The Drive with Josh Graham - ACC Kickoff - Coaches Interviews

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

It's brilliant. 9 20. We're broadcasting live Radio Row at ACC Kickoff. Wake Forest Director of Athletics John Curry will join us in 15 minutes. MC State head football coach Dave Doran in about 5 minutes. And since this week marks the 50 year anniversary of us breaking a frontier in America and going to the moon, Neil Armstrong walking on the moon in 1969, I see a lot of talk on social media from people questioning space exploration, just having interest in what is going on in space.

One of those people, former Dave Doran player, current Indianapolis Colt Jacoby Brissette, who tweeted out, and this Dez generated a lot of fanfare and interest on social media. If the sun is hot, how is outer space cold? I need the X-Files music if you got it. If the sun is hot, how is outer space cold? The important questions. So that led to a lot of people engaging. BJ Hill responded to that.

To be honest, might need that music again. The sun isn't that hot. Former Tennessee quarterback, who's now a stealer, Josh Dobbs, he actually studied this while he was in college at Tennessee and he tried to give an educated response to Jacoby Brissette. He said, space is a vacuum. There's no air.

Jacoby Brissette responded to that. I've never put my hand inside a vacuum. Do you hold any conspiracies? Not Kyrie Irving style thinking that the earth is flat, nothing like that.

But with Area 51 in the news, aliens, Roswell, New Mexico. I mean, I don't believe that out of all the stars and planets and galaxies and stuff out in the universe that we're aware of, I'm not so arrogant to believe we're the only intelligent life forms in the universe. I do think that there has to be something else out there.

Just odds are. Hit the X-Files music. It just shakes me to my core. The X-Files music more than anything else. I mean, I literally have goosebumps right now.

Hair is standing up on my arm just thinking about that show. On Twitter, at sportsubtriad, I'm told we could take phone calls in between our guests, but there are a number of them, so please be cognizant of that. 336-777-1600. We'll get to Dave Doran and get his thoughts on the subject in just a little bit. Again, covering the important topics in the middle of July here at ACC Kickoff.

If you miss any of our shows, you can find them the best of podcasts on SoundCloud, iTunes, Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Dave Clawson, Wake Forest Head Coach, Scott Satterfield, previously of Appalachian State, now at Louisville on the program, and we've already heard from Matt Fortuna from The Athletic. So a lot of stuff planned. Tomorrow we'll get to many of the Coastal coaches and players. But space exploration a topic.

The Lion King a topic. Beer sales at college football games. Get ready to check that off on our ACC Kickoff bingo board.

That's definitely one that needs to be crossed off. The beer sales, yeah. Dave Doran commented that it's going to help crowds in the third quarter because, quite frankly, fans who leave the stadium might not return. If that is the case, Dave Doran from NC State now sitting down with us. You're on in Greensboro, Winston-Salem, and the Triad. It's good to have you here. An event like this, it just reminds you that the season's closed, Dave, doesn't it?

It does. So when you're recruiting, give me a sense. I think Nick Saban once said that it's all about trying to invade a recruit space and figure out the ways to do so, whether that be Twitter, Facebook, social media, or whatever they're doing now. Over the years, how much have you had to learn those types of things in order to get on the radar screen of some of these kids?

I've been a recruiting coordinator at every school I've been at as an assistant coach, and so I would look at that as something that I was very good at. To me, it's not about invading space. It's about building relationships and knowing how to do that, connecting and talking about the points that matter to that person and the people in their lives, and being able to back up what you're talking about.

For me here, it's taking time to get there, but doing what we've done now academically, socially, and obviously with these NFL players has helped a lot. Talking about interacting with players, social media, and heck, even space, on Twitter, I saw you liking some of the posts from Jacoby Brissett, who was talking about, I think the direct quote was, If the sun is hot, how is outer space cold? Are you fascinated by space at all, Dave Doran? I think it's hilarious what he does, man. He makes me laugh. He's always had a different personality, and I'm glad he's bringing it out there so the public can be a part of it. Great young man. What was he like coaching, same way?

