The Drive with Josh Graham - David Glenn in Studio

Attention, please. This is The Drive with Josh Graham Podcast. Tune into The Drive 3 until 6pm weekdays on the Sports Hub. I love it.

It's brilliant. I've been walking around the studio after his show ended around 3 o'clock, so we actually have him in studio now. And, DJ, I want to get to Wake Forest and the ACC in a bit, but I'm interested in how this NCAA-FBI college basketball story, as long as it's lasted and it's getting close to two years now, almost we're desensitized to it now as a media because I'm looking at the Kansas story, which should be massive. The NCAA enforcement staff charging the university with lack of institutional control, the head coach Bill Self with head coach responsibility violations, the two biggest charges they can hand down in a notice of allegations, a storied program, arguably one of the two or three most storied programs in the sport, and it's page two news, and people are rolling their eyes at it because of how long we've been talking about it. It almost seems like it's reached steroids in baseball, allowing guys in the Hall of Fame-like levels here where people are sick of hearing about what could happen and want to actually start seeing some of these major players pay consequences here.

What do you make of it? Well, I think the bottom line is that people want to see the conclusion, and the legal system takes a while for its cylinders to churn, and that's just the nature of the beast. In this case, the NCAA had to wait for the evidence from the FBI cases.

They didn't even get all of that evidence, by the way. That frustrates the casual fan. Most people either don't care at all about anything besides the football or the basketball, or if they care about the secondary stuff, they want to see bad people get punished and caught and go to NCAA jail, in air quotes. And I think it's easy to forget that Rick Pitino lost his job at Louisville, and some people say, oh, the coaches are never held accountable. Well, Louisville fired Rick Pitino, so you can't say coaches are never held accountable. Kevin Ollie was booted at UConn because of NCAA issues. Those are two big brand name programs, two national championship coaches, who are both shown the door because of their either part in a scandal or their place in charge while bad things happened on their watch.

But you know the deal. I mean, Jim Boeheim gets a suspension at Syracuse, so again, that's an example of a big name, a big brand getting punished in ways that some don't understand when they say, oh, the big guys never get caught and punished. That theory at cocktail parties has been popular for decades.

It's just never been true. But for every example of UNC getting off the hook because of their AFAM scandal without any punishment whatsoever from the NCAA, that grates some people the wrong way. They're going to be in wait-and-see mode about Bill Self at Kansas. They're going to be in wait-and-see mode about whether lack of institutional control really leads to penalties that hamper the Kansas program. And I just remind people that there are more examples than you think of big name coaches, big name basketball or football programs getting punished than there are the ones you remember where the big guy got off the hook. All you can urge is patience when it comes to the NC State case, the Kansas case, or another maybe half a dozen that are going to be coming down the pike soon.

And we've got to take it case by case. You're talking about UConn. Yeah, Kevin Ollie, he had the NCAA run-ins which played a role in him being fired, but also UConn wasn't any good. Louisville I find to be interesting because it might have been a cumulative deal with the 2014 banner going down, the prostitution stuff, and just general unrest in that athletic department, whether that stemmed from the very top with Jurich or Bobby Petrino also being there as well.

I think all that stuff is relevant. In the case of Kansas, though, if we're limiting the scope here to this case, I haven't seen any evidence that's been discussed in court testimony. We've seen what TJ Gasnola has said Kansas coaches do, but without actual any tangible evidence here, and we haven't even heard anything leaked to the media about what they might have with Kansas, I have difficult believing Kansas won't fight for their coach, Hall of Famer Bill Self here, and I have difficult believing he's going to get punished severely without anything substantial that they could say, oh, this for sure happened here.

Well, you're right that the school's going to fight it. You're right that Bill Self, he's already on the record saying that he is going to fight it. In the general sense, though, remember that Bill Self is not even being accused of, say, the way Orlando early at NC State is being accused of actively participating in the paying of the family and the prospect, right? Bill Self is being charged more in that general sense. Remember, Jim Boeheim was not accused of being a participant in that academic fraud at Syracuse, but he still had to serve that suspension, and that's a relatively recent rules change by the NCAA. So you're circling something that is accurate about the lack of details, the lack of evidence, even in the FBI cases, about exactly what Bill Self did or didn't do. Just remember, he doesn't have to personally get caught with his hand in the cookie jar to actually end up having to serve a sentence. And in the case of Kevin Ollie, for example, if you lie to the NCAA and you're caught, you know, that guy has a three-year show-cause penalty, which not quite bars him but makes it very difficult for somebody to employ him for a three-year period.

That's a severe penalty, so Bill Self better be careful about his answers because, you know, you can be guilty of only a little bit and sometimes fall into the cover-up is worse than the crime territory, and yes, indeed, there are examples of coaches losing entire years from their career if they lie to the NCAA and they get caught doing it. Okay, let's spell out timeline a little bit here. David Glenn's in studio with us, our early afternoon host on Twitter, at DavidGlennShow. He's going to be in boom with the big tailgate tour coming up after Appalachian State got the big win over North Carolina. But you have the first notice of allegations being handed to NC State.

You mentioned Orlando early, Mark Godfried. That was a few months ago. Before that, Stan Wilcox from the NCAA said publicly that there are going to be at least six major programs who are going to get some of these notices of allegations. Kansas is the second one here. I'm interested to know, we saw that Bill Self is fighting this and Kansas is going to.

Louisville had no interest in it for the cumulative effects, I believe, that I just described a little bit ago. Are there other coaches you feel like their universities have on short leashes the same way Rick Pitino was clearly on the short leash with Louisville? I'm namely thinking about Will Wade, who sat out for a while at LSU before being reinstated, and also Sean Miller, who I believe, if he's caught of actually committing some of these crimes he's been accused of here, crimes in the NCAA rules since, he might actually have to pay out to Arizona, according to an agreement he came to with the Board of Regents. Those two I look at. Do you think they are the ones in the most hot water here?

