Wake The Nation

I'm still short on sleep after that Monday Night Football doubleheader. But Robert, I've pulled out my secret weapon for a quick pick-me-up. Some Mountain Dew.

I don't drink soda, so I am just wired right now. And here's something that's crazy to me. We've got our first ACC Big Four matchup of the year this weekend, and it still feels crazy early to expect the Wolfpack running up against the Demon Deacons this early on in the year. But even crazier than that, NC State is somehow the betting favorite on Saturday. And yes, I get perception drives point spreads, and that's always going to be an uphill battle for Wake Forest. But how many more times do the Deacs have to beat Dave Doran in order to be favored in this football game?

We suck. The Deacs absolutely should be favored. If I had to guess, right now, Wake Forest is going to win the game Saturday night.

It's an 8 o'clock kick on the ACC Network. The Deacs, they've owned the pack. Three straight wins. Last year, it wasn't even a contest. They won by a million. It was over in the second quarter.

2018. It was a Thursday night game, ESPN national broadcast, and Wake Forest was more banged up than I've ever seen them before. The Deacs, they had to run a slow pace. They were one of the faster pace teams in all of America, just like they were last year, but they ran a slower pace in this game because they were so limited on bodies.

Sam Hartman was out, Jamie Newman, it was his first career start. Defensively, God knows what they were throwing out there in the secondary, yet they still came from behind to beat NC State on Ryan Finley's senior night. And that was a good NC State team.

And they were even better in 2017. Wake Forest still got that punch out on the goal line and won in Winston-Salem. There is literally no home field advantage Saturday at Carter Finley. Wake does not have to get on a plane. There's no geographic advantage.

There are no fans in the stands. So it's going to be a completely even playing field. So why am I looking at the point spread right now and seeing NC State as a two and a half point favorite?

Somebody explain it to me. Another thing that I think we have to think about that we often didn't have to consider in the past, Wake Forest has already played a game. NC State was supposed to play Virginia Tech.

It didn't happen for COVID related reasons. I think this matters. Look at the big upsets we saw over the weekend and some of the ones that were close to being upsets. Arkansas State beating Big 12 school Kansas State. I think a reason why Arkansas State was sharper was because they played the previous week. They played the previous week and that's a pretty big deal to step out there and know, hey, you already got some snaps, especially considering they didn't have spring practice.

Many schools didn't and things have been upended left and right. UAB, they were more competitive than I thought they would be against Miami. Houston Baptist almost upset Texas Tech.

All these schools, what did they have in common? They played on September the 5th ahead of last weekend. Wake Forest, even though they got crushed by Clemson, a lot of guys got reps. They covered against the Tigers. Sam Hartman, I didn't think looked bad in the game.

Donovan Green, he was terrific. Wake Forest, they haven't had any of their practices disrupted. Now, I'm not saying this as a shot at NC State.

I'm not blaming them because kids are going to be kids and this is a really difficult time with the pandemic. But NC State has had their issues with the virus, which has limited their preparation, which is relevant to the last point here that the Deacons have far more continuity than State does. Sam Hartman, he has twice as many starts as Devin Leary, even though they're both sophomores. NC State, they're breaking in a new offensive coordinator and a new defensive coordinator. They've had an upended offseason, which means trying to install these systems, it has to be more difficult. Meanwhile, Wake Forest is still as helpful as the DC and Warren Ruggiero is still the offensive coordinator.

So I'm getting more experience at quarterback, more experience and continuity on the coaching staff. A team that's won three in a row against NC State, one that's coming off the season in which they went to a bowl versus another that won four games last year. No home field advantage. Why is NC State favored in this game?

3-3-6, 7-7-7, 1-600 is the number on Twitter at sportsubtriad. Andrew in Louisville, let's see if he has an answer. Andrew, what do you think about NC State being favored against this Demon-Deacon team?

Well, just to further elaborate your point, if I could, first of all, enjoy your show. Secondly, I'm an NC State fan and I guess I've set myself up for criticism. I think I represent a sizable number of NC State fans who quietly, if you were to get their private thoughts, they'd tell you, you know what? Dorrance is not the guy.

He's a nice guy. He needs to lose games to Wake Forest, a team that probably doesn't have as much talent. Just always comes into Raleigh and Winston-Salem just outsmarts the team. While they're favored, two and a half, to me that's nothing. To me, that's a toss-up. But if Wake Forest wins, you're not going to have a lot of broken-hearted NC State fans.

Yeah, I think protected hearts. Thanks for the call, Andrew. NC State fans at this point expecting bad things to happen to the Wolfpack, which is why we have this drop from our good friend. Where is our guy calling from? Is this Mike Enelken?