Super competitive. He's just a special guy, really is. Great worker, but funny.

I mean, really funny guy. NC State gets called quarterback, you, and Ryan Finley, the most recent draft pick. What advice have you given him as he tries to take that next step, the same one Russell took, and Mike Blenin, and Phillip Rivers before him? You know, just to trust the process that's got him to where he is, and be himself, and not to lose sight of all the things that he is, because he's a special guy. I really enjoyed Ryan, the relationship we had off the field, and watching him grow as a leader and a man.

He's got a bright future as long as he just stays true to who he is. Dave Doran, NC State head coach with us here on the Sports Hub. The new law allowing for North Carolina state institutions to sell alcoholic games. How do you think that affects what the crowd's going to be at Carter Finley Stadium and other places?

You know, I'm not sure. I think it's a great amenity for our fans to have the opportunity to not have to binge drink in the parking lot. Not that they can't still or won't, but now they can come in and, you know, go down underneath the stadium, get a beer, and enjoy the game with a beer in their hand like they do at an NFL game or an NBA game. Or the Carolina Hurricane hockey games. I mean, so you get to see it live. It's not like it's something that's never happened in sports. For our fans, I think it will help them at halftime, not having to leave.

If they choose to stay, they can go down in the shade and relax and be around their friends. Again, if that's something they like to do, they can do it in our stadium now. And this actually, you think, really affects what happens on the field. Maybe the results, too, in terms of the environment you can have at the beginning of a third quarter.

I think so. You know, I think we have one of the better game days in the ACC. When our place is packed, it's loud, our sideline is tight to the field, our student section is right behind our opponent's bench, and it's a really tough place to play.

But when they leave in the third quarter, it makes it easier on the opponent. And so creating amenities that might solve that, I'm all for that because I want every advantage I can get, and Carter Finley is one of them. When Mack Brown took the job at North Carolina, the first thing he said is, I want to win the state of North Carolina, something you've done a really good job of pretty much your entire time at NC State.

How do you feel? Give me a sense for how competitive the recruiting trail in North Carolina has been just the last couple of months since Mack's arrived. Well, they're now a player in the conversation, and Larry was my first couple years here. I thought they recruited NC State, and they got Elijah Hood and some of those elite players. Obviously right now the honeymoon is real for all coaches that are in their first year that haven't lost or won a game.

And I did the same thing when I came here. You try to ride that thing as long as you can, and Mack's doing what you would think he would do. He's doing a good job. But the competition in state is as much the SEC and Clemsons that come into our state as much as it is them. Do you view them as the bigger competition, not specifically Clemson, but some of these top programs, considering the type of talent you have in North Carolina? Yeah, I mean South Carolina and Tennessee and Georgia and Florida, they come in and recruit our state hard. Virginia Tech comes in. So you're competing against a lot of schools, and that's just the way it is. There's good talent in the state. It's seventh in the NFL for active players when you look at their talent across their rosters. When you're looking to get away from things, is Kansas the spot you go to or where?

No. I loved my time growing up in Kansas City, but I don't go home very often. We have a lake house here, and this is home now. That's where I'm from, but North Carolina's home. We love it here. I plan on being here a long time. Well, we hope a lot of success, because you know what success means, Coach Doran. It means no Noom kickoffs.

I'm undefeated at Noom, my man, so I'm not going to get mad if they put me there, but I understand the value of a night game, trust me. Dave, thank you so much for doing this. It's appreciated. Thanks for having me.

Go Pack. That's Dave Doran, NC State head coach. We're going to talk to John Curry, Wake Forest AD, next.

This is the Sports Hub at AM 600, AM 920. Now back to the drive with Josh Graham. We're now being joined by Wake Forest head coach Dave Claussen.

Coach, you had a quote at your spring press conference that still resonates with a lot of Wake fans, where you were asked about bowl projections, and you said, I think the day I get picked in one of these bowl projections, I might die of a heart attack. It's such an interesting thing. I would say you guys are the Rodney Dangerfield, but I feel like that might be a difference.