There's no doubt about it. Beyond Louisville's dealt with its situation, State is still dealing with its. Will Wade at LSU and Sean Miller at Arizona, they've had some damning evidence come out against them. And yes, they're on the short leash.

And yes, they're under scrutiny. I would add an Andy Enfield of Southern Cal to that list. Bruce Pearl's name has come up and he's a guy who's already had NCAA indiscretions in the past.

So those are the names that come to my mind as well, including the two that you mentioned. And in terms of a timetable, remember, we're going to be all the way through this current upcoming college basketball season before we have any verdicts on this stuff. Because, you know, Kansas has 90 days to respond to the notice of allegations that it just received. And then after that, the NCAA has 60 more days to respond to that. And then there's another 45 days to schedule a hearing in front of the committee on infractions.

You're already in the spring if there are no unexpected delays. So the players involved from Dennis Smith Jr. of the Wolfpack, obviously he moved on long ago. The two Kansas players involved and their families taking money have either moved on or settled their case with the NCAA. So the upcoming college basketball season is not really going to be impacted by those Kansas and NC State cases. And that's something that I know frustrates a lot of fans, but we'll get verdicts probably later in 2020. And that means those schools will be left dealing with whatever repercussions they get long after the key players have moved on. And at least in some cases, you know, Mark Godfried in Orlando early long ago moved on from Wolfpack basketball.

And that's another thing that frustrates fans. Why do the folks still there get punished? Sometimes innocent players and coaches. You know, Kevin Keats didn't do anything wrong at NC State.

Why do they get to hold the bag when others did all the wrongdoing? Well, nobody's come up with a better system in the NCAA. And the bottom line is that organization feels like it must hold the school accountable in some way. And it can do use the show cause and other penalties for those coaches involved. If you have any ACC or questions about the college basketball investigation from the FBI, any questions regarding these things for myself or DG three three six seven seven seven one six hundred the number you could tweet the show at Sports Hub Triad. Last thing I really have on this, the approach, the template from the NCAA, it seems to be set and focused specifically on the coaches.

It was on Gottfried. It was with early in the first notice of allegations. And it seems to be the case here with Bill Self being primarily mentioned with one of the charges here. Do you think this is the NCAA saying this is our best shot, considering the investigative legwork that we so often mess up in some way, shape or form, or we botched just the investigative part that being done mostly by the FBI and us getting maybe not all of the evidence, but a lot of it to help strengthen our case here. This might be the best shot that the NCAA has to hand down punishment and actually hold some big names in the sport accountable. Do you think that is the approach here to potentially serve this as a deterrent moving forward and try to clean up the sport?

I'm not sure one caused the other, Josh, but I think the bottom line is the same. The NCAA got tired of hearing about what head coaches did not know about. And whereas this FBI case has provided them with way more evidence. I mean, those FBI wiretaps and all the other evidence was handed over from those criminal cases. That's infinitely more evidence than what the NCAA is usually dealing with because of the limits of their own enforcement staff and the lack of subpoena power and the lack of the power of the criminal justice system.

So they know they have an opportunity here. But I think they also philosophically decided years ago, totally separate from the FBI cases, they were tired of seeing coaches say, I just didn't know. I'm sorry it happened on my watch, but I wasn't involved and you can't prove that I was involved. And then the coach just automatically getting off the hook. They made a very important change and it does not assume guilt.

It does not turn it entirely upside down. What they did is say, we're going to assume that you have responsibility here unless you can prove otherwise. So there's a presumption that even if we don't have evidence showing you participated in the wrongdoing, there's a presumption that you should have done a better job. And if you can show us how seriously you took compliance, if you can show us by your compliance weekly meetings with your staff and show us texts and emails, how you were browbeating your assistants never to cross this or that line, and you can show us that we shouldn't assume that you just were looking the other way or you had your ostrich head in the sand.

If you can show us, if you can rebut the presumption to steal the legal term, well then we're not going to hold you accountable. But that change doesn't sound like a lot but it cracked open the door for a guy like Jim Boeheim and many others to be held accountable even when their fingerprints are not personally on the wrongdoing. And that of course is a reflection that the NCAA wanted to make it a priority to go right to the top and say, you better govern better, you better pay more attention because under the new rules, I didn't know how bad things were on the other side of my building is no longer an excuse that will get you off the hook entirely. It's our early afternoon host David Glenn on Twitter at DavidGlennShow hanging out with us in studio. We had Mack Brown on the show yesterday ahead of his team's matchup with Clemson.

Davo Sweeney is going to be with us in two days, so on Thursday we'll catch up with the Clemson head coach. Mack, he's coached his fair share of great quarterbacks. Trevor Lawrence has seemed to be one of the best in the sport. I asked Mack if he reminded him of anybody.

Lawrence reminded him of anybody and here's what Mack said. I think probably Vince Young. He's 6'6", he can run like a deer, he's a very accurate thrower, he wins. Vince was 30-2 at Texas and won, I think, 28 or 30 straight or something. You start looking at Trevor, he never loses. I didn't go back to middle school and grade school, but they told me he never lost a game, so I believe them. Pretty high praise, DJ.

Yeah, and appropriate. What's interesting is that Trevor Lawrence's numbers are not great this year. No, they're not. I mean, Jamie Newman's numbers at Wake Forest are way better. Bryce Perkins' numbers as a dual threat at UVA are better. In some categories, Sam Howell, the freshman at UNC, has better numbers than Trevor Lawrence. It was interesting, they barely asked Trevor Lawrence to do anything against the Charlotte 49ers. And through, what was it, three weeks, he had four interceptions and four touchdown passes? I mean, that's not a Heisman candidate.

