Biscuits and Juice (12-8-22)

He's amused Cam Newton. He's been insulted by Charles Barkley. When some idiot in the press asked him, if you know what you know now, what you scheduled this game.

He's interviewed Matthew McConaughey. I do say go Tar Heel. And he's taken on Big Blue Nation.

He's just completely taken the wind out of my sandwich. It's time for The Drive with Josh Grant. You are on a Thursday Drive WSJS, new Stonksports for the Triad, where it feels like college football fans make decisions sound a lot harder than they really are.

Take last week, perfect example. Going into the weekend, all the smart people including us, or at least we like to think we're pretty smart, we were all telling you throughout the week, regardless of what TCU does in the conference championship game, they are in. Yet when they lose in overtime, WD and I, we were at games when that happened.

I was walking in out of the parking deck towards Bank of America Stadium for Tar Heel's Clemson. My phone explodes with fans texting me and tweeting me, Roll Tide, they're in, why not Tennessee? So on and so forth, when the reality was always this simple. The top three were set, and if USC lost like it did, Ohio State would sneak in. So fans can make an easy make an easy decision a lot harder than it needs to be. And the same thing's happening with the Heisman debate. Oh, Stetson Bennett is the only finalist to win a conference championship. Because of Caleb Williams' fingernails last week, the voters are going to be more likely to lean Max Duggan, who's a lot more likable than Caleb.

This is why you should always rely on common sense before you rely on the internet and social media. The Heisman decision is not difficult. It's not a difficult one, and we got a major indicator of that today. Caleb Williams was named AP Player of the Year, and over the last 20 years, only two times did the winner of that award not win the Heisman Trophy. It hasn't happened since Christian McCaffrey in 2015, and frankly, he should have won the award over Derrick Henry that year.

Caleb Williams is going to win the Heisman, and he should because he's the most valuable player in the country. That was laid bare in Las Vegas last week. Before he suffered a hamstring injury, they were up 14 to 3, and my wife was going to bed thinking, Josh, that Utah pick you gave last week, we're right on the show today. That wasn't really good. That Utah pick doesn't look very good. I'm sorry, babe. She went to bed thinking, 14 to 3?

Yeah, you were wrong about that one. Utah's gonna get smoked. Tell him to bring me my money.

That's what I said back to her the next day. Graham's gamble ends in about 10 minutes because after Caleb Williams' injury, Utah overwhelmed the Trojans. They had nobody else who could pull on the rope. When USC's running back, Travis Dye went out about a month ago. They asked Caleb Williams not only to be the passer, but be the leading rusher, too. He had four rushing touchdowns against Notre Dame and UCLA.

Remember that when folks say, Who is Caleb Williams played? UCLA's good. Notre Dame's good. Utah's good.

Played them twice. Without a healthy Caleb Williams and without Dye, they could not run the ball. All year long, Caleb Williams carried this team that did not have a defense.

There are a hundred and thirty teams in FBS football. USC was a hundred and second in total defense, and they made it to the Pac-12 title game. They were the number four team going into conference championship weekend, a win away from making the college football playoff.

And that's because of this guy. It's similar to what Drake May did if Drake May could hold up over the Georgia Tech, NC State, and Clemson games. USC was not supposed to contend right now. It wasn't supposed to happen immediately for Lincoln Riley. The only reason it did was because he had the quarterback. That is evidence of just how valuable Caleb Williams is.

He, his presence, transformed a program that's largely been dormant over the last dozen years. And his stats? They're superior to the other finalists. He has 37 passing touchdowns, 10 rushing. That's 47 touchdowns. He only has four interceptions. None of those other finalists have fewer than that. 47 touchdowns, though. That is 10 more than Duggan. That is 20 more than Stetson Bennett.

This is not hard. Caleb Williams is the Heisman Trophy winner. They give you a ballot. I am not a Heisman voter, like Connor O'Neill who was in here yesterday. But they give you a ballot and they ask you for your top three. For me, it would be Caleb Williams won, Max Duggan two, Stetson Bennett three. That's how I would vote out of the four candidates here. I did submit my politically cough. There you go.

That's what I was waiting for. Really tough decision between Jalen Hyatt, Tennessee, who had a better year than Marvin Harrison Jr. Marvin Harrison Jr. seems to be the better receiver out of the two. I voted for Hyatt.