I mean, again, you never control it. I think progress, I mean, you know, full games, three seasons, you know, if you do it once, maybe you get lucky. I don't think this has been a fluke. We're a good football team. We've got players, expectations are greater.

We're right now that we're no longer going to be happy just making a bowl. How comforting is it, though? I don't think there's another team in this conference, Dave, that has a productive returning starter at literally every single position group when you have two quarterbacks, and Carney at running back, and Sarat wide receiver, Justin Haran, an all ACC caliber left tackle back from injury, Basham on the D-line, Sternad linebacker, Davis, and Abassi in the secondary. Heck, even your specialists are back. How comforting is that as a coach?

Well, I mean, it's comforting, but then you've got to perform well, you've got to execute. It probably is a little bit, just after last year and all the injuries we had just being consumed with developing depth, that all the pieces in place and everything looks nice at injury. And last year, I think we had, you know, 13 or 15 season ending injuries, and our depth got tested.

And, you know, we want to be in a position that if we have injuries that we don't fall off a cliff. Does that make this team even more stronger knowing that a lot of those guys who had to step in now have game reps and that's mixed with the experienced guys? It is, you know, but we still graduated some pretty good football players. I mean, you know, Alex Bachman became a really good receiver for us. And Greg George left, and Matt Colburn became a good running back. You know, hey, by the way, you graduated three really good offensive linemen. Phil Haynes, who's a draft pick, Ryan Anderson, who's with the Dolphins, and Patrick Osterhage that very quietly became an excellent player. And then you go on defense and you lose Cam Glenn and Chuck Wade and, you know, Zeke Rodney and Willie Yarberry and Chris Calhoun.

Those are good players. So we lost some good players. Now, the benefit of last year with all those injuries is whether it be, you know, Nasir Greer or Ryan Smenda or, you know, Suleiman Kamara, that we had some guys play a lot more than maybe we anticipated. Now you bring that experience back, plus the guys who got hurt are coming back, and you give yourself a chance to have some depth with experience that we've really never had before.

We're talking to Wake head coach Dave Klassen at ACC kickoff, and I want to spend some time on the schedule. I remember talking to David Cutcliffe having a Friday night game, and he was almost emotional talking about how much he believes Friday night should be about high school, and obviously coaches getting a chance to play on Friday night, or watch kids on Friday night, how much that means to him. Opening the season with three straight Friday night games, does that bother you at all?

You know what? It's our new reality. I mean, look at the revenues that our schools are getting from these agreements with ESPN, and now we have an ACC network, and you can't have it both ways, that if you want the exposure and you want the revenue, it's a new world. And I think as a purist, I absolutely agree with Coach Cutcliffe, that I like high school on Fridays, college on Saturdays, the NFL on Sundays, but we're in agreement with a media entity, ESPN, that's extremely supportive, that is helping drive revenues for us and exposure and keeping us at the forefront of college athletics.

To me, it's not a sacrifice. It's not convenient, but it is what it is, and this is our new reality, and we've got to learn to deal with it. I don't like that on Friday nights. We have to have high school players come to our games. It's part of recruiting. I'm sure you're familiar with this piece of history. You guys hosting Duke, NC State, and North Carolina in the same season hasn't happened at Wake Forest since 1921. And it's never happened in Winston-Salem, so this is a first.

What kind of opportunity do you think that presents for you? I mean, the opportunity is, you know, what a great opportunity for our fans, that if you get back to the history of football in North Carolina and Wake Forest and the Big Four, that's one of the reasons we signed to play a game with North Carolina non-conference, is we think part of our history tradition within the state is with the Big Four, and we'd love it that all these teams play each other every year, and conference realignment and divisions don't allow that, but whether it's us playing North Carolina non-conference, maybe at some point Duke and NC State will want to do that, that gives us an opportunity to play the games at home that our fans want to see. Which leads me to what John Curry, your new boss, has done this summer. Really aggressively, Dave, pushing Wake football, trying to get people to go to that opener against Utah State, sell out that game, and then you obviously have North Carolina, Duke, and NC State coming in.

