The Drive with Josh Graham - COLLEGE FOOTBALL! - 09/3/19

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

It's brilliant. You simply couldn't ask for two better football games than the two I went to this weekend. With less than five minutes to go, I didn't expect for Wake Forest to beat Utah State in Winston-Salem or for North Carolina to beat South Carolina in Charlotte. And I was surprised in both instances. However, that wasn't nearly as stunning as what I saw transpire as the games kicked off and during the Wake game Friday night at BB&T Field.

I've learned this in recent years. I still don't want to accept the fact, but I think Friday and Saturday just crystallized this as being a reality. College football simply isn't a priority in the state of North Carolina right now. I heard all the excuses for why by halftime, Wake Forest, the student section completely emptied out, fans who weren't students decided to leave that football game, fans not showing all together for North Carolina and South Carolina. I've heard every single excuse for NC State ECU, the way that crowd looked in Raleigh, looking sparse at times. If it's a noon kickoff, the game's too hot. If it's a night game, the game's just a little too late.

If it's Labor Day weekend, ah, I've got to get down to Emerald Isle. We love college football, but those are the reasons why the stands aren't full. It can't just be that college football isn't a priority. However, tell me that, tell me those excuses to Georgia fans this weekend. Did you see that video in Nashville? Georgia's playing at Vanderbilt and 75% of the stands in an SEC game consists of fans wearing red. Tell that to Georgia fans. Last I check, it's Labor Day weekend for them too.

Here's a question you got to ask yourself. Okay, it's too hot. Maybe not applying to this, but there's certainly late games in basketball. And let's just say a holiday weekend just so happens to coincide with North Carolina basketball opening the season at the Smith Center. You telling me no one's going to show for that game? Now I know there's a big difference between 20,000 people and trying to fill the Smith Center versus a 50,000 person arena, but I'm just telling you in terms of the pulse of things, college football isn't nearly at the place college basketball is in this region when everywhere else in the country, college football, it's a massive deal.

And that's the biggest problem more than anything else. I don't know what more you could ask for if you're a Wake Forest student or a Wake Forest football fan watching the Deacs on Friday night. I understand it to a degree with North Carolina, South Carolina. It's hot. Neither of these teams are doing anything offensively for Wake Forest and Utah State. They combined for over 500 yards in the first half. They're both scoring back and forth.

Jordan loves looking every bit the NFL prospect he's set to be. The Deacs are looking good. It's a close game.

What more can you ask for in that setting? Honestly, honestly asking that question, what more could you want from a football game? And in Charlotte, we were making the joke that looking at the press bot from the press box at the the upper deck for North Carolina, South Carolina, you have these very high rising lights. You have the lights that are towering above the stadium, which cast a shadow. And we noticed that there were so few fans in the upper deck that the ones that sat up there decided to move with the shadow cast by the lights there.

So they can get a couple of degrees cooler in terms of just sitting in the shade. They followed the shadow in the upper deck at Bank of America Stadium. Also, not a joke. Somebody came up to me in the press box at North Carolina, South Carolina. This is the opener. It's UNC versus South Carolina, ACC, SEC. It's the season opener. And somebody comes up to me not to ask about Sam Howe, Mac Brown and North Carolina's quarterback situation, not to ask about, hey, is this a big deal for Will Muschamp?

How much does he have to win this game? First thing that someone came up to me and asked is, hey, did you know that the college basketball schedule comes out next week? Real thing that happened. And it speaks to where we are.

So I'm sick of the excuses. It's also hot in SEC country. The night games are just as late in Nashville, just as late in Louisville last night with that great crowd. And it was Labor Day weekend for everybody else. I'm just convinced college football simply isn't a priority in North Carolina right now.

It just isn't. Desmond Johnson, the producer of this program today, taking your phone calls at 36-777-1600. You can tweet the show at sportsubtriad. Unless you're contending for conference champion, I don't know if anywhere in the state could consistently sell out stadiums. NC State, they sold out against East Carolina, but in state matchup and selling out a game is a lot different than having an actual sell out, as I think we're going to learn this weekend at Chapel Hill. What do you suspect we're going to see with the renovated Keenan Keenan Stadium going, I think, from sixty one thousand seats to about fifty five thousand seats to make things a little bit more comfortable there? They announced today that the game is officially a sell out. North Carolina, Miami, a night game in Chapel Hill. What is the actual attendance for this game going to be? I get how excited you might be for Mac Brown, but I got a feeling we're going to see some open seats. There's going to be some silver bleachers filling out a little bit of Keenan Stadium. Then I'm going to hear the same excuses again. Ah, it's a night game. It's just too late to be playing football. When other places that actually do care about college football seem to have no issue with it.

Yes. You know, it was weird for me. You know, I'm a Carolina fan, yes, but I've always said that I'm kind of when it comes to the football team. And a lot of that has to do with especially during the fedora era. They didn't give us a lot to cheer for.

Like to get up for. Well, 2015. Well, I mean, flash in the pan, I guess you could say. Eleven wins, right? Yeah, but we were we as Carolina fans were beaten down by the football program over the past, you know, three or four years. And here's the funny thing with that. They still go to bowl games.

They still went to bowl games under fedora. Yeah, I think it was the potential of the promise of something great. Caroline has always been on this like ledge. This speaks to my point. And you're the perfect example for this. Unless North Carolina is giving you hope for ACC titles. You don't care. Does basketball spoil you in that way?

Where? OK. If basketball is just middling to the point where you don't know if they're going to make the NCAA tournament in a given year. Let's just say North Carolina basketball year in and year out is where Wake Forest basketball is right now.

Oh, my God. Would that affect the way you care about North Carolina basketball? The standard is so high that you set for basketball. You expect ACC titles in that sport. Does that translate to football a little bit where. You just don't care as much about a seven and six season, even if it is a winning season and you're going to a ballgame.