You got to reward these guys for what they actually do on the field, not the potential that they have. Caleb Williams should win the Heisman, and he's going to. On Twitter at wsjsradio, if you want in.

336-777-1600 is the phone number. Will Dalton, the executive producer of this show, taking your calls at 777-1600. Baker Mayfield started the week as a member of the Carolina Panthers, yet tonight he's likely going to be playing for the LA Rams in a game that you can listen to right here on WSJS. And especially since neither the Rams or Raiders are all that interesting, I anticipate Baker is going to be a primary storyline tonight, and he's not going to be painted all that well.

It'll likely be framed by Herb Street, Kirk Herb Street, and Al Michaels this kind of way. Look at this all-time great college quarterback, former number one pick. Look at the fall of Baker Mayfield, and what a quick and massive fall it has been. Just think about how it ended in Cleveland earlier this year. This is his third football team he's on in the same calendar year.

It's staggering. When he was drafted by Cleveland, the Browns had won one game in the previous two years. Baker took that team in just a couple of seasons to the playoffs, to 12 wins, to beating their greatest rival by a ton in their place in the playoffs.

You'd think that's enough to build the Browns a statue. A year later, he's being discarded, smeared, being called a child. We want an adult at quarterback. Here's the guy who has 25 sexual assault allegations.

Let's bring that guy in here. He's more of an adult than Baker Mayfield is. We're gonna give him a record guaranteed contract, even though he can't play for us for the first dozen games. That's how little they thought of Baker Mayfield a year removed of taking them to the playoff. So then Baker becomes a panther and Baker was released because he was outplayed by Sam Darnold and PJ Walker.

He wasn't even good enough to be the backup. Think about that idea. Think about going back in time and telling July yourself that sentence.

Oh, yeah, Baker's gonna get released in December because he got outplayed by PJ Walker and Sam Darnold. What? What are you talking about?

To quote Winston-Salem state grad Stephen A. Smith, get off the weed! That's where our show's broadcast from. Where was that again?

Curtisville! Yeah, just in case you didn't know. So when PJ got healthy, Wilkes, Steve Wilkes, who was a guest on Yesterday Show, went to Baker and told him the news and they decided to part amicably to mutually part ways as Steve Wilkes outlined here. He felt and we felt we wanted to give him again, an opportunity to be able to seek whatever him and his agent felt would be the best for them. Again, he has been nothing but a professional for us.

So I wanted to extend that courtesy. Which is classy, but if you're Baker, you are not set up for success tonight, brother. Tonight shaping up to be bad. And here's what makes it sad. He's gonna be wearing the number 17.

That hurts my heart. Great college player, underdog, wearing number six. Everywhere you've been, now you're just given a number. Here's 17 and we're gonna throw you out there because Wake Forest's great, John Walford's hurt, and Stafford's on IR. I know you just arrived late Monday night, but here you go. Or it would have been Tuesday night.

Here you go. Let's start you up against the Raiders. So he's gonna be front and center. There's no other game going on.

So, of course, it's gonna be the most important thing and he's not gonna play well because he's not set up for success and he's also a polarizing guy who's on his third team in the same calendar year. So expect that tonight that the framing is going to be the fall of Baker Mayfield and the game's not gonna go all that well. Give me the Raiders by multiple scores. The perfect blend of sports and pop culture happens this evening at six with the Rich Eisen Show. Okay, let's get this show rolling. Now back to the drive with Josh Graham. Our high school football state championship coverage starts on Friday night with Grimsley facing New Bern.

That's not all we've got. Saturday morning. Breakfast in football. It's gonna be Reedsville versus East Duplin. And the head coach of the Reedsville Rams joins us now, Jimmy Teague. 22 state championships in Reedsville's history. 28 now make it 29 state championship appearances. But coach, last year was not one of those state championship seasons.

In fact, it was the first time since 2016 that your team didn't win a state title. How much was last year a motivator for this year's group? I wouldn't call it a motivator, but I know we were all disappointed in how last year ended up, you know. Mainly because we didn't play very well against a really good Shelby team and, you know, if we'd have gone down there and played well and lost, we'd probably still not been real happy.