We suck. That is Mike. He has to make sure every time he calls in, he lets me know, hey, I'm not that Mike Enelken, I'm the we suck Mike Enelken. Ah, got it.

We have multiple Mikes that live in Elken. I want to transition things to another football game happening this weekend. The Carolina Panthers are going to be facing Tom Brady in his first home game as a Tampa Bay Buccaneer. And I'm seeing a lot of overreactions to Tom's first game, but how did we not all see this coming? This is a reason why I stayed far away from betting that game Sunday in New Orleans.

Tom's slow start should have been expected. The New Orleans Saints, when you think about them, it's often Sean Payton and Drew Brees that come to mind. And that's because of how football generally works, how it's sold, how it's advertised. Here's the star quarterback who's in all the commercials, and here's the coach that is the first one to hold the trophy when they won it in 2009. But the defense has been really strong the last few years now, and they don't nearly get enough credit. Cameron Jordan, who was taken in the first round, the same draft that the Panthers drafted Cam Newton. Sheldon Rankins on that defensive line. Marcus Lattimore, one of the best corners. They picked up Malcolm Jenkins this offseason. Dennis Allen, I don't hear him discussed in any of these head coaching openings. Maybe because of the way things are veering towards college-looking offenses or just having offensive-minded guys altogether. But he's a tremendous coordinator. And unlike Tampa, almost no turnover in the offseason, coaching staff and roster.

Tampa is trying to break rules in order to get on the field together and build chemistry, while the Saints are literally telling their guys, we're not going to do a virtual offseason workout, just be ready to go. And they were ready to go on Sunday. I think they have the best roster in the entire NFC. But keeping it with Tom, the first four games aren't usually an accurate gauge of who's going to be great. I'm talking about in a normal year that has preseason. Think last year, Robert. The Ravens had the best record in the AFC.

Through four games, they were 2-2. I don't think anybody arrived at the conclusion the Ravens are the best team in the AFC at that point. And we see this a number of times in the NFL. Usually once a year, there are, once or twice a year there's a team where you look at them and the first few games aren't representative of what they end up being. I think that's especially the case with no preseason, where you got COVID and the offseason workouts inverted, and you got no preseason action to gel with some new teammates.

So don't overvalue September. That's what I would encourage you to do, especially when it comes to Tom Brady. Look at his track record. Last four Super Bowl appearances he made with New England, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2014.

He's had slow starts to the year. 2018, they started 1-2, losing to the Detroit Lions and the Jacksonville Jaguars. That was the latest time you had reporters saying, up, Brady's done, he's washed. When are we going to learn to stop doing this with Tom? I guess if we keep on doing it, you're going to be right eventually.

I'm just not going to be the guy to say that Tom is washed. 2017, lost to the Panthers. You might remember, Graham Guineau's game-winning kick. They lost to Alex Smith and Kareem Hunt by a ton in that season opener. They started 2-2. 2016, lost to the Buffalo Bills who didn't make the playoffs. 2014, open to season 2-2, Trent Dilfer's on Monday Night Football after the loss to Kansas City, saying it's all over and everybody knows it for the Patriots. Three Super Bowl wins later, here we are in 2020.

I'd be surprised if Tom doesn't have a big game against the Panthers, considering the success Derek Carr had with Henry Ruggs while Ruggs was still healthy the first half, first three quarters of that Panthers game. So we got a really big show lined up for you today. However, and wherever you are listening, we appreciate that. We're going to have great stories told by Sam McGee later on this hour. A book, Sidelines and Bloodlines, we've been talking about on this show the last few weeks. It came out today, Ryan McGee, our good friend from ESPN, riding it with his dad and his brother.

Brian Geisinger on the show. And on top of that, one of the best sports authors going, Jeff Pearlman, going to be our guest. And we simply ask this question, how soon is too soon when it comes to Kobe Bryant? We'll discuss when Jeff joins us to talk about his new book next on The Drive. One of the best sports authors going right now is Jeff Pearlman, who I want to talk to about a couple of the subjects he's focused on over the last decade. But the one he has coming out now, the newest book, Three Ring Circus, Kobe, Shaq, Phil, and the years of the Lakers dynasty is coming out next week, but it's available for pre-order now. And there's an author's note at the beginning of this that I find interesting because this is about the Laker years, 96 to 2004, where Kobe was younger. He was more rigid, and in the author's note, it essentially spells out and acknowledges, we understand that Kobe tragically died earlier this year, but this book here, it's about his formative years, and we acknowledge later on, he became a father and became somebody who was more warm and more welcoming.