That's barely a guy that's an all-ACC candidate. Here are the numbers. And the numbers, yeah.

I have them right in front of me. Trevor Lawrence, he has seven touchdown passes to five interceptions, 925 yards passing. Meanwhile, Jamie Newman, to your point, 1,278 yards leads the ACC, 12 touchdown passes leads the ACC, his completion percentage leads the ACC.

All those categories, top 10 in the country, too. Only two interceptions. D.G., I think this local sports block, your show noon to three and this one here, we need the champion, the Jamie Newman Heisman campaign. We need to get it started. It's much like a third-party presidential candidate here. He's not going to win, but this season for Wake Forest isn't necessarily about winning the title or winning the Heisman campaign here. It's about gaining rightfully earned respect, and people need to know Jamie Newman is putting up those types of numbers. Are you with me with the Heisman campaign? I'm with you, man, and the good news is, like some of those third-party candidates where, you know, they open offices in 40 or more states just to get the grassroots campaign going, you and I, beyond our own shows, obviously, are guests on other shows.

Now, I don't know if we get into 40-plus states as guests on other shows, but that'll help the Jamie Newman campaign. And in all seriousness, you know, Clemson hasn't asked Trevor Lawrence to be the Trevor Lawrence of a year ago. He has thrown some interceptions.

They didn't have huge numbers, you know, in beating Texas A&M 24 to 10. Jamie's going to get all ACC recognition and deservedly as long as he keeps this thing going. But Trevor Lawrence, at some point, is going to be asked to do more.

You know, Florida State later, maybe this weekend against Carolina, NC State later this year, Wake later this year, South Carolina later this year. And that guy does have Vince Young qualities, and even though some of his numbers are more pedestrian right now, there is no doubt about his ability. And remember, when Dabo made that switch from Kelly Bryant to Trevor last year, he got some criticism.

And I think those in the know said, uh-uh, it's not a close call. Watch how Trevor makes these guys go. And sure enough, he was a key player in the first 15-0 season in the history of college football. That Trevor Lawrence is going to show himself again soon. You mentioned that you go on other shows. Tonight, I'm going to be on WXII with Chris Lee on the Wake Zone, they call it. And I'm going to be pushing the Jamie Newman Heisman campaign there. You can watch for that at 6.45. That's probably a captive audience right there.

Yeah, I'm sure it is. Boston College is the opponent on Saturday, very quickly. This seems like to be the biggest toss-up on the schedule. The road teams won the last five games of the series.

These are two programs that seem like are in identical places. Wake Forest, they've started 4-0, and two of the last three seasons, they're 4-0 again. And if Wake wins this game, DG, I believe they start 8-0.

Do you? Hey man, who wrote in the pages of the ACC Sports Journal three months ago that Wake Forest was going to be the surprise football team in the ACC? I think us both. You know, there's a lot of Johnny-come-latelys on this particular bandwagon.

Heck, it might have been June when we wrote those words. So, none of this comes as a surprise to me. Dave Claussen has a lot of experience on that squad. He's an incredible coach. He has two quarterbacks that he loves, and we knew both of them from last year. He has two running backs that he loves now when they're both healthy. He has two wide receivers who are playing big time in Sage Surratt and Scottie Washington, among others. He has guys coming along, two corners he likes, punting and kicking combination. I mean, there's nothing flukish about this. They do have to worry about AJ Dillon, the Boston College running back.

He's the real deal. If you can figure out a way to limit him and force BC to try to throw it on you, yeah, I think Wake's the better team this year. They're on the road. They have to deal with AJ. But if they can do that, I mean, they're going to be the favorite for every game except at Clemson the rest of the way. That doesn't mean they're going to go 11-1, but it means they're poised to at least have a chance at their best season since 2006.

And some of those journalistic gurus, young and old, saw this freight train coming a few months ago. D.G., thanks for coming in today. Appreciate that. We'll talk next week. Always good to be in studio, my man. Fun conversation.

Take care. On Twitter at David Glinton Show. So Tom Glick at Bank of America Stadium in the Carolina Panthers announced this morning it was a major announcement. They billed it that Bank of America Stadium is in the concert business really for the first time, even though I know Tim McGraw had a show there. Also, they had I think they had another country concert just a few years ago there that comes to mind.

It was Kenny Chesney who performed at Bank of America Stadium as well. But this is really the first time they're going all in on this. And how do you open up a new era for Bank of America Stadium entertainment? Billy Joel being the concert April 18th of 2020.

That's when it's going to happen. Darren Gant from ProFootballTalk.com is a Charlottean who is spending a little bit of time with us. We talk music even when it's not in the news regarding the Carolina Panthers and the city of Charlotte.

But am I the only one that was a little bit underwhelmed with the idea of it being a major announcement? And here's Billy Joel coming to Bank of America Stadium in April. Why are you not a 65 year old white man?

I am not. But I saw Billy Joel last year in Winston-Salem. And that stadium is an hour and 15 minutes from Bank of America Stadium. And I don't think they sold out.

And that stadium holds 44,000 fewer people than Bank of America Stadium. Bad details. We'll see.

I mean, I imagine. I mean, seriously, I am not personally all that into Billy Joel. I will probably not be paying my hard-earned to go see him at Bank of America Stadium.

But listen, the Charlotte area is full of old money. I mean, the kind of, you know, baby boomers who really dig on Billy Joel and want to go see a concert. And the guy's put on good shows. I'm not saying he's not talented.

It's just not my cup of tea. I'm a lot more interested in those Snoop Dogg tickets that are going on sale Friday morning to the Fillmore in December. What kind of shows would have led you to reacting, wow, that's a big gift for Bank of America Stadium?