We'd have felt better about it. I think, you know, especially for us as a staff, this year our goal has always been to make sure we got the guys as prepared as they possibly can be. Each playoff game, so that when we walk off the field, win loads of draws, we won't feel like that we didn't get them prepared and didn't get them ready to play like we should have. You've coached your fair share of state champions. When did you know that this group had the championship caliber to get to this stage? Because the season opened up with that tight loss to Paige, then had a tight one a couple weeks after that. Since then, though, you guys have been rolling 14 in a row with, you know, the last six being decided by 20 plus. When did you know that this team was this kind of good? Well, we thought all along that we had enough talent to be really good.

And, you know, obviously talent doesn't necessarily make you a good football team. And I think after the Eastern Homemats game, when we came back to win that game, I felt like we had enough character because that's one of the things you always worry about is, you know, when things aren't going good, I think it reveals character more so than when things are going good. And so we had some issues, obviously, when we played Paige, and then we're having some more against Eastern Homemats, and our guys rallied and found a way to win that game against Eastern Homemats. And I think that kind of got us going. And again, we've gotten better every week, I think, since then.

We've got to continue to get better this week if we're going to have another chance to win this thing. Do you believe you can coach character? Absolutely. You can absolutely coach character. You know, I think, especially as high school coaches, one of our goals always is to help these guys become men. You know, so we do a study each year, you know, to help guys learn how to be men.

And, you know, I think definitely absolutely can be taught. You were playing for your 23rd state championship in school's history. This is the 29th state championship appearance in Reidsville's program history. Jimmy Teague joining us, the head coach of the Rams that are facing East Ooplin right here on WSGS on Saturday morning, 11 a.m. And here's how I knew just about the reach of your program. I was in Charlotte talking to ACC football coaches and players, and a guy who's been in the news quite a bit the last week, Bill Hancock, who is the executive director of the college football playoff nationally, I told him where I was from and he said, is Reidsville right down the road from there?

Oh, yeah, they're the Rams, man. They got quite a program. I wonder for you, given how many hundreds of wins you've had and all these state championships, what is the most satisfying part of building this program when you reflect on how far this program's come under your leadership? Again, the most satisfying thing for us is when a kid goes and graduates, he comes back and either is a contributor in our community or a contributor somewhere else, and looking back, you know, thinking that we had a hand in helping these young guys grow into men, you know, each year during the playoffs, you know, we have an opportunity because a lot of our guys do come back in the playoffs. And so seeing those guys and seeing them be successful when they grow up, that's by far the most satisfying thing for us. And, you know, again, like I just said a minute ago, we want these guys to become men.

And so that's obviously the most satisfying thing for us. Who's the guy that's on the top of your mind right now as you say that, as an example of I coached this guy and I saw him recently and look how successful he's become? Jaren Rankin was just by last week. He started out, you know, at West Salem State and then got into the highway patrol. And now he's graduating, going to work some kind of security thing for the military.

You know, when he finished his degree, his class is down in Georgia. Just a few weeks ago, he stopped by to say hello and, you know, give us all a hug. And that's the one that I guess stands out. But there's a bunch more like that. But, you know, he's the one just recently that stood out.

We hadn't seen him in a while. Last thing for Jimmy Teague here. Roy Williams will say, sometimes my questions are unusual.

Steve Forbes says sometimes they're funny. But when you kick off a game at 11 a.m., a state championship game Saturday, when do you go to bed Friday night? When do you wake up Saturday morning?

Yeah, that's obviously a little bit of a challenge for our guys. You know, you're typically playing at seven o'clock. But we've already talked to them about, you know, they got to get in bed Friday night earlier than they normally do and get a good night's rest. And so probably Thursday night is also probably just as important for getting them ready for that.

Saturday morning is Friday night is. So hopefully they realize how important this weekend is for us. And it's important that they get some rest Thursday, really Thursday night and Friday night.

And we've already talked to them about it. You know, we can't we can't be there holding our hand to make them go to bed. But hopefully they understand how important it is and get a good night's rest. We're going to bring them in about 645 Saturday morning, give them a biscuit and some juice and a little fruit and head down to Chapel Hill.

So, you know, the good thing about it, you don't have to sit around all day and get butterflies. You get up and you go play. Give them a biscuit, some juice and let's go win a state championship. I love it.

All right, Jimmy Teague, enjoy your biscuit, enjoy your juice. And we look forward to listening on Saturday as you take on East Duplin. Best of luck. We're going to be rooting for you. I appreciate it. Thank you.

It's outstanding. Jimmy Teague joining us again. We'll be on air at 1030 a.m. on Saturday. 11 a.m. kick for Reedsville football, going for their 23rd state championship.

