunkaccino would say.

Carmel swirl. I know it was you. I know it was you. I know it was you. Yeah. Tom Rinaldi, one of the best sports storytellers out there will join the show next.