You know, it's a pretty short list, to be honest with you. If you think about it, and the music business has changed so much in the last couple of years. The list of arena shows that's going to sell out of 70,000 feet, which would probably be, you know, 55,000-60,000 tops for a concert, pretty short. You're talking Rolling Stones. You're talking Bruce Springsteen. You're talking Beyoncé.

You're talking Taylor Swift. I mean, you know, it's a short list of big, big acts like that. And like I said, I don't know if Billy Joel's going to be able to sell that room out.

But, you know, I think they'll do pretty well for themselves. I think where this is important for David Tepper and Tom Glick and everybody involved in that process is, he has said all along, they have said all along, that they want to put more events in that building. They want to get, you know, there's a deal, part of their lease with the city, or part of the deal with the city for previous money was, you get so many free events per year, basically, and they want to host more events, put more stuff in there. That's going to make it easier to ask them for more money for stuff in the future, like an MLS renovation.

There are a couple of competing reports here locally to the TV stations in town. One says it's for a freestanding MLS stadium. The other says it's for renovations to Bank of America for MLS. But none of it is that they are asking for between $100 and $200 million from the city for renovations or for the purpose of MLS soccer. So, you know, the more stuff they can put in there, whether it's Bruce or Beyonce or, you know, whatever it happens to be, the easier it is to go to the city and ask for free money to say, hey, look at all the cool things we're bringing to your town. Do you think they're going to get that money for MLS?

Oh, there's no question. Charlotte loves nothing better than having its belly rubbed by a billionaire and giving away whatever they've got. You know, that's, yeah, I mean, that's what my city does. We want to feel big league. We've had marketing campaigns for years that we're a world-class city.

We've got that social insecurity that we're not quite in the big city club, so we'll do whatever, anything a billionaire asks us to do. It's Darren Gantt from ProFootballTalk.com on Twitter at DarrenGantt. The news of the day, Cam Newton, according to Joe Person of The Athletic, his left foot issue is believed now to be a Lisfranc injury rather than just a sprain. And I'm not going to pretend to know much about a Lisfranc injury.

This is not a WebMD radio show. But I do know Cam didn't run much the first two games, Darren. And this is somebody, when we saw preseason game number three against the Patriots, we saw Cam's reaction and we knew it was bad. Something bad had happened, but all we were being told by coaches and PR staff, everything's great, or at least Cam Newton's healthy and there's no coincidence to that and him not running the ball. I don't feel like our eyes deceived us with Cam. Do you believe the coaches tried to deceive us, specifically Ron Rivera?

Well, I mean, let me just put on my Quincy hat while we're talking about 65-year-old white guys that can make a dated pop culture reference. When you go back and look at this, a Lisfranc sprain is a mid-foot sprain. There are questions of degree, obviously, and the specific location, but the reality is from the moment of the New England game and the preseason, they knew it was a big deal. Cam has always, and it's kind of a competing personality thing, Cam wants to be on the field. Ron Rivera wants Cam Newton to be on the field. Rewind to 2016 when his shoulder first became an issue and Luke Kuechly had been cleared from a concussion, but Ron Rivera wouldn't put him on the field, but he put Cam on the field for the last three meaningless games of the season. I think both of them have a little bit of fault. I don't know that Ron Rivera is necessarily being deceitful. I mean, I think it was pointless to throw a little hissy fit last week, and it was a multiply hissy fit, I've seen, but a hissy fit nonetheless. It was just pointless.

I mean, some of these things don't have to be that hard. They knew after the Bucs game that Cam was going to be out for a significant amount of time, and I don't mean a quarter or a week or a game or anything like that. I mean multiple weeks. I knew that injury then was something that was serious enough that Cam Newton wasn't going to be on the field. I don't know if he was just trying to play games with Cliff Kingsbury or what, but, you know, again, it goes back to my old saying, it doesn't have to be that hard, and football coaches will make things more complicated than they have to be. What's the bigger priority this year, making the postseason or figuring out who Cam is?

Well, I think that's almost a moot point. I mean, figuring out who Cam is isn't something you're going to be able to do until Cam Newton's well. And Cam Newton is nowhere near well right now. He's not, I seriously, I was told by somebody who I trust in that building that it was going to be the second half of the season, if at all, for Cam to get back out there. So I think the idea of finding out what, you know what you've got in him. You've got an MVP-level quarterback in Cam Newton when he's healthy.

So, and I don't have to go back that far. You know, people keep talking about the shoulder, but the first half of last year, before the shoulder was completely, medical term incoming, jacked up, he was really good. He was a 69 percent completion percentage guy over those first six, seven games before he got whacked in Pittsburgh and everything started to fray.

So it's not been that long ago when we know what kind of quarterback he is. His priority this year is just to do the best you can with what you've got. Maybe Kyle Allen can hang on and keep them competitive for a point in November or December when Cam can get back out there. But the thing I wonder about with Cam is, if he is not able to run the way Cam Newton has been accustomed to running, how effective he's going to be. And he's going to have to make that Randall Cunningham conversion in the second half of his career, probably. But I don't think, you know, a 30-year-old Cam Newton is the same as a 42-year-old Tom Brady or anything. He can still run.

He can still move when his body is put together in the correct order. What percentage chance do you give the Carolina Panthers of not giving Cam Newton an extension after this year? Oh, I think it's pretty high. I think because of this injury it almost makes you go year to year. They've got him under contract for 2020 and it would be insanity, frankly, to offer an extension sight unseen before he goes out and plays 16 games and proves that a medically reconstructed Cam Newton is the same as the old one. I think that would be nuts to offer a contract extension before the 2020 season.