So I'm just interested to start here, Jeff, and the time's appreciated. How conflicted are you about the timing of this book's release, it being less than eight months after we lost Kobe? That's an interesting question. I would say conflicted is the right word.

I would say concerned. I worked on it for two years. It was written 99.9% before Kobe Bryant's death.

I personally added the note that you mentioned. I don't know if it would be any more comfortable learning about Kobe Bryant two years from now or a year from now. I don't know how it works. I had a Walter Payton book come out, and it came out maybe five years after Walter Payton died, and people would say, or I would think it was eight years after he died, is it really time to talk about Walter Payton? I just don't know what that means.

I've never figured out what that means. I love Kobe Bryant. I admire Kobe Bryant. I think he's a great player. The book has a lot of positives about him. I definitely have some negatives about him. I don't know. I guess I don't really have a great answer for that, but it's a good question. Give me an example of a Kobe Bryant story from all the great reporting that you've done for this book that you would describe to be cringe-worthy.

Oh, it's not lacking. Early on, there was a player for the Lakers named Sumaki Walker, who was a forward out of Louisville. Pretty good NBA player. Sumaki told me, basically the Lakers used to do, when they were on the road, they would take half court shots. They would do a half court shot contest, and whoever wins it gets 100 bucks from every player.

Kobe Bryant wins it this one day when they're in Cleveland. He's collecting money, and he says to Sumaki, Sumaki, where's my money? I don't have it. I'll get it to you later. Sumaki, give me my money. I don't have it.

I'll get it to you later. They're on the bus later, and Kobe walks up to him and just smacks him in the face and says, Sumaki, I want my money. Sumaki Walker stands up, and he's like, did you just hit me? He's like, I want my money.

Sumaki Walker's screaming at Phil Jackson, the coach. He goes, get the bus to stop. Get the bus to stop.

I'm about to kick this guy's ass outside the bus. And the bus stops. Phil Jackson stops the bus, and Sumaki's like, are you coming? And Kobe freezes, doesn't move. And later on at the hotel, Sumaki Walker gets a message in his room from a crying Kobe Bryant. I'm going to go, Sumaki, I'm so sorry.

I lost my head. I'm really sorry, blah, blah, blah. And there was just a lot of, not cringe-worthy, but he really experienced a lot of sort of growing pains, trying to live up to this image, you know, kind of the hardened basketball tough guy, blah, blah, blah, when he really was a product of suburbia, a product of Italy, a guy who never truly fit in, struggled to fit into his surroundings, struggled to feel a room.

And it just kind of, it told that, to me, that story just screamed, I don't really know how to interact with these people, so I'm just going to try my toughest, my toughest persona. Jeff Pearlman with us here on Sports Up Tryin', shoot him a follow at Jeff Pearlman. The book is Three Ring Circus, Kobe Shack, Phil and the Crazy Years of the Laker Dynasty. It's available for pre-order now, and it's going to drop next week. If you haven't read any of Jeff's books, I strongly suggest them.

This one, I'm very early on in reading, very excited to catch the entire thing. You wrote the Brett Favre book, Gunslinger, and in it, or I think in Green Bay, Aaron Rodgers, he had a superb game on Sunday, and this offseason, many comparisons were drawn between the Packers drafting Aaron when Brett Favre was already on the roster, to Green Bay picking Jordan Love this offseason while having Aaron on the team. Do you think, at face value, that's a fair comparison based on what you know about that dynamic between Brett and Aaron from about a dozen years ago?

Well, I mean, it's very similar, and the thing I think we do incorrectly as sports fans or as members of the sports media is we just kind of assume that it's, you know, without thought, the veteran is supposed to welcome and embrace and guide and nurture the youngster, and just like Brett Favre felt threatened, I would think Aaron Rodgers probably feels a little threatened, like, this is my job. I've had this job for a long time. I'm really good at this job.

You're bringing in my replacement. What does that mean? What does that mean for me? What does that mean for my future?

How am I supposed to handle this? So Favre made it really hard on Aaron Rodgers. I can't imagine Rodgers would approach this the same way.

He's just not the same person Favre was on. But I'm sure he's not thrilled. I always think it's weird how we expect athletes to be a certain way, and we're not that way. You know, like, if you brought someone along and said, Hey, Jeff, here's the guy who's going to be writing books instead of you.

Help him out. I'd be like, no, I don't really see that happening. So I just think it's weird that we expect these things when we wouldn't do it ourselves. We do that with contracts, I feel like all the time. Man, why didn't you go to my team taking a pay cut to take five, ten million dollars more a year to go play for the Yankees or whoever it might be? Jeff Pearlman with us here. Another book you had is Football for a Buck, one of the best ones I've read over the last few years.