It's a fair point. I mean, I think a part of that is happening with Carolina fans in terms of they're used to elite eights and Final Fours and ACC tournaments. And anything you can possibly win in basketball, they're used to getting that. Whereas in football, it becomes not not so much being used to it, but like wishing like we wish we could play defense. We wish we could actually show up. We wish we could look like we want to be there as a Carolina fan. For me, just watching them playing the way they came back on Saturday and just seeing the emotion from the kids and just it just felt like they wanted to be there. That's all we've ever really wanted. Just just act like you want to be at Carolina and play because the past year, especially, it was like they were just out there doing a job. And that's hard to watch.

I love this answer. You just reminded me of something Mac Brown said after the game. This is after the dancing in the locker room. He was talking about a promise he made to his wife, Sally, who was in the postgame press conference, saying that he is going to enjoy wins more now than more than ever. And we've seen it in conversations we had with him.

He he enjoys the media. He enjoys the preparation process a little more because he missed it. He didn't know he was going to miss it until he was out of the sport altogether.

So this is him talking about a promise he made to his wife about even if the game is ugly and you don't play well, still enjoying the moment. The other thing that Sally made me promise is we beat Colorado once 38 to 14. And I was mad because it wasn't good enough to beat Alabama and USC. And I was miserable and yelled at everybody.

We were twenty five and two at Texas. I was mad because we lost the national championship. And she said, if you come back and have an ugly win, you better be pumped. And I am so pumped.

So, Miss Sally, I'm really happy with this ugly win so we can we can fix a lot of things. There are a lot of people that love Mack Brown. Just I saw it when he was conducting that interview with Allison Williams. If you go back and watch the interview again, I kind of look like the angel or the devil in those movies when they're on Mack Brown's shoulder. You could kind of just see my head sitting there.

Oh, really? I never knew that I was in the shot until I just get a bunch of text messages. It's just me and Brent Wilkerson hanging out there. And I'm right behind Mack Brown. But after that, just so many people wanted to be around them.

Eric Church, Trey Boston. And then when the press conference ended, just people wanting to flock to him and spend time with Mack Brown. It was an incredible win for the Tar Heels.

But I'm more sympathetic to Wake Forest than I am North Carolina when it comes to the attendance front, because Wake Forest is such a small, small fan base because of the size of the actual institution that limits you a little bit, at least when it comes to students. And I loved that the students showed up at the start of the game. The student section was completely full, but not after halftime. By halftime, it was empty. They thought, ah, it's Friday night. I got other things to do here. And I'm like, this game is so exciting. It's as good as football can be. And Dave Claussen has cultivated a special culture at Wake Forest when you really examine what this roster is.

Think about this. The game winning touchdown pass was thrown by Jamie Newman, who got beat out by a true freshman last year and decided to stay anyway. And he threw the pass to Kendall Hinton, who was beaten out by John Wolford, then beaten out by Jamie Newman and Sam Hartman. He decided to stay and come back. That just doesn't happen in college football anymore.

That connection that's made there. But on Kendall Hinton, credit to Kendall Hinton, he made one of the best football decisions for himself staying at Wake Forest if his intention was to play wide receiver. If he had no more interest playing quarterback, wide receiver. If you're playing wide receiver at college and you're his size and you have his skill set, what better place to play than Wake Forest and Dave Claussen's system that produced Greg Dortch and Hinton looked like a mini Dortch out there.

Elusive, put in the same spot, body type. He has all of that. He saw it firsthand what Dortch did in this offense. And with that pace right now, he's going to be playing. He made the New York Jets practice squad, I believe, over the weekend.

So Kendall Hinton is seeing that as potentially being the finish line. And I think he made a good decision in returning to Wake Forest. But the other thing that stands out to be quarterbacks, they're just so well prepared under Claussen. Sam Hartman and his first start against Tulane won an overtime game and had to be clutch in doing so. Jamie Newman told me after the NC State game, where he came from behind his first start, that that was the first time he ever led a fourth quarter game winning drive at his entire football playing career. And that was his first college start. Now he's done it in three of his five first starts.

Three out of the five. Did it against, did it in Memphis, against Memphis in the bowl game. And now he did this in the opener against Utah State with that drive at the end of the game. And Dave Claussen didn't want to dabble in hyperbole after Wake Forest's win. But here's what he had to say on Jamie Newman leading the comeback at his preparation, being able to engineer these drives. I mean, I don't want to get in hyperbole and, you know, hey, he rises, you know, I mean, he's had that opportunity and he's come through for us every time. He competes. He's very smart in terms of where the ball goes.

You know, Sage Surratt one on one is a good option. Throwing a high ball to Kendall Hinton is a good option. You know, and you see our practices. I mean, how often do we work those things? I mean, we drill that over and over and I think we feel like we're pretty good at it.

So I think when we get in those situations, there is a confidence level that we have. Coming up, the most ridiculous football can get. This is the drive. OK, here we go.

This is the sports hub at AM 600, AM 920. Now back to the drive with Josh Graham. I just got around to looking at the first AP poll after week one of the college football season, knowing that there would be one AP voter out there who would give Mack Brown in North Carolina a vote. And surely enough, there is one vote for North Carolina football in the AP poll because there is somebody out there.

I knew it'd be one voter who loves them some Mack Brown and loves the fact that they beat an SEC team in Charlotte over the weekend. Speaking of things in Charlotte, Ryan McGee of ESPN, now a guest with us. And I often hear about when you're somebody who covers a sport is planes, trains and automobiles to get where you need to go. But in your instance, first weekend of college football, it wasn't just planes and automobiles in your instance. It was also Goodyear blimp. As we saw last night, you were in the Goodyear blimp with Marty Smith watching Louisville and Notre Dame. What's it like that high up watching the Goodyear watching from the Goodyear blimp as we appreciate you visiting with us?

Yeah, no, it was amazing. And listen, you know this, I'll cover motorsports forever. And so I had been 20-something years ago, I was in a much older blimp that was retired shortly after I was in it for like an hour. And a couple years ago when the national championship game was in Atlanta, I was in the blimp, I was in the newest blimp for about, I don't know, 90 minutes.