As the head coach of Wake Forest, what does it mean to you to know John Curry is this aggressive in trying to get people to these games? Well, I'm happy it's going on. I think I always said that our job is to put a product on the field that's worth watching and worth supporting, and I think we've done that. And now our marketing efforts have really focused in on bringing exposure to what we've done. So I think right now our Utah State game is tracking very close to a sellout. We certainly hope having Duke, Carolina, and NC State at home will draw sellouts. We've got Florida State at home, so we're a good football team. We've got a very attractive home schedule, and the support we've got in the last few years, it was shared with me yesterday that during our six years, season ticket sales have been up 20%. So we're getting there. We're not where we want to be.

We're getting a hell of a lot closer, though. I've got to ask you about this. It's a thing on our show.

People make fun of me. I'm a fan of the Bachelorette. Tyler Cameron used to play for you, and Wake players have told me that they've been following the feed, some of the older guys.

Hey, remember playing for them. Did you know that Tyler Cameron was on the Bachelorette? Yeah, my daughter told me, but I don't watch the show or follow that stuff, so I have no idea what's going on with it. Last thing. Tell me about the new locker rooms and facilities, you guys. Or, excuse me, the new weight rooms and facilities you have. It's incredible.

It's state of the art. We have the McCreary Field House. Now we've got the Sutton Sports Performance Center. We just opened up the McCreary Nutrition Center. Our facilities, our weight room, are now as good as anywhere in the country, and Wake has made a major commitment to be competitive in football, and I'm grateful for it. Dave, I appreciate you dropping by here in Charlotte. We'll be seeing you very soon.

Sounds good. Thanks, Josh. That's Wake head coach, Dave Klaue. We're now sitting down with Scott Satterfield, new Louisville head coach, and it's still weird for me to say that, considering how many Appalachian State fans are in our audience, Winston-Salem, Greensboro, and beyond, and how often we were talking about your Mountaineers. Has it sunk in yet for you that it's Louisville head coach Scott Satterfield? No, it has.

It has. The last six or seven months, I feel like it's been a few years. It's hard as we've been working. There's a lot of work that needs to be done there, and we've got a great staff. We've got a lot of hardworking people, and everybody's pulling in the same direction. And we all know the lifeline is recruiting, and we've been really working extremely hard in recruiting for the 2020 class as we move forward, 2021.

And then at the same time, we're working on this team that we have right now, and that's Coach Mike and the strength staff and what they've been doing in the weight room during the summer and running and all that, because we all know that's how you build championship-caliber teams. Considering how long you lived in Boone, was there a moment that kind of hit you where you said, man, I'm not going to be living in this place anymore? Well, yeah. I don't know if it was one particular moment, but I think once you decide, hey, you're going to be somewhere else, then it kind of hits you. You're like, man, I'm 46, and so 23 years I spent in Boone, North Carolina.

Half your life. That's half my life, and I love that place. I love the Mount. I always will, and we'll get back every year. I'll always come back there and visit and be a part of that community because of the love that I have for it. And that's where I got my start, as a football player and then as a coach.

And so you're always going to have a special place in your heart for it. And now we've got a different challenge. Now we're playing in an Atlantic Coast Conference, a conference that to me is one of the best in the country that has tremendous talent, tremendous coaches, and every week is going to be a challenge. There's not any gimmes in this league. So it's a different set of challenges, but we're excited for it.

I just know it's going to take a little bit of time to get it built up, and we'll see how it goes. As somebody who grew up in North Carolina, right in the heart of ACC country, right outside Chapel Hill, what does this league mean to you? I love it because I grew up playing at Hillandale, which is in Durham, and every Saturday in the fall we had a concession stand in Wallace Wade Stadium at Duke. We had to sell ten programs as players to get in free.

So I grew up going to all Duke football games growing up. What was your tactic to try and sell them to get in? Well, I just put that little face on, hey, why did you sell these, man? I got to get in this game.

And people would buy them. It wasn't a dollar or something. So we didn't have much problem getting that.