We're less than two months away from the election. I'm just interested, what's your favorite USFL story regarding Donald Trump's ownership of the New Jersey generals? Oh, boy. I mean, it's funny because he puts himself out there as kind of Captain America, but when the anthem used to be played during USFL games, he was always sitting down doing business. He's taken a lot of credit. He said repeatedly he signed Herschel Walker. He did not sign Herschel Walker.

Herschel Walker was already on the generals. The thing he did well, I will say, is the USFL needed a New York franchise to succeed, and he did spend money. He did put his money into that team. He did good or for bad. He drew a lot of guys away from the NFL and tried to make that team really, really good and really, really appealing. The downside is his entire goal was to get an NFL franchise, and he thought he could push his way into the NFL, and it wound up rooting my all-time favorite sports league. So, a very mixed bag. Not even a mixed bag, a pretty bad bag.

The reason Trump never talks about the US about is to not reflect well on him. Again, it's Jeff Pearlman on Twitter, at Jeff Pearlman, Three Ring Circus, Kobe Shack, Phil and the Crazy Years of the Laker Dynasty. I look forward to catching the entire thing. Congrats on the book. I hope it does really well, and thanks for spending time on Sports Hub Drive today, Jeff. Alright, thank you so much.

Take care. Tonight is game seven between the Clippers and the Nuggets. If you've been following this series closely, odds are you're a liar, because I don't think anybody was watching game six in the middle of the one o'clock games on Sunday. Really strange scheduling decision by the NBA, not to put that in prime time, but I'm not going to pretend to understand why the NBA decides to put certain games in certain places, but to those who are concerned about the Clippers, because they believe in stereotypes, and they believe in curses such as the curse of the Bambino, or the curse of the Billy Goat, or in the Clippers case, I don't think they've even been to the conference finals, Robert, in the last 50 years as an organization.

I would say to you, breathe for a second. The Clippers, they're going to be fine. They're better than Denver. It's game seven. They are still my pick to win the NBA Finals. So not just to win the night, but to take care of business against the Lakers, and beat whomever comes out of the East between Boston and Miami. Game one of that series is the opening game of the night, 6.30, and then nine o'clock you have game seven.

Here's my thinking. The Clippers, they have a defensive switch that nobody else can turn to. We saw it earlier this series. It was, I think, game three. The series was tied one game apiece. The Nuggets were about to go up two games to one.

They were leading in the fourth quarter, 97-90. Doc Rivers called a timeout. Team goes into the huddle. Doc Rivers says, listen, this is it.

This is the time where you have to turn it on. What do they do? They score eight consecutive points. They go on a 19-6 run. They win that ballgame. Tonight, I don't expect the Nuggets to even get to, I don't think they're going to get to 100 points.

I don't think that's going to happen tonight. I think the Clippers are going to win this game by 10. Defensively, they're going to be strong. Kawhi Leonard, I think he's the best player in the NBA that's remaining in this field among the five teams left. I say that understanding LeBron James is on the Lakers. He is the most clutch player in the league. The reason why I take Kawhi over anybody else remaining, there isn't a guy in the sport right now. Guys remaining in the playoffs who I rely on more in a clutch spot to get a bucket and to also get a stop.

Kawhi is as good as anybody we've seen at being able to do that since Michael Jordan. I'm not worried about fatigue. If the Clippers win tonight, you know it's going to be the take. Oh, game one, the Clippers, are they going to have their legs? The Lakers, they've had nearly a week off, took care of business Saturday night against Houston.

I'm not worried about that at all. They'll have three days rather than two days off until that Friday night game one. There's no travel and this is a pretty deep team. LeBron James, you look at the numbers.

They've played three times I think this year. LeBron, he hasn't shot 50% in any of them. He's barely sniffing 40% in these games.

He hasn't really shot it well. And the turnovers, they're up. Kawhi, he is just a thorn in the side of LeBron. Pat Beverley the same way. The Christmas Day game ended with a great defensive play by Pat Beverley. And they've won a number of these games without Paul George being in the lineup. I know the Lakers won the one in March before everything got shut down. But the Clippers, the numbers tell us they're a better team than the Lakers. It's a bad matchup.

They're better organized. I think they win this series in five games after winning game seven tonight. And I even got a bet with B-Dot on the line for good measure. Last week, he finally paid off his bet, the Oklahoma City Houston bet. He liked Chris Paul and the Thunder. I took the Rockets. It was stressful. It was a seven game series. Robert, you want to know what that bill was at Ruth Chris that B-Dot paid off? Sure.