Last night I was on wing foot one, we were up there four, we got on there at five o'clock and we got off at 12, 15. So we did seven hours and 15 minutes and it was awesome. But everything kind of moves in slow motion. Like the fastest speed we clocked according to our pilot, Captain Cosmos, I'm not making that up, that was his last name. According to Captain Cosmos, we were top speed like 30 miles an hour at most of the game. We were just doing laps around the stadium in the little Cardinal Stadium, Churchill Downs, which is right next to the stadium, and the campus. We just kind of did laps for seven hours, whatever it was, and we never, we were cruising about 15, 20 miles an hour the whole time. So it was cool.

But it's the craziest perspective looking directly down on everything. It was such a riot watching you both, namely because Marty Smith had a Talladega t-shirt and your shirt simply just had a bald eagle on it. It was a Goodyear Eagle, right? Again, we're getting back to our racing roots.

Marty had a Talladega super suit and I had basically a gas station American Eagle shirt and it was in honor of the Goodyear Eagle racing tires. I was at North Carolina, South Carolina and Charlotte over the weekend and it was quite an upset. It was one of the bigger stories in college football over the weekend.

And I spent some time talking to the voice of the Heels Jones Angel, who was telling me that at the Mac Brown live show that they had, the radio show in Chapel Hill, that they had trouble finding seats for as many people wanted to show up and see Mac Brown. And after the game ended, being on the field, being in the locker room, just seeing how many people wanted to be around that guy and how popular he is, how beloved he is, seeing the reaction in the media, considering he was one of us for about five years. Is there a coach in America, Ryan, you think who's more beloved right now than Mac Brown is? No, and he's just a good guy.

I mean, that's just it. We start going down the list in the Hall of Fame. We start going down the list of Hall of Fame coaches and I can come up with probably something you wouldn't like about them.

When they're in a bad mood, they're in a bad mood. Dick Saban will absolutely see you and make you uncomfortable. There's a guy, Hugh Freeze, who got into other kinds of trouble. There's a long list of these guys that win games, but they have issues. And Mac's just a good dude and he's never changed. You know this, my dad was a college football official for four years and he worked games with Mac Brown when he was at App State and he worked games with Mac Brown when he was in North Carolina. He worked games with Mac Brown after he won a national championship in Texas and he never changed.

No matter how much money he had, he just was still the same guy. And I enjoyed working with him so much and what's amazing is that even after he's gotten this job, like Jones is saying, he's just the same guy. I ran into him in Charlotte. He was here for the launch of the ACC Network and I just randomly ran into him at the ESPN office and you would have no idea that he was a head coach again. He stood there and talked to me about my daughter and Banner Elk and everything else just like he did, you know, when he was schlepping it around with us in press boxes.

It's Ryan McGee of ESPN on Twitter at ESPN McGee. You brought up Hugh Freeze. Can football look more ridiculous than Hugh Freeze coaching from a hospital bed in a press box? And so I wrote a big story that ran on ESPN.com last week about Hugh Freeze and Ian McCall and, you know, Liberty suddenly committing insane amounts of money in facilities and just almost desperate to get into a Power Five league or just to get into a Gang of Five, any conference.

And it's just, you know, the whole thing, they are blissfully unaware of how they're perceived, I think, by the rest of the country. And I think that evening includes what we saw. My coworker, Chris Lowe, who's known Hugh Freeze forever, C. Lowe has a great story on ESPN.com right now, which goes into all the details of the logistics of him lying in the bed. So I'm writing the bottom, as we speak, I'm sitting here on my computer, I'm writing the bottom ten of FreezeFan.com for tomorrow and I'm sitting here filling around with the line that, you know, Hugh Freeze finally fulfilled the prophecy that all of our parents, when they would scream at us, were sitting on the PlayStation 2 screaming, you know, you can't make a living laying in the bed playing NCAA football all night.

And that's exactly what he was doing. I just inhaled with the, I mean, the point and the wave and the, I just, in the postgame press conference, it just was, I was in Austin, Texas. And I can tell you that no one in the press box at Darryl Roll Memorial Stadium was paying any attention to what was going on in the field in front of us. Everybody was just watching the TV with their mouths hanging open at that Liberty game. Yeah, I'm trying to figure out what my favorite part is.

Is it the background with Liberty and them, like you said, it's well said, being blissfully unaware of how they're perceived, bringing in Ian McCall, then hiring Hugh Freeze, despite the fact it's the largest Christian institution, and maybe the world and what those guys, the reason why they're not at the previous places they were employed. And then, of course, the actual mechanics of it. Him being in the bed, calling first and second down. He's wearing a visor for some reason. He's in cargo shorts. And in the postgame press conference, he's wielding a Coke.

Yeah. Well, he's a NASCAR guy. Like, I learned this when he was at Ole Miss. He was the Grand Marshal of Talladega one year. And they always shot these guys in, and they all say they're big race fans, and then they talk to him for 40 minutes, and you're all, they have no idea.

Well, Hugh Freeze, in his house to this day, has a library of VHS tapes that he recorded races, NASCAR races, in like the 90s. And so, he's legit, and all I could think of, I got to text him and tell him that he looked like a guy given a postgame. You know, he's laying in bed with his hat on, holding his Coca-Cola Classic, laying in the bed, you know, complimenting the boys back at the shop. I mean, he looked like he had just finished fifth at Martinsville. What's the most sick or injured Ryan McGee has been, but still checked in at work?

Oh, wow. I have gone without sleep, like forever. At Daytona, at Daytona every year there is some sort of plague, because we're there for like two weeks, and there's some sort of press box plague that almost annually takes over. And that thing has gotten a hold of me a couple times, and I remember, you know, you're young and you're dumb, and you're just going to tough it out. And I just remember, I think I was interviewing like Jeff Bodine, and never one to not be blunt, Bodine looked at me and he goes, you need to put that damn microphone down and go to the hospital, when I was interviewing him. I guess I looked that bad.