But if he had been well this year, it's a no-brainer. You've got to do it next offseason. You've got to pay him $35, $36 million a year because that's the going rate. And now they're almost off the hook and they get a chance to wait. I mean, he's under contract for 2020.

They can always franchise tag him after that if they need to, to buy themselves some more time to make a long-term decision. But I don't know. I mean, right now, again, I understand the temptation to have this conversation, but it's kind of a moot point because he's so physically, mentally, and spiritually broken right now that until he proves himself well, I don't even worry about what he's going to cost once he's well. The last concert Daringant attended was what? Oh, I guess Peter Frampton the other week was the last thing I've got. Although, like I said, I'm getting in line Friday morning to get tickets to see Snoop on December 18th at the Fillmore.

That will be a thing that I need to see in my life. Avett Brothers, Greensboro, New Year's Eve, maybe one to circle, Ben Folds next month, maybe Billy Joel in April, Daringant. Got to keep those things in mind. And if the violent films are still opening for Ben Folds at that point, and I saw those two together here in Charlotte the other month, I definitely recommend showing up early to see the films.

They bring all their equipment on the bus. All right, man. Hey, it's good to hear your voice, Darren. We'll talk soon. Sounds good, Josh.

See you, buddy. That's Daringant. ProFootballTalk.com on Twitter at Daringant. What would North Carolina fans be willing to sacrifice in exchange for a win against number one Clemson Saturday? That's next on The Drive. Listen up, everybody. There has been a lot of talk.

This is the Sports Hub at AM 600, AM 920. Now back to The Drive with Josh Graham. In the triangle, Joe Ovius of WRALSportsFan.com, who also does local radio over there, he posed this question to North Carolina fans. Would you sacrifice a loss to Clemson in basketball, which would end the streak, of course, Clemson versus the Tar Heels, in exchange for beating Clemson this Saturday, Keenan Stadium and Chapel Hill, the Tigers' number one in the country? The Tar Heels in basketball have this long run. I don't know if the Tigers play the Tar Heels twice in the season, but let's even call it that. You lose twice to Clemson in a season, in exchange for one win in football. Des, you're the resident Tar Heel basketball fan who pretends to be a Tar Heel football fan.

What do you say here? There's no pretending here, and absolutely not. You're not a Tar Heel football fan. Sure, I'm a Tar Heel fan. I'm a fan of the volleyball team, the girls' golf team. You can't name even the volleyball coach or the golf team.

That doesn't matter. So you're not a fan of them. So you have to be able to name every single member on the roster to be a fan of a team?

No, but you have to follow them. I watch them. I cheered them on.

Really? Yeah, I cheered them on. I don't talk bad about them. I cheered them on.

I wish what's best for them. You don't cheer on the golf team. You don't know what I do when I'm not here, man. I know you don't cheer on the golf team. To answer your question, absolutely not.

You can't name three football players still. Absolutely not. Not the Clemson beat us twice or beat us at home, because that's the streak right now. They have not won in Chapel Hill since the Civil War or something like that. So no, I would absolutely not trade that for a Clemson win on Saturday. What would you sacrifice in exchange for a North Carolina win over Clemson Saturday? Like, would you give up a certain kind of food you like for a year? A year?

This would be the biggest win in North Carolina football history if you get it. Yeah, I would do that. A certain kind of food? Yep. So you'd give up ribs. For a year, if Carolina beat Clemson? Yes.

Yeah, sure. You'd give up ribs for a year, but you wouldn't give up a loss to Clemson in basketball season? Nope.

Why? Although I do root for all at Carolina as a university, the basketball team is the bread and butter for me. See, you're a real UNC basketball fan. You're not a football fan.

No. Why do you keep putting words in my mouth? Just because I root for one of their teams more so than the others does not mean I dislike the other teams. Well, I'm not saying you dislike them. Or do not care for the other teams. You don't care.

That's what I'm saying. No, I actually root for the entire university. Watch them when they're ever in the College World Series, whenever their women's soccer players are out running around. Yeah, we all watch the College World Series. We're talking about everybody. We're talking about me. Oh, I know, but you're not watching them play a series against Rice and March. Not everybody does that anyway.

You're the only person I know that does that kind of thing. Tar Heel baseball fans do. Well, the five of them that are just dedicated Tar Heel baseball fans, there it is. See, now, there are much more than five, and that's the point I'm making. And there's much more than five Tar Heel football fans.

They sold out games the last handful of games. There are real Tar Heel football fans. You're not one of them. So you asked me a question about Carolina football because you claim I'm a Carolina fan.

And then immediately, right before I can say anything... No, no, no. I said you're a Carolina basketball fan. I didn't say you were a Tar Heel football fan.

So you paint me as a non-Carolina football fan and ask me a Carolina football question. Yes. Okay. Just wanted to make sure that was out there. Yes. Make sure that was clear. But again, yeah, I wouldn't give up a Clemson victory in basketball at home at the Dean Dome for something like a win over number one Clemson in Chapel Hill.

I just wouldn't. Just something like that. Yeah. Storm in the field and the best win maybe in North Carolina football history. No.

336-777-1600. Would you sacrifice a loss in basketball to Clemson in exchange for a win in football against the Tigers on Saturday? Like, I'm not a fan, so I don't know. But I thought this would be a layup.

Yes. Are you kidding me? A regular season loss in basketball in exchange for the biggest football win ever? I don't care about the streak. Of course I'd take that.

That's what I thought this would be. That's why I said two Clemson games. Because I thought the idea of just one wasn't enough. But maybe I'm wrong. Because again, you are the fan. I am not. And I'm trying to figure out the answer to the question.

So if that's not a degree or if that degree is too far, what is it that might be a couple of rungs down on this list? Let's go to Chris. Or did we lose Chris? We lost Chris in Kernersville.