W.D. That's pretty good. This is how I want to start my day. If I'm wondering how I should start my day and when I should start my day, this is exactly how I want to. We're going to bring them in about 645 Saturday morning. Give them a biscuit and some juice and a little fruit and head down to Chapel Hill.

So the good thing about it, you don't have to sit around all day. I forgot about the juice. Forgot about juice. So some biscuit, some juice. No, I forgot about the fruit. Gotta have the fruit. Forgot to ask what kind of fruit.

Yeah. What are we eating? Apples? Apple slices?

That's what we're going for. I like pineapple. Man.

Big pineapple guy. Team from Duplin. Not going to know what hit them. This team fueled on juice and biscuits. About to hit them in the mouth. That's right.

That's all biscuit there, buddy. Okay. As promised, I've narrowed my list of NFL contenders to six. These are the teams I can see potentially winning a Super Bowl. That is it to say, other teams can't win a couple of playoff games, maybe make a surprise run to the championship game. These are the teams I can see playing for a Super Bowl or winning a Super Bowl.

It's down to six, but before I list off the six, let me do the process of elimination and let me know, let you know what teams I've knocked off here. If you have a quarterback or a coach with no playoff experience, you're out. Miami has both. Tua and Coach McDaniel. Minnesota has a first year head coach.

Plus I'm not a big Kirk Cousins guy. They're both out. Injuries eliminate Tampa Bay and San Francisco. Too many offensive linemen going down for the Bucks. So while Tom Brady probably going to figure out a way to win the NFC South, so he doesn't close out his NFL career or maybe even just his Tampa tenure. Some out there are suggesting he might make a return to New England. I keep hearing those whispers over the last few weeks.

That this might be his last year with the Bucks. I've heard that. And then, you know, go back, go back to Foxboro. It's not like you're married anymore. No, don't have that to deal with. Yeah, to deal with.

Look at you. Injuries eliminate Tampa and San Francisco. San Francisco right now is leaning on Brock Purdy. Oh, but there's a chance Jimmy G could return. Wouldn't bank on that. Don't think it's going to happen. Even if it did, it's probably going to be during the playoffs and the guy would not have played for two months coming off a broken foot. Sorry.

Hate it. San Francisco is a team that would have been a contender too if Jimmy G were healthy. Injuries eliminate the Bucks and 49ers. They're both out. The Titans and Chargers are out because they're two teams not playing the type of ball they need to at this time of year. Tennessee has lost two in a row. The Chargers are six and six.

Six and six. And again, they have a quarterback that's never played in the postseason and a coach that's never played in the postseason. So they're out as well.

They're out as well. That leads me to the six teams I could see winning a Super Bowl or getting to the Super Bowl. In the NFC, there are two teams and they're in the same division, Dallas and Philadelphia. One of those two teams will be playing for the Super Bowl. Dallas or Philadelphia.

And here's the thing. I really like Dallas. Everybody's talking Philly. I really like Philly. Because, you know, if you have this, this is the one exception to the first coach with no playoff. Actually, no, the Eagles made the playoffs last year, so that's why they're not eliminated by my own rules that I'm setting here. I like Philly, too.

Don't get me wrong. These are the two teams, but between the two, don't be surprised if it's Dallas. And then in the AFC four, Kansas City, Cincinnati, Buffalo and the light add Baltimore. Just because I think the team's so good and Lamar's gonna come back, can't write off the Baltimore Ravens. No, those are the six. Anybody else that you would add to that list that you just can't write off right now? Not to say you think they're going to win it all, but you think we shouldn't write them off just yet. That Cincinnati pick, that looks pretty good. Wasn't my question.

What was the question? Anybody else I should add to the list other than these six? No, I think you've got it right there. So as of now, San Francisco being out, writing them off Minnesota, Miami, the Bucks, Titans and Chargers. I'm cool with it.

That's what we're rolling with. I'm trying to think of the one when the sun was in the hospital. Oh, John Q. John Q. That was the movie Steve Wilkes recommended WD watch that he has not seen yet. We already had inside man down as a Denzel movie that WD had to watch last night.

So we turned it into a double feature. It's the second and third appearances for Denzel Washington on at the movies. I'd venture to say we've made you watch more Denzel movies than for any other actor.

Maybe Pacino? No. Did we make you watch Scarface?