But Jerry Punch got me some fluids and I was good. You mentioned the bottom ten. Ryan McGee, it's one of the things you have to read if you're a college football fan. It's something we all enjoy, ESPN.com. If everyone's going to rank the top ten, you might as well get the bottom ten in there as well.

Who feels worse today? South Carolina and Will Muschamp or Willie Taggart in Florida State? Well, first of all, they both lost to not bad football teams. You know, but for me it's Florida State just because, you know, there they were with a lead against a brand name team and a team that everyone agrees, you know, everyone agrees that North Carolina's got work to do. But I think in the case of Florida State, again, Willie Taggart is very much beloved in the industry. But what happened to them in Tallahassee a year ago is still just stunning.

And so it looked like, okay, you know what, that was an anomaly. Florida State's talent is still there. They got a chance.

And instead they got their guts ripped out. And, you know, I think South Carolina's going to be okay. They're going to recover. And then, you know, even with the quarterback situation. But in the case of Florida State, you know, kind of like Tennessee, do you just automatically just go back to that dark place mentally where you were a year ago? And, yeah, you can kind of see it in Louisville last night, even from 2,000 feet above the stadium. You know, they hung and they hung and they hung and they played so much better than anybody expected.

But then when they fumbled it and they turned it over and they had to settle for a field goal and they could feel the game slipping away, everybody in the grandstand kind of had that look like, oh, man, here we go again, because that was a team that finished in my bottom ten a year ago. Again, on Twitter at ESPN McGee, read the bottom ten starting tomorrow. That's going to be something that's appointment reading every Wednesday. Ryan enjoyed you on the Blimpcast last night. Look forward to seeing you sometime soon.

Yeah, I've got to, I've got to go get some more dram with me. That's Ryan McGee. We'll let him do that. If we acknowledge the New England Patriots are the safest bet to win a division in the NFL, the AFC East just being as inept as it's been the last two decades with the Bills, Dolphins and Jets in it. Who is the second safest bet this year to win a division? This might surprise you, but over the weekend, I think a team clearly emerged and that team's the Houston Texans. You might dislike how much they had to give up in order to bring in Laramie Tunsell from Miami. You might not like how much they got back in exchange for J'Davion Clowney, who was seen to be this all everything prospect coming out of South Carolina when he was the first overall pick some years ago. But there's no question the Houston Texans got better in the short term by these decisions. They became a better football team right now if we're just going to limit the scope to the 2019 season.

As soon as Andrew Luck got injured and Andrew Luck decided, hey, I got to step away from the game and he retired. The Houston Texans became the favorite to win this division and I believe Bill O'Brien saw an opportunity with him having the control of personnel decisions. Remember, Houston currently doesn't have an acting GM. Bill O'Brien, he's the one that made the call. It's going to be Bill O'Brien's butt on the line if this doesn't work. It's going to be his head if he can't win with what he has in place.

So he decided to go all in. You got the quarterback. Now you need to protect your top asset and that's going to cost you something. Laramie Tunsel, they give up a lot to give them to get him.

But you also get another weapon along with Tunsel. You get Kenny Stills, which it might be a little fishy, everything that's happening with Stephen Ross and the criticism from Kenny Stills. Stills is too good to cut, but he's shipped along with Laramie Tunsel.

I just think it's a little bit fishy there. Lamar Miller, the same night Andrew Luck retired, he sustained a season ending knee injury. You bring in Duke Johnson already in a trade with the Browns. So who do you bring in? Carlos Hyde as well over the weekend. So now you have a little bit of depth at running back. In the trade with Clowney, you bring back some good outside linebackers.

Jacob Martin, Barquivious Mingo, former LSU Tiger, you get a corner as well. So they got better and I already thought that they were the division favorite. Is there a team you'd say is a safer bet to win their division than the Houston Texans are to win the AFC South? If we take the New England Patriots off the board. The only other one I looked at was maybe the NFC West, but I think the Rams are going to take a step back.

I like what Seattle's doing out there. Who knows what Jimmy G and the 49ers are going to look like? I think a lot of people are overreacting to the preseason. Jimmy G hasn't been great since coming off that knee, but you're not going to see anything schematically, anything other than vanilla offenses in the preseason.

So I wouldn't overreact to that too much. I don't think the NFC West is a complete lock as people are making it out to be. I still don't think the LA Rams are going to make the playoffs. So I really feel like it's the Houston Texans. Who else might be a nominee for the safest bet to win their division? I think you could always put Pittsburgh in there with Mike Tomlin just because he's never had a losing season. So you can kind of hedge your bet a little bit there that maybe not win the division, but have a good shot at winning the division because they never have a losing season. Are they the favorite to win that division right now?

I mean, I would imagine them in Cleveland, I guess. And Baltimore, who won it last year? Actually, I did my picks this morning, and I actually have all three of them in the playoffs. Pittsburgh, Baltimore, and Cleveland. You have all three of those teams in the playoffs?

Yep, I think all three are going to get in there. And Cleveland and Baltimore will be the wildcards. Okay, so I don't think, and just to look at what you said there, Pittsburgh might be a team that is a safe bet to win the division, but you just said it yourself, that division's so good it could produce three playoff teams. That automatically, I think, disqualifies you for being the safest bet to win the division.

One singular team. We're looking for a division that has maybe one or two good teams. Who's the biggest threat to the Houston Texans?

Is it Indianapolis still? Jacoby Brissett got a two-year, $30 million contract. It's a great team around him, good offensive line.

He is good enough not to mess it up. I like the Colts' defense. I like Marlon Mack running the football. I really like the Colts. I thought they were going to win the division if Andrew Luck was playing quarterback for them. Are they that much worse with Luck not being there?

Who is the biggest threat? Because Jacksonville's there, too. And Jacksonville was a few plays away from going to the Super Bowl two years ago, and that was with Blake Bortles. And I think most of us can agree Nick Foles is an upgrade over Blake Bortles.