$240. So that's what's on the line again for this Clippers-Lakers series, assuming that the Clippers win the night. So we'll see how that bet transpires.

But I want to transition to college football. Well, we're now being joined by Sam McGee, who might be my favorite of the McGee's. Ryan McGee, he's a common guest on this show from ESPN. We talked to former Wingate president Jerry McGee, who was a longtime ACC football referee.

He is the target of this book or the topic of this book, Sidelines and Bloodlines, which drops today. We've been hearing stories about it for the last few weeks with Ryan and with Jerry McGee on. Sam, though, the reason why I might like him more than the rest, like me and Robert, East Carolina guy, went to Wake Forest. He's an alum there.

I learned this morning a Baltimore Orioles fan as well. So welcome on in the Triad today, Sam. How are you? I'm great. Glad to be here. The book Sidelines and Bloodlines, you can find it online.

You can order it today and I recommend you do so. And I just want to open the door for you to tell some good stories here. For example, what memory sticks out to you as a Wake Forest alum about the 2006 Orange Bowl? The most amazing thing for me going to that Orange Bowl was that everywhere my wife and I turned, and she's a Wake Law grad, everywhere we turned we saw people we knew.

Every tent that we passed by in the parking lot, we saw somebody we knew, because just about every living Wake Forest grad was there. But my favorite story from that game, we were sitting in the nosebleeds. My back was up against the jumbotron. So we were sitting as far away from the field as you could possibly be. And there was a key play in the game, and I started screaming at the top of my lungs, as if the zebras were going to hear me. Louisville's got 12 men on the field.

Louisville's got 12 men on the field. And a flag comes out and the referee comes over and says, substitution and fraction. And some guy sitting in front of me says, Dude, do you count the players every play?

And I said, what, you don't? Because just growing up the son of a referee, that is just something that was ingrained into our brain. Or as my dad will say, sometimes he would just look at the field and he would say, there seems to be too many people out here. And he would realize there were 12 guys on the field. Did you – was that against Wake Forest? No, that was against Louisville. Okay, just making sure you weren't calling out 12 men on the field for the team that you're rooting for.

Got to make sure I double-check that. No, I wouldn't have done that. They couldn't have heard me anyway. Is it true – is it true you would just casually as a student at Wake Forest walk down near the field and start talking to the referees? That's totally true. You know, Dad wasn't allowed to work Wake games when I was there.

Now that did actually happen one time, which is in the book. But almost every Saturday there'd be some guys that I would know on the crew. And so when they would come walking out, I'd go walk down to the bottom of the stands and call them over and they'd see me and we'd sort of chat.

And then I'd walk back over to the student section and my buddies would be like, what in the world? And I'm like, yeah man, we got this taken care of, we're good. Yeah, a lot of those officials were guys I had, you know, I had grown up with.

And, you know, as a kid just thrilled to death that they would include me in their, you know, post-game pizza eating when they're breaking down the game and talking about calls. Sam McGee's with us here. He's on Twitter at Sam McGee, author of the book, again, Sidelines and Bloodlines.

Ryan McGee, Sam McGee, Jerry McGee writing it. And there was an excerpt that was put on ESPN.com today that you could check out and you can see why there are a lot of great college football and ACC stories within this book that came out today. Ryan just texted me, though, and he wants me to ask you about the time you cut down the goalposts after Wake upset Clemson in 92.

Oh, yeah. You know, nobody expected us to win that game. And it had been at least a decade, I think, since we had beat Clemson. And we win that game. And, you know, back in those days, we ended up having a great year that year. But back in those days, we didn't – the students didn't really go.

I mean, they would tailgate and they would never leave the parking lot. And so there weren't that many of us in there when we rushed the field at the end of the game. We tore down the goalposts and we ripped off one of the uprights. And it was sticking awkwardly out the window of a buddy of mine in Dotson as we rode back to campus. And we swung by Home Depot, got a hacksaw and set up shop on the quad while the quad was being rolled. And we were sawing off pieces of this thing with a hacksaw and selling them for 20 bucks a piece, which I may be confessing publicly to a crime, but anyway – How much money did you make? A few bucks, but, you know, it got spread out. You know, it paid for a lot of mountain fried chicken. But I still have the cap of that goalpost.

Since I was the proprietor of that enterprise, I saved the cap of that upright for myself. Last thing for Sam McGee with us here. Wake alum, the book again, Sidelines and Bloodlines. You mentioned how just growing up around your dad and referees, you noticed that there are too many guys on the field, 12 men on the field. You probably get this on Twitter and you hear from fans on sports talk radio shows such as this one criticizing referees often.