You got to hustle a little bit. But I just love ACC football. I just grew up loving it and watching it as a kid. So those things that we all know as a kid, whatever gets inside of you, you always have a special place in your heart for it. And so now to be a head coach in this league, like when I went to the ACC meetings in spring, I was like, man, this is cool. I'm sitting here. These are the schools that I admired growing up, and I'm a part of it.

So it's pretty awesome. Was that old Steve Spurrier Duke back then? Yeah, he was the OC back then. He was the offensive coordinator. My goodness. Yeah, that's a long time ago.

And this is like right around the late 70s, early 80s. But then again, while you might feel old thinking that, Scott Brown probably was right around the Chapel Hill, and yet here he is. Yeah, he's back now. It's crazy how things come back around. How often have you returned to Boone? I was there just a couple weeks ago, so we still have our house there and probably will end up keeping that.

There's not a better place to go in the summertime than up in the high country. Scott Satterfield with us here, Louisville head coach. I told you this story last night. When the news broke that you accepted the Louisville head coaching job, our phone lines, 10, 15 deep-blooded with people wanting to talk about it, and I'm thinking, oh, my goodness, these are people upset Appalachian State fans.

Not at all. Every single one of them positive talking about what you meant to that town and meant to Appalachian State. When you made the decision and you heard the feedback and the response, what did that mean? Well, I think everyone knows how passionately I love App State and all the blood, sweat, and tears that I put into that program.

I mean, I wanted to be successful in anything in the country. And then it's a sad day when you leave. And it was.

It was a sad day for me to have to leave and to go. But I think the fans knew that, and their admiration for me of what I meant for that program, I appreciate that. I went back and met with our players that morning before I left and told them that I was taking the job, and they all stood up and clapped. You know, that usually doesn't happen when you leave a place, but I think they all knew what a great opportunity it was for me.

And just on a personal level, they were happy for me. I think, you know, take the football out of it. You know, it's more about life and a great opportunity, because we all know, I mean, you know, the opportunity, you know, to coach in the highest level of football, a chance to compete for national championships. I mean, we got a team right on our side in this league that just won a national championship. So, I mean, I'm all about trying to win championships, and I think this is an opportunity here where we can compete for championships.

But, you know, again, it's just a tough day, but life goes on and you try to continue to grow and be the best you can be. Did that response surprise you, though? Well, you know, you never know how people are going to react. I would have hoped that people would be that way. You know, and there are probably some fans out there, at-state fans that were mad, you know, that we left. But all I can say is that, you know, I gave everything that I ever had for that school, and that's all anybody can ever do. And, you know, but I'm so appreciative of my time there and all the fans and support. We helped grow that university. Not only football, but the university of what we did on the football field. And I'm proud of that and proud to have been a part of that.

Last thing for you, Scott. I want to talk about something going on with your current program, Louisville. The big story of the day has been the ACC Network and what's going on. You go from App State and the Sunbelt to the ACC, and now you have all-access cameras around you.

All-access, Satterfield, Louisville show here. It's been like a job. Well, it's awesome.

You know, I mean, T.A. Films, we've been there a long time, and he does phenomenal work. And, you know, we're approached by that. We're like, heck yeah, man, let's do it. Let's come in, because I know what he's going to put out there is going to be awesome. We have nothing to hide. You know, we try to do everything right and on board, and I think it's going to be outstanding for the fans of Louisville, but really just football fans in general throughout the country, because, you know, any time, and I love it.

If I see anything all-access or behind the scenes for any other program, I like it. It's entertaining, you know, and so I think it'll be entertaining. It'll be a fun look and see how we do things.

And, you know, the last time that we kind of did something like this was in 07 leading up to, you know, playing Michigan, so that'd be a good omen if we could have something like that happen leading up to playing Notre Dame. Thanks for doing so much for our show. We appreciate that back when you were at Appalachian State. Look forward to seeing you sometime soon. Congratulations, Scott. Thank you very much. Appreciate you. We'll head coach Scott Satterfield.