While you don't want your franchise guy to be Nick Foles, probably, that is an upgrade over what you had before. It looks like the Colts play the NFC South, so that would kind of make me not pick them that way. Although I don't see the Falcons on their schedule. They play the Bucks, the Saints, and the Panthers. So they're basically playing a first-place schedule. The AFC South is playing the NFC South this year.

Oh, there it is. The Falcons are on September 22nd. I think the NFC South is the best division in football, and them having to play against them makes me leery to say they're locked to win it. Jacksonville's got the best defense in that division. They all have to play the NFC South.

Yeah. So I'm saying, who is the second-best team? Is it Jacksonville or is it Indianapolis? I would go Jacksonville. At least you have a guy with a Super Bowl ring on his finger playing quarterback. Now granted Nick Foles, September or October Nick Foles is different than December, January Nick Foles. So we'll see how that plays out, but it's better than what they had.

And if they've just got a middle-of-the-road offense and a top-ten defense, I'll take that over whatever the Colts are going to roll out, because I think the Jaguars defense will be better than the Colts defense. We were just talking about North Carolina and Mac Brown with Ryan McGee of ESPN. Your thoughts welcome on Twitter at sportsubtriad3367771600. It is clear that North Carolina has captured the nation's attention now, and it starts with Mac Brown. He's one of the most beloved coaches in all of college football. He's a Hall of Famer. He's a recognizable name.

He has the track record. I mean, we could go through the list of active coaches who have won a national championship. It is Nick Saban, Dabo Swinney, Jimbo Fisher, Les Miles, Mac Brown.

I think that's it. Five coaches who have won a national title active in college football now that Urban Meyer has stepped away. It continues with the quarterback, though.

I think this is a piece of it. Sam Howe, first-ever true freshman to start a game for North Carolina, and he leads not one, but two 90-plus yard drives against a Will Muschamp SEC defense in an NFL venue? He did that to start his college career? How do you not get excited? First, with having the recognizable beloved Hall of Fame national championship winning coach, but also the true freshman quarterback who shows you against one of the most rawly talented teams on the schedule this year, that he can do that.

He's capable of 90-plus yard drives to win games for you. You can't help but be optimistic and excited about that. That's why the game sells out on Saturday. I'm interested to see what actual attendance looks like versus the sellout tickets sold for Miami, North Carolina. 7 or 8 o'clock kick this weekend will be at that game.

But North Carolina has my attention now. I asked Mac Brown after the game about what he's seen in Sam Howe, considering the fact he's coached other great dual-threat quarterbacks such as Vince Young and Colt McCoy, and this is what Mac had to say. The thing we saw in practice is that he's mature, and the kids really believe in him, and he is a great leader for them even though he's a quiet leader. But he's very confident, and he's so good on the run.

And Vince Young and Colt McCoy made so many plays when they're out of the pocket and they're looking downfield, like to Antoine Green. He's wide open, and he didn't get that to him in practice. He's been zipping that out there, so he'll be all over himself tomorrow because that's a touchdown we missed. But he's very accurate, and he's strong-legged, and he's tough.

You can see he's got to hit some today, and he doesn't care. North Carolina's football schedule is among the most compelling in the ACC. The only one that might put something up against it is Pitt, who has the most difficult out-of-conference schedule the last three years of any team in college football. Here's the out-of-conference games. They have Ohio this weekend, but after that you're playing Penn State and UCF.

Then it's Delaware, but Penn State, UCF, that's not easy shipping for you. For North Carolina, you got South Carolina in Charlotte, but you also play Wake Forest, which again is a non-conference game. It's not an ACC game next week in Winston-Salem.

App State after that. So North Carolina's schedule, it's fascinating. This year's going to be interesting.

The Tar Heels, they're on the map regionally, they're on the map nationally, and it starts with Mac Brown, but it continues with the schedule and the quarterback. You are listening to WSGS Winston-Salem, WCOG Greensboro, WPC in Burlington, WMFR High Point, those signals making up Sports Hub Triad. We need to talk. Talk. Talk. This is the Sports Hub at AM600 AM920.

The lowest form of communication. Now back to The Drive with Josh Graham. You can listen to North Carolina A&T football right here on the Triad Sports Hub A&T, after winning back-to-back celebration bowls, winning the HBCU National Championship at consecutive seasons. Open the year with the win over Elon over the weekend, and we're now being joined by the head Aggie. It's Sam Washington. Sam Washington. Sam Washington. Sam Washington. Sam Washington. Sam Washington. Sam Washington. Sam Washington. Sam Washington. You're now being joined by the head Aggie. It's Sam Washington kind enough to return to the program. Coach, how happy are you, even if things are closer than you might like them to be and things get dramatic, just to be one and know how much better are you feeling knowing that you have one in the win column and still none in the losses?

Well, that obviously is a very good feeling. But I tell you what, it was a very hard fault game. It didn't happen very easily.

I thought Elon bought in a very worthy team and they played hard and they competed. And so it was a hard fault, but I thought our kids stayed in the fight and accepted the challenge and prevailed at the very end. It's going to be a 6 o'clock kick right here on Sports Hub Triad, A&T facing David Cutcliffe's Blue Devils. What do you learn in games like this? Well, really where we need to be.

Actually, I think it's the biggest lesson learned. And I think Coach Cutcliffe, he does it the right way. And that's the little stuff and teaching fundamentals and technique and playing with a lot of effort.

And so we'd like for our kids to get the opportunity to see what it really is supposed to look like. So I think it's a great opportunity for us. I always appreciate having Coach Cutcliffe on because he's obviously got a great football acumen, a tremendous background. But when I talk to coaches, his name is always brought up in terms of the most respected coaches that are out there in the community, in the industry. What do you admire most about David Cutcliffe? Well, again, like I just stated, I think he does it the right way and he's a player's coach. He wants the best for his kids.