Before I even had a chance to go out there. So that's an interesting storyline to Saturday. We had Mack Brown on the show yesterday talking about the Tigers. And he's about as complimentary as you could possibly be about Clemson.

Oh, Trevor Lawrence reminds me of the best quarterback in college football, Vince Young. And Mack Brown talking about Dabo Sweeney. He's the best coach in America. And he has the best assistant coaches in America. Now, I'm not saying Mack Brown doesn't believe these things. I believe Clemson to have maybe the best coach, maybe one of the best staffs in the country. Certainly the most talent you're going to find. But he isn't going to step out of line and say the wrong thing here. Mack's too polished for that. Dabo Sweeney will be a guest on this show on Thursday at about this time. Let's go to Chris in Kernersville now.

I think our line's good. Chris, what sacrifice would you make? Is Clemson in basketball? Would you sacrifice that game if it meant beating the Tigers in football Saturday? I would never sacrifice a football game for a basketball win.

I meant the other way around. Sacrifice a win in basketball for a football win. Well, yes. Every day.

Every day. You would have won it. I know we've never won it. But in reality, basketball's not a huge thing for Clemson fans or alumni. I mean, I'm a third-generation Clemson alumni and it really doesn't ever come up in our family. How one's that?

You're talking about the inverse of this. See, we were presenting it on the North Carolina front end for a Clemson fan. You would not give up a football loss if it meant beating North Carolina in basketball? I wouldn't do it. No way.

What would you give up? If you give me five wins in basketball, I may do it. But not one. All right.

Thank you so much, Chris. Yeah, I don't think there's any question. If you're Clemson and... In football, unlike basketball, the games mean so much more in football than they do in hoops.

A singular regular season game. North Carolina can lose to Clemson the same way Duke can lose in the regular season to Virginia Tech. It's to go get the number one overall seed in the NCAA tournament. If Clemson loses to North Carolina, they might not make the college football playoff. So I completely get that on the Clemson end. Chris literally just laid out the reason why a UNC basketball fan would not give up basketball wins to Clemson. Just like a Clemson fan who's probably rooting for the football team more than the basketball team.

Well, what was that reason? Because he enjoys football more than basketball. And the fact that football is a bigger sport at Clemson than basketball is. Basketball is a bigger sport at Carolina than football is. So it's natural for a North Carolina fan to say, no, I wouldn't give up a 100 plus year streak that's going on. What does that tell you, though, about the state of North Carolina football? We hear all these things about, oh, Mac Brown, hey, he's bringing it back. People care about football.

Hey, we can make it in football. But when the fans aren't even willing as much to sacrifice a non-consequential, really, basketball win in exchange for what would be the biggest football win ever. What does that tell you?

That tells me that equity hasn't been built up yet. You can't just expect that type of feeling to be plopped down into a state like that has to be built. Clemson wasn't like this six years ago. Clemson football? The fans may have been rabid, but they weren't as internationally known as they are now. They weren't as successful as they are now. It probably would have been a lot easier to answer that question 10 years ago when Clemson was not as dominant as they are today.

It's probably extremely hard for a Clemson fan to give up a Clemson win to anybody. It's an interesting conversation. It seems like these things only come up when we have nothing else to talk about. And what's funny is we actually do have a lot of other things to talk about. The Drive brought to you in part by our friends at Twin Peaks Restaurant, Haynesball Boulevard, and Winston-Salem.

You can find them. It is your local sports lodge, perfect place to watch games, to watch Thursday night football. Which you can also listen here to on sports out dry. It's a great game this week. It is the Eagles.

It is the Packers. Exciting stuff. And we're getting these great Thursday night matchups now. Twin Peaks, Haynesball Boulevard, and Winston-Salem will have the game on. Terrific place to just watch games here in the Triad. It's the place I do when I get a free minute. And hopefully I'll see you there sometime soon.

Twin Peaks, eats, drinks, scenic views. Let's just knock out a couple more of these calls before we get to big four. Jonathan in Ashboro is up next. Jonathan, would you sacrifice a regular season win in basketball versus Clemson if it meant Tar Heel football beating Dabo Swinney and the Tigers on Saturday? This year I would not. But if Carolina had more of a shot to make it to the ACC championship, I would do it all day every day. Well Jonathan, if North Carolina beats Clemson on Saturday, they would beat 2-0 in ACC play with a win already against Miami. If they beat Clemson, let's just say in a freak situation they beat the Tigers on Saturday, they would be the front runner to go to the ACC championship. The only problem is, this deal expires after one game. You'd have to run into that same Clemson team again in Charlotte more than likely.

I can understand that, but it's still a long season too. I got you. Thank you Jonathan. Let's get to one more. Kevin in Burlington.

Kevin, same scenario. North Carolina basketball win or loss to Clemson, would you sacrifice a loss in basketball if it meant beating the Tigers in football, the number one team in the country on Saturday? I'm going to step out there and say yes and let me kind of expand on this a little bit. So, I'm a Tar Heels football fan for life. I've seen more football fans, I mean football games, than basketball. But if we was to beat them in football, think how it would propel our program for recruiting, it would change the face of Carolina. Now if we lost to Clemson, which is bound to happen eventually by the way, it's really not going to affect our program that much, it's just a loss. But to beat Clemson in Keenan Stadium? Oh that would be awesome. Yeah, storming the field.

Thanks Kevin. It would be the biggest regular season win they ever got. And it would validate a lot. And recruits would notice that. Because here's the list of ACC teams the last few years that have beaten Dabo Swinney and the Tigers. Pat Narduzzi did it at Pitt.

Dino Babers did it a few years ago at Syracuse. And that's it. That's the list of active head coaches in the ACC that have beaten the Clemson Tigers. That's the list. You are listening to WSGS Winston-Salem, WCOG Greensboro, WPC in Burlington, WMFR High Point.