What criticism, what popular criticism of referees bothers you the most? I don't think that that many people really understand pass interference. You know, dad has had – you know, because that's when you have a downfield play and it's potentially an impact play in a game and the flag eater doesn't fly or it does fly, you know, it's out there in the open. You know, there could be holding and nobody in the crowd sees it. But if you've got defensive pass interference down the field or you do or you don't, everybody's got an opinion, like a charge or a block in basketball in a key moment in the game. But dad used to always joke that for him to throw his flag, it needed to land in a pool of blood. And some of his buddies used to joke and call him no flag and you know, he wanted to let him play. But some of the – what he understood was it's interfering with your ability to catch the football. So sometimes your feet get tangled up, somebody ends up, you know, somersaulting to the ground and that's not a flag.

But then you might have something that's a little more subtle, like a guy just reaching out and pulling your arm real quick. It's not an impressive impact, but it prevents you from catching the football. So that's one of the ones that always drives me bananas but a lot of the complaints about pass interference kind of missed the mark. On Twitter, at Sam McGee, author of the book, again, Sidelines and Bloodlines, I look forward to reading it.

I was in the press box, I won't name the media member, but there were maybe 20 to 25 media members allowed at Clemson, Wake Forest on Saturday. And one of them I noticed was like on a laptop or on their computer working diligently, so I didn't want to bother them. But then when I walked past, I noticed that they were only appearing to work diligently and actually had an advance copy of the book. So I was really jealous and I look forward to getting a copy sometime soon. Congratulations on it. I bet you guys are really thrilled that this process is now done and we get a chance to read it. It's good to have you on in the triad, Sam. Man, I really appreciate it. We're psyched about the book and it's been fun to spend some extra time with Ryan and Deb working on it and talking about it.

And we're really excited. Yeah, there you go. That's Sam McGee.

Appreciate the time. Follow him again on Twitter at Sam McGee, author. And I can only imagine how cool of a deal it is, Robert, to have an opportunity to work with your dad, right? I think about the former voice of Appalachian State, David Jackson, who got a chance to work with his dad on the sidelines and that was just a really neat deal. Mike Gulick Jr. is a rising star in the sports media industry. He did a show with his dad, of course, Mike Gulick for a little while.

Dan Lebatard with his dad. That just must be a really cool feeling. But is there anything that you think about common referee criticism that bothers you, something that is very popular among sports fans?

I don't know about ones that bother me, but I always love the quick insults like their insurance must not cover vision or anything quick like that. Nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm with it. You missed a few calls. Check your phone.

Here's my PSA. Just because one team has more fouls or more penalties than the other doesn't mean there's referee bias. It means maybe your team's fouling too much or might not be as disciplined.

Anyway, wanted to get that off my chest. You are listening to WSJS Winston-Salem, WCOG Greensboro, WPC in Burlington, WMFR High Point. The signals make up Sports Hub Triad. All right, let's cut through some of the minutiae and some of the stuff you see in print and even on television where people paint games with broad strokes.

The Panthers lost 34-30 against the Raiders. Let's grade it. And let's not just look at specific areas like position groups and such.

Let's talk about the individuals, the guys who are coaching, the guys who are playing. Each week, I'm going to grade with an A, a B, a C, a D, and F, one player in each of those different classifications, guys who stood out on Sunday for the Carolina Panthers. It's a new segment, and we call it Graham's Grades. Every week in the NFL, there's a big test for the Carolina Panthers.

We don't need no education. Who passed the test? If one of y'all says some silly-ass name. Who dropped the ball? I don't know. Josh Graham has the answers.

I think you're very condescending and a know-it-all. Time for Graham's Grades. All right, we're going to go A, B, C, D, and F, which means we start with the top grade.

I'll tell you who gets the A++. Hey. Hey, Fonzie.

Hey, Krista McCaffrey. I think 26 touches is the perfect number, Robert. If he gets two more touches, there are going to be people criticizing Matt Ruhl and Joe Brady for working him too much. If he has three or four touches less than that, you're going to have critics saying he's not getting it enough and clearly you're tanking and that's not the right way to go. 26, it's the sweet spot, and he changed the game when he got more involved in the second half.

There's no question about it. I'm glad they kept him right around the same area we're accustomed to seeing him at and didn't do anything crazy like put him back on punt or kick return. McCaffrey, he's the best player on the team. He performed that way, so he deserves an A. B, Teddy Bridgewater. I'll take that every time from Teddy. That Teddy performance is kind of what I expect. 65% completion, no turnovers. He hit a deep ball.

It wasn't great, but it was good. If you get that from Teddy, 16 games this year, the Panthers aren't going to be looking to draft the quarterback next season because they'll have one in Teddy Bridgewater. He protects the ball.