And you can see it, you can sense it, and you can feel it. And I think that took my hat to him for that. Duke had a pretty difficult opponent, I'd say, on Saturday. He was facing Nick Saban and Alabama. And the game was scoreless after one quarter.

Of course, Alabama does what Alabama has been doing the last decade or so on their way to winning in the opener. What did you see from Duke in preparation in that first quarter, but really just the way they were able to hold their own against such a formidable opponent? Well, they were well prepared, I think. That's what that indicated. It was a great indicator that they came into the game with a plan.

And at the point of attack, everything, all eyes were dotted and all teeth were crossed. And so I thought they did a great job. When you enter these games, you obviously instill in your team a belief that they can win them. What does actually capturing one of these wins against an FBS do for you moving forward? Because last year, you went into Greenville, you beat the Pirates, and now, this time around, there's still a lot of players from that team last year who know what that's like. Oh, absolutely. We do have some kids here that know what champion football looks like and have played quite a few games and battle tested.

But this particular game here, I think, is a very tall order. But we're going to do what we do, and hopefully we can do it well and see what happens. What have you seen for Quinton Harris? He's the quarterback from Duke. He's replacing a top 10 draft pick, but Coach Cutcliffe seemed to like this guy a lot.

What have you seen from him on film? I think he's a very good decision maker. He don't make bad decisions, and he can throw the football. And I'm more afraid of his feet. I think he's very athletic, and he can run the ball and he can make you miss. So he's a dual threat, and that's hard to contain with. And they run a little triple option with him now to put the ball in his hand even more. So it's going to be a very tall task for us, but I think we're up for the challenge. It's North Carolina A&T head football coach Sam Washington spending time with us here on Sports Hub Triad.

Six o'clock kickoff time, you can listen to North Carolina A&T facing Duke. Once upon a time, we've discussed this before in prior visits, that you were once upon a time a player and a teammate with Jerry Rice, among all things. And then you've been a coach for many years as well. I couldn't help thinking about Hugh Freeze this weekend. It was one of the things that stood out to me. Just him wanting to be on that sideline, but just his health being unable to get him there.

So what did they do? They built a hospital bed, it seemed like, for him to coach Liberty against Dino Babers in Syracuse. It had me thinking, though, what is the most sick or banged up you've been, either in a game as a player or on the sideline as a coach?

Well, oh, I think, yeah, without a doubt, I had walking pneumonia once. And I actually went to the hospital on that Friday, and the doctor suggested that I did not leave, but I left Saturday morning and went and coached in a football game. What was that Saturday like? We did lose, but it was a hard ball game. Actually, it was a 7-6 football game. So, you know, it was a very good, you know, defensive ball game. We lost the Alabama A&M that day. I meant more about your health, not the game, coach, your health. Oh, well, I ended up doing well.

I got a couple bags of IV once it was over, and I recouped pretty good. You guys are crazy. You know that, coach?

I mean, Q-Freeze, you know if you ask Q-Freeze, how did you feel Saturday he's going to talk about the game and not the fact he's in a hospital bed. Yeah, we love this game. We love this game. Yeah, and it's done a lot for you, and we've enjoyed watching it the last few years. Coach, best of luck against David Cutcliffe and the Blue Devils this weekend. We'll be keeping an eye on it.

Look forward to hearing it on the radio. Thanks for spending time here. Absolutely. Thank you. You got it.

That's Sam Washington. Man, it is a conversation I'm interested in having, just the most sick, the most injured you've been and just continued to do your job, right? There's times where I've come in, sat in the law offices of Timothy D. Wellborn Studios, come to the microphone, and just know I'm not 100%. It might be I have the flu. It might be I have the cold. I have a cold, but I don't think there would ever be a circumstance that I would be laying upright like QFreeze was and deciding to still do the radio show. Could you imagine that? What would that show sound like if you had me propped up, laying there, and then you just put the microphone at my mouth? There are some radio guys who would do that.

I bet you Francesca, up north in New York for FAN, he would have the microphone there and still do the radio show. But it's just insane that he's talking about having walking pneumonia, and I asked how'd that Saturday go, and the first place he goes is the game. I'm just talking about how's Sam Washington doing. Not necessarily. How exactly the game went. But that's coaching.

And that's sports, I guess, too. Man. The Drive is broadcast again in the law offices of Timothy D. Wellborn Studios. Learn about the ways they can help you online at TimWellborn.com. You'll know when you need us. Drive's also brought to you in part by your friends at Twin Peaks Restaurant.

Find them Haynes Mall Boulevard in Winston-Salem. We're only 48 hours away? Make it 51 hours away.

Not great at math. 51 hours away from the season opener in the NFL. It's the Chicago Bears and the Green Bay Packers, and the perfect place to watch football is your local sports lodge. Twin Peaks Restaurant, Haynes Mall Boulevard in Winston-Salem.

Eats, drinks, scenic views. I want to spend more time thinking about that. The ways we're able to put injury and health aside just to focus on work the way Hugh Freeze did this weekend.

And almost taking it to the most ridiculous level possible. But once a week. We usually do this on Mondays, but since we were off yesterday, circumstances change things. Let's get crazy is going to happen on a Tuesday. Give us the hot sports takes.

We suspend journalistic integrity and responsibility for 10 minutes each and every week. We only want hot takes. That's all we want here. None of that lukewarm crap.

336-777-1600. Hot takes only. We get crazy. Next on the drive. Come on. This is the sports hub.

At AM 600, AM 920. Now back to the drive with Josh Graham. Every week at ACC sports dot com, you can find my one through 14 ACC rankings. Brian Geisinger is there as well.

As is the case for our next guest, it's our early afternoon host, David Glenn. You can find his rankings. And not surprisingly, me and him both have Clemson, Syracuse and Virginia one through three in that order. As we did in the preseason after one week of football. But where we have disagreement, DG, is where to place Florida State. You had them very high in the preseason.

You still have them at number six. I've been out on Florida State the moment they hired Willie Taggart. I didn't think it was a good hire. And last year was just justification for me.