No, not yet. Wait. Yeah, we did do Scarface. You would remember.

I do. We did do Scarface. But we've done more Denzel.

You watch Godfather one and two, which are both Pacino movies, and you watched obviously Scarface, so it's three and three, even in that regard. And then when you finally get around to watching Heat. That that's that'll break the tie. That'd be another movie there. So let's get into it.

Then we'll circle back to the Heisman debate and what's going on with Chapel Hill with their offensive coordinator, Phil Longo, leaving yesterday. It's time for at the movies. Unless you're talking about Star Wars. movies aren't exactly Will's thing, but that's about to change because Josh can't stand it anymore. This is at the movies with Will Dalton. We're going to do it a little bit differently rather than just going through all the categories for both of them.

And this being a 20 minute segment. I'm going to ask you, which of these two movies did you like more? First off, what order did you watch them inside man and then John Q back to back back to back? Did you take a break in between the two?

No. What time did you start the first one? I started this around nine o'clock last night.

Then you finished up close to one 32 o'clock about two o'clock. So I'm a little tired today, but which movie did you like more and why I think I liked inside man more. I agree with that. Now I'm going to ask you this, which bank robbery between this and the town was better executed or just more shocking or. Well, there are multiple bank robberies. In the town and obviously at the very end, that bank robbery was not executed well.

So the obvious answer is inside man from beginning the end, it was executed well, aside from the fact at the very end of the movie, you have everybody that's part of the gang in the car waiting for the guy to walk out. That's not suspicious. Hey, those are a few of the hostages that are all in the same car together.

They're all in the same car together. I get it. You have to do it to make the movie and you have him walking right by Denzel in the, in the lobby before he left. I understand you do it for the movie. It makes it a better movie and I love Spike Lee's movies, but that's not probably the smartest execution. And that was the piece that I probably didn't like about this movie was how like kind of unbelievable that was at the end. That's just a little small piece that doesn't take away from the execution of everything.

Not at all, not at all. But you liked inside man more because. Because the robbery was executed so brilliantly. Like they had hostages.

All of the hostages in the bank were dressed as the robbers. Is your enjoyment of the movie based on how good the robbery is? Like Dog Day Afternoon doesn't go well.

You haven't seen that. That's another Pacino movie for Down the Line and The Town. It wasn't executed well at the end either. I mean, it was. Or Point Break, but as an effect, the enjoyment of the movie, sometimes characters are flawed and things don't go well. I would say in this case that that was what made me like this movie.

Like they, they pulled us off fantastically. Sure. Makes you wonder why the actor Clive Owen didn't go on to really have much of a movie star career at all.

Because I was reading like people were raving about this performance from him. Yeah. So.

And a big part of the problem is, this is my theory. The entire movie, he has a mask on. Right. Oh, that's Clive Owen. How do you know that's Clive Owen? Oh, he's from Inside Man. When do you see Clive Owen's face other than one or two scenes in the movie? Great performance, but his face is covered the entire time.

Flipping it. What did you not like about John Q? This movie was so depressing. See, I never felt that way. It was so sad. And then again, from the get, I mean, Bradford was sitting next to me.

We were eating dinner as I was watching this last night. Right. And she starts crying. See, she gets it. She gets it and you're a sap.

You should get it too. Or maybe you've just seen it so many times. You're a little bit numb.

Yeah. Relationship movies are the ones that generally move me. Maybe if I had a kid, it might change my perspective.

It might. The scene where he's talking to the son before he's about. He's thinking he's about to have the heart transplant. I mean, that's the scene that got Sarah Bradford. Like I'm watching this and as I'm taking my notes, like I'm preparing for just the first part of the movie to be what depressed me, not realizing this is going to stretch out the whole way.

And that scene where he's like basically saying goodbye and be a man and big, you know, all all the things you would tell your son before, you know, you're gone. I think it's you say what's a better executed bank robbery, the town or inside man. You should be asking what's a better executed bank robbery.

John Q or inside man, because it was a bank robbery minus the bank. Right. He got hospital. He yes, he got the the the ransom.

The money was getting the transplant for the kid. Right. And he got it. And he didn't have to shoot anybody.

And he won the hearts of the nation. Now, a little suspicious of how the TV cameras and all that were able to infiltrate audio and do all that. But that's just fine. Again, movie making tactic money, minor detail.