He gives your team a chance to win. That's all you could really ask for the Panthers quarterback this year. Teddy Bridgewater gets a B. C, Derek Brown. Disruptive, three tackles in his NFL debut, one for loss, but he was so close to making a big play a handful of times and just was unable to do so. Derek Brown, I expect him to get better as the season goes on. Again, no OTAs in person, no preseason games, and that's valuable for a rookie. I liked him in his NFL debut, but it's a C right now. I'm hoping we can upgrade that to a B and possibly an A in some games later on in the season.

D, Euter Grossmatos. He only played 25% of the snaps, and that was with Stephen Weatherly dealing with the bum hammy. The reason why he didn't play as much, he just wasn't ready. Second round pick out of Penn State, he was slow off the ball.

There are many examples you can watch clips where you take a single pair and take single frames where everybody is already off the ball and his hand is still in the dirt. That's what you talk about when you speak to adjusting to the speed of the NFL. He had one tackle. I wanted to see more from the second round pick out of Penn State, but he's young. I think it's fair to make excuses for guys in 2020 when they're rookies trying to start and impact the game immediately, Euter Grossmatos is a D. F, Troy Pride Jr. And I feel for a man, odds are there is no other fourth round pick who's being asked to start right out of the gate. There were times he was the number one corner when Dante Jackson went down to an injury. He was shallow in coverage and didn't find the crossing Henry rugs who had the big play leading to a touchdown. He got beat over the top by Nelson Aguilar who was less than impressive with the Eagles last year. Just a really tough spot for him to be in. I sympathize with that.

But he was the glaring liability for Carolina on Sunday. Speaking to how bad things are for Carolina right now, Troy Pride Jr. is my F. Robert, to close out Graham's grades, give me a random thing that you haven't prepped me on, I haven't had a chance to research on, give me a random thing to grade right now. Could you grade the new Geico Adele Dazeem commercial where she's singing about Tara in a fresh cup of joe? You can tell who watches a lot of sports based on their familiarity with that commercial.

Like, if you just say to a random person, you might be in your car right now, but later on tonight, you're gonna see your wife who might watch sports, or vice versa, your husband, or maybe one of your friends later in the week. And you can test how much they know about football by just having them finish the Senate, starting with, Tara, Tara, look at her go. With a fresh cup of joe. Something, something taxidermy. Guys, see, that's how much Josh watches football, you guys.

He can't do the song lyrics. I would fight that a little bit because I usually mute my computer when it's in commercials so I can do other things or talk so that way I'm not completely isolated and my girlfriend's not like, you've been watching sports all day and you know what, you haven't talked to me at all. I got that wrong, oh yeah. It's a good commercial. So what would you give it? I'd probably give that an A. That's right. I'll give that an A.

That's a good commercial. Actually, that's being generous. I'll give it a B. Like it's average, it's a B. B. Why is it so much louder right there than, like give me a D real quick. D. What else can we do with these letters? I don't know. F. U.

How would you grade this segment? F. Brian Geisinger is going to join us from ACCSports.com. You texted me this. Are you on TikTok? Yeah. I'm not on TikTok, but Juju Smith-Schuster has been making quite a stir on social media. He scores the touchdown last night, does the thing where he's crossing his legs and looking straight at the pylon cam. And I think that's creative.

I think that's a lot of fun. But you're telling me he's making a lot of TikTok videos the moment the game ends? Well, yeah. First of all, his first touchdown dance, he did a TikTok trend. Good Lord, I can't talk.

The Who's Next. And then as soon as the game's over, I get on TikTok for a second, flip through, and then it comes up Juju. And he's doing this victory dance with James Washington in the background. And I'm like, this guy didn't even have time to take his pads off, didn't have time to tell Ben, good job, thanks for holding up the elbow. Appreciate you not dying on that little scramble. Nothing before this dude was like, hold on, everybody, hold on.

I've really got to, I don't want to break the huddle yet. I've got to make a TikTok dance real quick. Not as bad. Here's the difference between TikTok though and say Facebook Live. You can edit the TikTok videos, something Antonio Brown would have loved to have in that locker room a few years ago when he accidentally filmed Mike Tomlin's post-game speech. For sure.

I don't mind, let me preface this by saying I don't mind the TikTok stuff so much. He's a fun kid. He's young and he's just trying to have some fun. He's a great teammate. Obviously, that's why Antonio Brown was so perturbed that he was named the MVP or whatever the erroneous award was that sent him packing. But yeah, I like Juju. I like the process he's doing.