I have them tenth in my ACC rankings. And I need to see more before I believe in Willie Taggart. How much trouble do you believe Taggart to be in?

Well, right now, none. And a lot of trouble in his fan base. He's going to need to say and do the right things to make sure that he continues to have the trust of his own players. And he's already put his foot in his mouth since the loss to Boise State. And I think the disparity between your rankings and mine, and rankings are truly meaningless beyond just fun conversation, I think is a bigger reflection on the nature of the ACC than it is anything else.

In other words, themes four through ten are not dramatically different from one another. And if you win your close games and stay healthy, you might finish in the top third of this league. And if you lose your close games and get some key injuries, you might gravitate toward the bottom.

That's just the nature of this league. Only Clemson and maybe one or two other very good teams, only one or two really bad teams, and everybody else is kind of a shade of gray in between. But Florida State, A, lost to a really good team in Boise State. They have a chance to be the best team from outside the power five in all of college football. And B, talent-wise, James Blackmon is one of the five best quarterbacks in the ACC. Cam Akers is one of the five most talented running backs in the ACC. Tamar Pinter is one of the half a dozen best wide receivers in this league. And they have other talent on both sides of the ball.

So they can compete. I share your reservations about Willie Taggart and did on the day that he was hired for a lot of different reasons. And he's the guy that not only entered this season closest to the ACC football hot seat, now, given that he's lost Game 1 after failing to make a bowl last year at a school that had been there 30-plus years in a row, of course, he has the Vultures swirling around him.

The only way that they're going to go away is if he starts winning some football games against good teams. At Florida State, you're always going to have the talent. He had it last year. Ryan Burns, he's going to be making his NFL debut for the Panthers as a first round draft pick out of Florida State on Sunday. DeAndre Francois, he was somebody who played on a team that won 9 or 10 games just a few years before that. He had the injury against Alabama and was trying to combat from that and he was dismissed this offseason. It's never been a question of talent with Florida State.

It's just what you do with it. And Willie Taggart, even though he had a plus-500 season at Oregon, in between getting the Florida State job and turning around South Florida for a few seasons, he still has a head coaching record that's six games under.500 now at.52 and.58. Yeah, as I said, I share your reservations. I will say this. You know, Bronco Mendenhall at UVA is picked to win the Coastal Division title. His first year with the Cavaliers, he had two wins. Now, Florida State has more talent, of course, than UVA did when he took that job. But there is a big, big difference between year one and year two. And that's why I think Willie Taggart gets at least some benefit of the doubt from last year because his system was new, his staff was mostly new, his way was entirely new to those players. If you can't show significant progress in year two, the way, remember, Bronco Mendenhall went from two wins to six wins and then eight wins and now he's the preseason favorite in the Coastal.

That's what a healthy, upward trajectory looks like. And UVA football has it. When you're a Justin Fuente at Virginia Tech where your best years were in year one and two, then you had a rough year last year and then you lost your opener against Boston College, that's a downward trend. And if you're Willie Taggart, you don't even get that bounce that Fuente gets from two good years with the Hokies.

So it's crystal clear. I mean, all these first-year coaches at other schools, Mac Brown is going to get the benefit of the doubt if he does not follow up on a win over South Carolina. Jeff Collins at Georgia Tech, you know, Manny Diaz at Miami, the Tar Heels opponent this week, they're going to get benefit of the doubt even if they underachieve. Willie Taggart in year two doesn't get that same benefit of the doubt. You're right about having enough talent last year. They have enough talent this year. They just don't have the excuse of the getting to know you process in year two.

I'm just so concerned about what I've seen. And you're right. I mean, you're implementing a new system. So what do you do in the offseason? You bring in a new offensive coordinator and you bring in Kendall Bryles, who already has his own problems in his background, Florida State.

Yeah. You mentioned Willie Taggart putting his foot in his mouth. He was speaking to the media today talking about blowing the 31-13 lead. And he said it was an issue, or at least in part the issue was hydration for the reason why they lost. And quite frankly, I just don't want to hear about hydration when you blow a lead and you're playing a team that's in the group of five, even though they are a very good one, and a team that comes from Idaho when you're practicing and living every day in the state of Florida.

I don't want to hear about hydration in that circumstance. But moving things off of Florida State, we are visiting with David Glenn, our early afternoon host, that you can follow on Twitter at DavidGlenshow, listen to noon to three. And again, find our ACC rankings at accsports.com. The attendance at the games I attended this weekend concerned me a bit. Wake Forest, you know, it's a smaller net of fans that you have when you have a small private institution. And the crowd that they had for an opener, it's as big as you can expect it to be at kickoff for an opener when you're playing a team. Even if Utah State's good, it is still Utah State, and that's tough to sell for people to come out eight o'clock on a Friday night. It was good. Fans left right before halftime, though, and it was an exciting game, and it had me just a little concerned as to why you might leave an exciting game when Wake Forest is good and the game is competitive.

North Carolina, South Carolina on Saturday, $52,000 announced. It's not even close to that. In Charlotte, we were just making jokes at how fans were sitting underneath the shade that was cascading down from the light pole at the top of Bank of America Stadium. It just leads me to arriving. I'm tired of the excuses of if it's at noon, it's too hot. If it's a night game, it's too late. Oh, it's Labor Day weekend.

I want to hang out at Topsyl. Those aren't problems the SEC has. And if it was college basketball, I don't think we make those excuses. College basketball, I mean college football to me, D.G., it doesn't seem like it's a priority in the state of North Carolina.

How do you view it? I think you're right, certainly as you compare it to a place like the SEC. And I'll tell you this, though. It is an industry-wide issue for college football. And, for example, in the last half decade, we have had, for the first time since our great-grandparents' generation, if that, when it was a whole different world, back to back to back to back to back decreases in the average attendance at NCAA football games. In other words, it has gone down each year, five years in a row.