I'll answer your question. Better operated a better executed robbery. John Q better than inside man in terms of the robbery itself. In terms of what he got.

But then again, he did get caught and went to jail for two years. And and and I'm going to say because of that reason. Inside man was done better because it felt like a bigger scale.

And they got away with it. The music affected me in a negative way. And John Q, a few times there was the scene, the montage of him trying to raise the money and constantly had his hands on his head. And it was like this emotional music like.

Something like that. Didn't really like that much. It made me laugh out loud when I saw the montage. OK, rotten tomato scores. Can you get between can you get within five points of each of these inside man or actually best quote? Yeah, I was going to say we forgot that best quote from these movies.

For inside man, I actually had two written down. I bet you can get a cab, though. There's that one.

That's not a pina colada was my favorite. And you may ask yourself why. Well, it's because I can.

Yeah, take a picture. It will last longer. That was a good whole way that she said it. Fantastic.

That's a hundred percent Albanian. And then from John Q. From now on, free health care for everybody. How's that?

You know how easy it is to get a gun in this country in five minutes? Boom gun show. All right. Inside man, rotten tomato score.

What do you got? I'm going to go with a 90. Eighty five. Right. Right there. Right there. Right there. John Q. Eighty eight.

Seventy eight. Good job. Good effort. Thank you.

Double feature. We pulled it off. We need to figure out what you're watching next week. As of right now, we're thinking heat.

I don't get a say in the matter, so no, you don't. Even though I would say let's go with heat. That's been at the movies for today. Ross Martin is going to join us from inside Carolina in about five minutes. But before he gets here, this will level up. This will Levis NFL draft stuff is just going to make my head explode. Yesterday, Matt Miller, an ESPN draft analyst. Had Levis ranked higher in his evaluation than Bryce Young. And he compared him to Matthew Stafford.

Armed talent, WD, armed talent. Big time. Mel Kiper today released his big board for the draft. The guys that he likes the most now that the regular season and championship week is in the books and number one on the list might shock you. Jalen Carter from Georgia.

That really shouldn't surprise you. Will Anderson Jr. from Alabama. Edgerusher.

Great edge draft. He's number two. Number three is Will Levis. Levis is ranked in front of Bryce Young. And ranked in front of CJ Stroud.

This is what Mel Kiper wrote in his evaluation. Levis's stats aren't going to blow you away, but he doesn't have a great supporting cast to playmakers around him. He has 19 touchdown passes and 10 interceptions this season and his 60.3 QPR ranks 61st in the country. But when I went through all his starts at Kentucky earlier this year, I was really impressed with his game. Levis has a rocket launcher for an arm.

That actually sounds better than armed talent. And makes some wow throws. That has gotten the Penn State transfer into trouble at times. But it's clear watching him that he believes he can fit the ball into any window and my comparison for him is Matthew Stafford. Levis plays in a pro-style offense at Kentucky. He's not going to need much time to adjust to the NFL. He can maneuver in the pocket and throw in the run. Many of his turnovers came when he tried to use his arm to force throws and he's going to be punished for mistakes at the next level. Levis is the real deal, though, and there are a lot of fans of him in the NFL. Decision-making.

That is a problem. We're not denying that the guy has a lot of confidence in Levis. The guy has, quote, a rocket launcher for a right arm. He can really throw it.

He looks the part. But this is something that draft people do. It's only draft people. And this is with all due respect to Matthew, not to Matthew Stafford, to Mel Kiper. You probably do need to put more respect on Matthew Stafford's name. I hate it.

I know why they do it, but I hate it. When every draft, NBA or NFL, the mocks, they're never for the middle tier player. It's never, you know who this guy's going to be? This guy's going to be Shaq Thompson. You know what this guy reminds me of?

He reminds me a lot of AJ Terrell. Just thinking of random players. We're pretty good.

Pretty good. If you're first round, you're supposed to be pretty good. It's never that guy. It's always, here's the Super Bowl winning quarterback that this guy reminds me of. This guy reminds me a lot of Tom Brady personally. This guy reminds me a lot of Peyton Manning.

Stop! Ah, the comp is Matthew Stafford for Will Levis. Just ignore the fact, 19 touchdowns to 10 interceptions and that he's had a bad year. That doesn't mean that he's not going to be a good pro.