The signal's making up, sports up, try it. This interview was nuts. Terrence Howard, known from Empire and many other places. It's weird that I first associate Terrence Howard from hustle and flow before anything else. But he gave an interview at the Emmys that is getting a lot of attention. It was a local LA TV station. And he's being interviewed by this man and this woman who don't seem like they're trying to get anything viral out of Terrence Howard.

Just general stuff that they're asking. And they even say after the fact during the report, I really hope this doesn't go viral, but there's no doubt it was going to. When you hear what Terrence Howard had to say, just give me a small sampling of this interview. But I spent 37 years pretending to be people so that people can pretend to watch and enjoy what I'm doing. When I've made some discoveries in my own personal life with the science that, you know, Pythagoras was searching for, I was able to open up the flower of life properly and find the real wave conjugations that we've been looking for for 10,000 years.

Why would I continue walking on water for tips when I've got an entire generation to teach a whole new world? That's a big remark. Oh, yes, it is. Pythagoras and wave conjugations that we've been searching for for 10,000 years.

I think that was in response to a question. Hey, why is this the last season of Empire? And he's going off.

Why would I be walking on water looking for tips? When I could be searching for these wave conjugations we've been searching for for 10,000 years. I feel like we need to hear the full context of this before we can appropriately react to it. What else do we have from one Terrence Howard?

What do you intend to do? Well, let me put it this way. All energy in the universe is expressed in motion. All motion is expressed in waves. All waves are curved. So where does the straight lines come from to make the platonic solids? There are no straight lines. So when I took the flower of life and opened it properly, I found a whole new wave conjugations that expose the in-between spaces.

That's it's the thing that holds us all together. Uh huh. Got it. Platonic solids. There's wave conjugations again.

Flower of life. Okay. I want to be completely fair to Terrence Howard here. There are three possible things I can attribute. Why he's saying things this way. Only three explanations I should say for it. Number one, Terrence Howard's just trying to sound smart. This is the thing that we do at times. I think Kanye West is a victim of this where he's talking about things thinking that he has answers to these questions, even though he is someone who cut his teeth in hip hop, not academia, not science and these things. It's this culture where we can watch five or six YouTube videos and think, hey, I have an opinion on this now. I'm an expert on this.

I could start talking about in a TV interview, Pythagoras and wave conjugations. That might be a possible explanation. Maybe this is him not wanting to answer the question for why he's leaving empire. Doesn't want to answer that question at all.

So the way he bypasses it is just saying a bunch of bleep that doesn't make sense. And number three, drugs. Those are the only three possible explanations I think we have here for this. I have a fourth.

What's a fourth? I think he was imitating Oswald Bates. You remember him? No. Did you ever watch the show In Living Color?

No. OK, so you know what the show is? I know the show is. OK, so In Living Color basically had like eight Wayans siblings in the cast, Jim Carrey. A lot of people got their start and Damon Wayans had a character on the show called Oswald Bates that was a prisoner. But he used big words like in what he was saying and it kind of went a little bit like this.

You must internalize the flatulation of the matter by transmitting the effervescence of the Indonesian proximity in order to further segregate the crux of my venereal infection. So you think that he's just messing with us? Didn't Joaquin Phoenix do something like this on the red carpet a couple years ago? Joaquin Phoenix is his name.

Joaquin Phoenix? Didn't he do something like that? I don't know if he did it on the red carpet. He was on Letterman and gave an awful interview. That being a bit for a movie and Letterman wasn't in on it and Letterman got pretty mad about it. And then Joaquin Phoenix came back and explained himself.

I mean, from everything I've seen Terrence Howard in the past couple of years, like interviews or whatnot, he's kind of always been. I don't want to call him spacey, but, you know, out there with ideas and theories or whatnot. But we know the person who's trying to be too smart. We've seen that person before who I'm going to go watch a bunch of videos real quick about space. Now I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Going to give my opinion about it here, even though I didn't go to school for this. But hey, I read enough books and I feel like I feel like Good Will Hunting has done a disservice to society where people believe that you can be this incredible genius without having to do any of the actual book work in order to get there. But I think you can blame social media and Google more than Good Will Hunting. That's right. No, it's that scene. Just that scene.

That's pretty Internet. Where where he's saying, oh, yeah, you think it's so smart? I think it's so smart. Well, you actually just regurgitating from your class. Do you have a you have an original thought? It's a really bad accent, by the way. Do you have an original thought?

Did you just realize the entire education you get for the price of a library card? You know, you know, the funny thing about it, though, listening back to it, I didn't actually watch the Emmys. He didn't sound like he was being condescending. He just sound like he was trying to answer a question. So I'm not really sure if he was intentionally doing I welcome the fourth option. Either he's trying to be too smart. Just trying a little too hard to be smart. He is trying to dodge the question. He's on drugs. Or he's just messing with us all.

It's one of the four. Cam Newton is not going to play Sunday against the Houston Texans. People are overreacting, I think, to this report from Joe Person today that it is believed to be a Liz Frank injury for Cam Newton's foot. There are people today, myself included, who just learned what a Liz Frank injury is. I've watched sports, covered sports most of my life. Now, I have I've heard of a Liz Frank injury.

I don't retain that kind of information. So I'm not going to do the WebMD show today. And there's a lot of Twitter doctors who are acting like they know these things. When we had Darren Gant on the show and he essentially said a Liz Frank injury actually means midfoot sprain, which is exactly what we knew Cam Newton had. Now, it's varying degrees.