And that had not happened at any time in anything that looks like, you know, the modern era or at the last half century plus. And what's interesting about that as we continue to follow it is that, Josh, during your career, which I predict will be long and distinguished way beyond your current achievement level, which is also already outstanding, in your lifetime in this profession, I'll say, this issue is absolutely vital. In my remaining decade in this crazy industry, to be honest, it's not going to matter that much. And the bottom-line explanation for that is, TV money is so huge right now that the hundreds of millions that these leagues are making, way more than they used to because of contracts to televise their products, mainly in football. A lot of folks don't understand what huge percentage of the TV deal is the football value even compared to men's basketball. In this next decade, whatever attendance problems continue to linger, it's an issue, but it's not a scary issue because you're printing money in the backyard with these TV deals. If you get to the point where the apathy among younger people is they're not watching as much and they're not going to the stadium as much, now you have an essential crisis to work in the road for college athletics because football pays the overwhelming majority of the bills, and you have that.

You prefer to have both working at full speed, right? Attendance and TV money. Right now, attendance is broken to be nice about it, but the TV money continues to be just so lush that attendance issues remain, at least for a while longer, a backburner type issue. What do you believe the source of that is?

David Glenn with us here on the show. Pat Fitzgerald, he had controversial comments that were mostly applauded when he blamed millennials. It's the easiest punching bag to have in 2019. Hey, if something's going wrong, millennials. Those are the people to blame.

It's all their fault. It's the phones and all of this. The source of it for me is that I think football is the one sport I can think of, DG, where the television product is arguably better than the actual in-game experience, taking away the tailgating and the stuff that happens before games. In other sports, I think the in-stadium, in-arena experience is probably better than what you can get on TV. But football is the one sport where you have the luxury of the replays and rewinding and fast forward, seeing what happens in real time.

And, you know, the way the commercial breaks work and how the sport's just constructed with stops and starts, it seems like it's just built for television. I think that's the root of it. What do you think?

I think you're right. I think the bottom line is and I get an eye full of this as someone who both does my tailgate tour. So I see how many families build their entire fall and their entire Saturdays around the tailgate experience. It's not just six, seven, or eight home games. It is the family and friends and the grill and sometimes even musicians and your SUVs and all this stuff.

Or RVs, I should say. And it is truly an experience way beyond a football game. I don't think there are as many young people building six, seven, or eight weekends or sometimes more if you go on the road around college football as there are older people. Part of that is, of course, older people tend to have more disposable income and young people are still earning their way to that status, right? But the scary part is how much are these young folks truly attached to either their alma mater or their favorite school through sports? And there's no doubt, Josh, that there are more sports and entertainment options today than at any time in our lifetime.

I mean, your childhood compared to my childhood is a dramatic difference and we're not crazy far from each other 20 or so years, right? But the world has changed and there are more options than ever to use your disposable income and to spend your time. And whereas the in-game experience for football can involve those tailgating things even better than in other sports, I agree with you, you know, there's no line at the concession stand when you stay at home.

You might love your HDTV. Concessions are cheaper. The beer, there's no line to wait in to get your beer.

And you can have some friends over and, you know, order in pizza and avoid parking and headaches and concessions and all the rest of that stuff. Where does it all come out? We don't know. But the NCAA president and conference commissioners and conference athletic directors, this attendance issue is a big one for them right now.

And it's only going to get bigger unless the TV dollars continue to grow in a big way, which is going to be hard to pull off moving forward, given what we know about cord cutting and cord shaving and the rest of that dynamic. D.G. was at ECU NC State over the weekend.

I was at Wake Forest, Utah State, and also in Charlotte for North Carolina, South Carolina. So we have you covered here. All our bases here on the sports up this weekend.

Me and D.G., we're going to be at the same place. The big tailgate tour, powered by Continental Tire, is going to be at North Carolina, Miami, a game that has been called in this conversation regarding attendance, a pretty big deal. I'm able to say this, a sellout. The season ticket sales good and sold out for the season. North Carolina announced a few months ago.

And then today you just knew it was going to happen. Going into Saturday's game, they had 200, 300 tickets left, according to people with North Carolina Athletics. And Mac Brown joked with us after the game that those tickets probably got sold out in the 30 minutes in between the final horn sounding and us coming to you to talk to the media here.

That is what's happened. And we're both going to be at that game, Miami, North Carolina, on Saturday. Is that the biggest storyline in your mind for this game, seeing what the attendance ultimately is and the support around Mac?

That's a big one. I think it is impressive that they sold out football season tickets for the first time in more than a decade. Obviously, who wins matters, given the chaos in the coastal division. The Tar Heels want to dream big after their victory early. And even though Miami lost to Florida at the non-conference game, Mac Brown on my show today described Miami as the most talented team in this league, not named Clemson.

So it all matters. In the long run, if you can't fill your stadium for a high-profile, five-time national champion, big-brand name opponent, when you have the energy of Mac's return and the positivity of beating the Gamecocks, then you have to ask, when are you going to be able to fill that stadium? Are you really that much of a basketball school that even this dynamic doesn't inspire a full turnout? And it's at 8 o'clock, right?

I mean, that's one more reason that it's a little bit easy to get there. Not everybody loves those 12-o'clock starts in the baking sun. Eight o'clock in prime time against a quality opponent with some young talent, including Sam Howell at quarterback and an energized fan base, I think it's going to prove to be the exception of what you accurately portrayed earlier, Josh. I've seen too many examples where not enough people care about college football in the state of North Carolina.

And I think Saturday night in Chapel Hill is going to be an exception to that rule. We'll see you then on Saturday. Thanks for doing this. Thanks, bud. Always fun. Take care. You got it. That's David Glenn on Twitter at DavidGlennShow.

You can listen to D.G. noon to three right here on the Sports Up. Des, what do you got and take it to the house today? I have the Masked Singer news.

Whoa. We're both in on this show. Yeah, we're in it. We both love the Masked Singer. Is it back? It's about to be. Oh, man. We're talking Masked Singer when we take it to the house next.