It just means putting him over Bryce Young, it's infuriating. But Josh, he's six foot 194. How short is Kyler Murray? And if Kyler Murray was in this draft, you'd take him number one right now too. How tall is he? How tall is Russell Wilson?

We could go through it. Bryce Young, every time I watch that guy play, I think he's really good. I think he's awesome and sometimes we can just overthink this because there's a difference between college guy and NFL guy. College football, you know, the college football fan doesn't, there are some that don't watch a lot of NFL if you work in the sport and vice versa.

Something we talk about with Ryan McGee all the time from ESPN and Ryan, he'll always joke. When people would say Jalen Hurts, who saw that one coming? Ah, college football fans who watched him play at Oklahoma and watched him play at Alabama. They saw that coming. Oh man, nobody thought this guy was going to be any good unless, unless here's a thought, you watched college football, then you would know.

I rest my case. Getting to college football. Ross Martin inside Carolina joins us. Grimsley Whirly alum, we're carrying the state championship game tomorrow night. And we've got the Reedsville game on Saturday morning, but there's a lot going on in Chapel Hill.

W.D., our producer here is a Carolina fan. He's having a tough go with the basketball team losing four in a row. Football getting drilled last Saturday. Karen Shelton retiring after the national championship, the women's soccer loss, and now Phil Longo. Storm duck hitting the portal. Yeah, that's something that the last couple of days we kind of expected. I'm sure Ross Martin and company all over this with inside Carolina.

Let's start here. Was it the job that Phil Longo took that made him decide to leave or was he always going to jump after this season? Combination of factors I imagine. You know, I thought Wisconsin's kind of surprising, but when you step back, you know, it makes some sense, you know, Big Ten is bigger times football than UNC, Wisconsin's bigger times football than UNC. He has a relationship with Luke Fickel, it's a fresh start. He's been at UNC for four years, and that's pretty long for a coordinator with his level of success. And, you know, I don't know the inner workings completely with the staff, but with him, his relationship with Mac Brown or him with other coaches and everything, but, you know, it was I'm sure making more money as well as his wife is from Wisconsin. So a lot of factors in play that prompted Phil Longo to leave UNC for Wisconsin. He's on Twitter at RossMartin underscore IC.

Inside Carolina is going to have a YouTube stream tonight at nine o'clock. If you want some more information on a lot of this stuff, if you do it better than IC does, here's a question I've had with Mac Brown being the oldest coach in college football. Has he handpicked anyone you think on his staff to potentially be a successor whenever that time comes? Or do you think that's something he hasn't even thought about? I don't think he is handpicked a successor on his staff. I don't think a coaching waiting thing is really a thing after what happened with him in Texas with the name escapes me, the Will Muschamp. I don't think the coaching waiting thing is healthy or good for anybody. You know, Mac gets one extra year to his contract every year. So he has a kind of a rolling five year contract. He's not in coach forever. But I mean, I don't I want to be surprised if he retires, you know, after this year or after next year. But I also want to be surprised if he keeps going at it for two or three more years. And he's the same age as Nick Saban, 70, 71.

Got tons of energy. But we'll see. This is a lot happening at one time for UNC right now. It's just a lot going on. And so I think after the bowl game, there'll be a bigger reset with looks at the whole staff, defense included and offense coordinator position. Who knows? That might be filled in very shortly within the week because I have a sense that Mac knew this was coming with Longo.

But we'll see. What an odd time. You're right. Mac Brown, 71, 71 years old. Nick Saban, Saban, born in October. Mac Brown, born in August, a couple months older than Nick. But those are the two oldest coaches in college football. Currently, Ross Martin's joining us here and getting to that job.

There are some names you can point to easily that are linked to Mac. Seth Luttrell that was just fired after North Texas went to a bowl. That makes sense. Maybe Major Applewhite, who was Houston's head coach a few years ago and a play caller. Graham Harrell's a name I see a lot of people throwing around.

Who makes the most sense to you? Yeah, Graham Harrell. You know, he I think he almost took the job before USC offered back in 2019.

So Mac has a relationship with him and has interviewed him before. Now, Graham Harrell has not had too much success at USC. He's kind of attached himself to some head coaches who've been out the door at West Virginia right now. The O.C., I think the head coach at West Virginia has maybe one more year. He wasn't a hot seat all this year. So he's got the hottest name in terms of offensive production. Seth Luttrell makes sense. You know, his last job before North Texas was the O.C. for Larry Fedora in 15 and 16.