It could be a lot worse. These injuries usually require surgery. I texted Dr. David Guyer, sports orthopedist, about this, and he sent me a picture of a foot and gave me like a detailed graphic here saying that it's an injury to the ligament or ligaments that stabilize the midfoot. If the bones in the midfoot remained aligned perfectly, an athlete can avoid surgery, any displacement at all.

And we tend to fix them surgically. He said, is this what they're saying about Cam? I said, yes. He says, not good. Oh, fantastic. That's good.

There you go. That's the type of analysis you can expect on this show. Me texting a doctor and him saying, not good. I think this is a situation where our eyes did not deceive us with Cam. So often in the media. In fact, I think the president of the United States actually said it one time. Don't listen to what is being said or what you are seeing. Don't believe it.

Don't listen to it. And to a degree, this is kind of what we're being told with Cam Newton and the Panthers. So we're all watching preseason game number three. He goes down against the New England Patriots. And it looks bad. So much so that I'm getting tweets and I'm getting phone calls from people saying the Panthers season is over before it ever started.

That is what it looked like. However, Carolina Panthers came out publicly saying, no, no, no. Cam Newton's going to play game one. Cam Newton's going to be fine. Everything's fine. And when they didn't run the ball to him, when he didn't get any design quarterback runs, they said, no, no, no. I had nothing to do with the foot. It's all about game planning, what the defense was giving us.

And it was all fine. Cam Newton's at the press conference. He's smiling.

He's cracking jokes. When Cam Newton doesn't get the ball at the goal line against Tampa Bay, it had nothing to do with the foot in the play call there. And then we get the reaggravation report from Adam Schefter. He misses the game against the Cardinals. And now it's Liz Frank injury. And people are talking more long term about Cam Newton, how much time he's going to miss. My beef with it is this.

Ron Rivera and the Carolina Panthers. They misled us here. They tried to tell us. What we were seeing wasn't so that we weren't seeing what was blatantly obvious.

And that is quite simply, something bad happened to Cam Newton's foot that preseason game against New England. Now, I'm not calling Ron Rivera a liar. It's not what I'm doing here. I'm saying that as a coach, there are times where you have to mislead opposition. There's times we have to mislead the public. You might say, what's the difference? It's like that conversation you have with your wife. Honey, I didn't lie to you. I just didn't tell you about this. Some might view that still as lying.

But that's part of the job here. As a coach, as a general manager, something bad happened to Cam Newton's foot. Our eyes saw it. He's limping to the sideline. He's grimacing in pain. He knows his body better than any trainer, any media member, any coach. And you could see he's mad.

He's upset. It reminds me of what happened to Kevin Durant when KD went down. We all thought it was serious because of the way KD reacted.

And granted, he came back and he played in the finals, but how long did he? And it was clear that probably wasn't the best decision. Right here, similarly, I think Cam Newton shouldn't have played the first two games. He didn't run the ball at all. There's no explanation for that. He wasn't on the injury report week one.

He didn't run it. So to cover the backs of the coaches who probably shouldn't have played him in the preseason at all, and also to back the fact he wasn't on an injury report, they have to say Cam Newton was right until the Tampa Bay game. It might have gotten worse during the Tampa game, but you can't tell me Cam Newton was healthy game one. Our eyes did not deceive us when it comes to Cam. He's still in his prime.

So it just bothered me when we were being force fed. Oh, Randall Cunningham, second leg of his career. That's not where Cam is now.

Cam is still just 30 years old. He's supposed to be able to run about as well as he has done his entire career as the greatest red zone threat in the history of the sport. I wasn't buying that, but that's what we were being fed. We thought it was bad from the jump. It turned out to be bad.

He shouldn't have played games one and two. Among some of the stories that are being talked about today that I don't think are getting enough attention. The FBI and the NCAA are snooping around Kansas. And a notice of allegations has been sent to one of the most storied programs in all of college basketball. And it doesn't seem like anybody is making this a huge story.

It was a second page story when I looked this up today. And we're talking about the biggest penalties, the biggest crimes, air quotes, that the NCAA can levy and accuse a school and a program for having committed. Lack of institutional control and a level one infraction for Bill Self. They're going after Self. We still don't have the evidence that proves Bill Self knew about whatever wrongdoing happened.

WOLA has accused or said in court testimony, people did, assistant coaches and Self. I don't think there is a wiretap that the FBI has. But then again, if they have something we don't know of yet, would that surprise anybody?

I don't think so. There's still rumors that there's one for Sean Miller as well. But what is staggering to me is how checked out most people are about this story that seems to be so big. And I wonder if that's one, us already knowing being in a college basketball area, the heart of college basketball, us already understanding that this is just the way business operates in that sport.

Or number two, if this is just dragged on too long without serious punishment being handed down along the way, that we're just too familiar with it, that we're desensitized to it. OK, here's another FBI NCAA headline now. Wake me up when Bill Self gets handed a penalty. Do you think it's feasible that the NCAA put this out there at this time of the calendar now because they knew it would be a page two story? I mean, it's Kansas of all schools, it's blue blood. It's in the middle of the college football season.

NFL is dominating headlines right now. Why would they do that? Maybe they don't want to punish Kansas. Maybe they don't want to have all that heat on them. I think they would want to punish Kansas.

If you want to send a message with this, you don't want to strike out. Maybe they can't figure out how to punish Kansas. Maybe they should put it that way. Well, I don't think the time of year matters. Remember, it was almost exactly this time that it all started two years ago. It was early October, right as teams are starting camp and Rick Pitino's fired. So, the time of year I don't think is really relevant to this. I wouldn't read into that in that way. I think the NCAA is going to have to get some of these major programs if they're going to come out of this not looking like a laughingstock again. You are listening to WSJS Winston-Salem, WCOG Greensboro, WPCM Burlington, WMFR, High Point. Those signals making up. Sports Hub Triad.