Two of the best offenses, you know, in the last 10 years of UNC football. You know, you hear Kevin John, the O.C. at Duke. And there's just tons of names. He's interviewed Kevin Johns before, I think, for an O.C. job.

Definitely check out Inside Carolina for a lot of information there. There's tons of names. But you got to step back and say this is one of the premier offensive coordinator jobs out there right now. So look at which young air raid offensive coordinators who had success in the last two or three years would want to come and coach Drake May.

Because you have a you have a star right there. You have probably four or five returning offensive linemen. You have all the returning running backs. You lose Josh Downs and Antoine Green, but you return a decent amount of wide receivers.

And I think they'll get a couple guys in the Porter as well. So it is, the offense is set for a really good offensive coordinator to come in. So it's a hot job. I think it's a very desirable job.

You know, Chapel Hill is not a bad place to move young family and raise kids. So there's a lot of Macs to be able to find a really, really good coordinator out there. Yeah, Kevin Johns. That's an interesting name that I hadn't thought of. But you're right.

Seeing it. Yeah, he interviewed once before. And that would be such a great storyline, an interesting one. If he went from Duke as their O.C. to North Carolina. OK, he wouldn't have to move.

He wouldn't have to move. You would not know that I've heard rumors that they're eight miles apart. That's what I hear. Ross, basketball real quick. What is the temperature right now? You guys do a great job of, you know, measuring the pulse of North Carolina fans at Inside Carolina. How would you describe the general tenor right now among the fan base of what they've seen?

Man, I've been locked into football. But yeah, four losses, not good. They haven't beaten a good team. They haven't beaten the Power Five team.

There is just a lot of confusion. Why is this not working? It's the preseason number one team. You've got a preseason ACC play of the year.

Armando Baycott, Caleb Love, R.J. Davis. I mean, the roster's stacked. It's just not working right now. The offense is not flowing. Their assist numbers are like, I think they're outside the 300 in assists. They're not moving the ball. They're not making shots. They're really missing a standout shooter like Brady Manning, someone who can just sit in the corner and knock down four or five threes a game. You know, people expected a lot more and they're the quickest team to get out of the Hot 25 from number one.

So this is a big kind of stretch here. They can be Georgia Tech this weekend. That'd be a good kind of way to get back on track.

They have Fiddle at home. And then they have two more opportunities in the out of conference with, let's see, Michigan. So go Ohio State in New York and then Michigan. Those are your last chances to get some quality wins before ACC play really ramps up. So, yeah, I mean, people are upset. I mean, they expect this team to be undefeated, to be rolling. You know, Indiana was a tough, tough game. Maybe not win there, but other than that, they expect a lot more. So people are interested to see how and what Hubert Davis can do to get this thing rolling.

Oh, yeah, there's no doubt that fans are fired up right now. But, you know, you lose four games in an 11-day span. I know Hubert Davis excited to get back to practice and have only two games, both of them being at home against teams as you beat Georgia Tech and the Citadel before you have those two tests against Ohio State and Michigan towards the end of the non-conference slate. All right, Ross, tomorrow night, Grimsley Whirly football. B-Dot was sitting in here yesterday and he said he wished he had coach Darryl Brown as his coach when he was playing at Grimsley because, quote, we sucked when B-Dot was playing wide receiver. How fired up are you about the Whirlies going for two titles in three years?

Yeah, it's pretty cool. Yeah, we were not good when I was in school either. I don't think we won a home game. Grimsley football has not been great. They had a really good run there in 2006 to the national to the state championship game. And then, yeah, with Travis Shaw and a really talented quarterback, who I think is a JMU, they won in the COVID year, which was a spring 2021 championship or 2021.

It was weird. No, you got it. Yeah, yeah. Spring 21. Yeah.

And undefeated. I hope to be there. I think I'll be there tomorrow. It's literally four miles down the road. So I'll be there in Keon Stadium and it's exciting.

It's good to see how it's success. It is different watching, going from watching Drake May for 12 games, 13 games, watching high school football. That's definitely an adjustment. It's a little bit a different type of game, just like college NFL.

Yeah, it is a little different. On Twitter at RossMartin underscore IC. Thanks for doing this, Ross. Enjoy the football tomorrow and I'll see you out at the Smith Center sometime soon, I'm sure. All right. Appreciate it, Josh.