I'm here for TikTok. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe it's just the cynic inside me. But there's a video that he retweeted of, this is on Twitter, a video where he's giving a homeless person, presumably, some food out of a restaurant and the caption was somebody filming him saying, look at Juju Smith's sister, doesn't even want the attention yet is doing good things when nobody's watching as somebody is watching him and videotaping it and he's retweeting it. I mean, he did retweet it, but it came from a random Twitter. It wasn't someone that was associated with the team.

Josh is looking like he thinks this is all BS. But the dude, he's a good dude. And I really do believe that.

Oh yeah, give food to the homeless. That's fine. But I think I would appreciate a little bit of self-awareness even if somebody is saying that about you that the move is to not retweet that. Okay, so he retweeted it. Yeah, he retweeted that. I don't know, maybe you can un-retweet something. He might've done that now that he's gotten some flack for it. No, he did retweet it.

But I mean, they tagged the Steelers and the story blew up. I mean- Good for him. And what is your policy when it comes to homeless people? Like if you go to Haynes Ball Boulevard, you might be driving on Haynes Ball Boulevard right now, every single corner you're gonna be dealing with the homeless person somewhere, I'm not bound to give them something out of my car, like give them like cash or something like that. But on a handful of occasions, like I've gotten an extra biscuit or something like that in the morning.

I mean, honestly, it might sound bad, but I'm pretty numb to it. I've been living around here for a while and I see the same people. There used to be a dude all the way up near Arcadia area past Winston and he stayed there on that intersection at Sheets for years and years and years. And I just never gave him any money. And he's a cool dude. That guy.

Yeah, that guy. He's probably still there. In Arcadia? In Arcadia. He might still be there. Shouts to Arcadia. All right.

You know he's a big fan of the show. How small is the margin between Notre Dame, North Carolina, Louisville, and maybe even Miami in the ACC right now. I'll give you my two cents and we'll also welcome in Triad native Brian Geisinger of accsports.com next. We're now the opposite of the front of sports talk because we're, well, we're back to it. Get it? Well, that's not funny. Back to the drive.

That's moronic. With Josh Graham. Find our weekly ACC football rankings accsports.com myself. Brian Geisinger put those up 1 through 15 each week. I almost said 1 through 14 because I'm not used to Notre Dame being in the league. BG joins us now. Triad native from the 336.

Somebody as well who has done work with high point basketball and watches more NBA ball than anyone I know. We'll get to the NBA in just a bit but I want to start with ACC football and we had a little bit of differentiation and opinion here when it comes to Notre Dame, North Carolina, Louisville, and Miami making up the next four after Clemson in the at the top of the ACC rankings. How small do you believe the margin to be between those four teams at the top of the standings not named Clemson?

Oh God, right now, tiny. It'll shift in less than a week from now, right? We'll put up new rankings next Monday in that next tier of teams. I think those are good teams too. I think last year the league was really struggling to find the second best team after Clemson in 2019. It was really a bit of a mess and maybe we'll have something like that on our hands again. North Carolina, Notre Dame, Louisville, Miami, if Derek King is the real deal, these are good teams. But I think right now, since we have so little information to go on, I think right now the margins are incredibly thin or at the least blurry if that makes any sense. You could even throw in Pittsburgh into that mix as well who won big against Austin Peay this past weekend with a lot of people back, especially in the front, Kenny Pickett playing quarterback.

Follow BG on Twitter at BGeist underscore bird. This is one I don't understand. I understand that Vegas betting lines, they're mostly shaped by perception and you want to get equal money on both sides. But NC State opening is a four-point favorite against Wake Forest.

It's now down to two and a half. There's going to be no home field advantage. They don't have to get on a plane.

There's no geographic effect. And the Deacs have won three straight against NC State and they have a game under their belt already. Oh, and on top of that, they didn't have to change offensive and defensive coordinators. How the heck is NC State favored in this game?

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, other than maybe just, you know, Wake lost so much from last year's team. And I think even part of that was sort of like on display against Clemson, even though that's sort of like a bad gauge. But I guess NC State returns a fair amount, although from a team that wasn't very good a season ago. Like, the taste left in my mouth from, you know, Bailey Hochman and Devin Leary wasn't great. So we'll see what those guys bring to the table in 2020. But yeah, I mean, like, just think of all the great players on Wake's team last season. And yeah, Boogie Bash is back and he's incredible. But they got guys, like guys that are not just like good college players, like guys that are in the NFL and playing.

I saw Leesang Bassey playing last night for the Broncos. He's one of just many. So yeah, maybe that's part of what it is. Like, this is just like on the sneak, a bit of a down year for Wake. I mean, we don't know yet. And they're going to, obviously, Claflin's a great coach. So we'll know more, like, you know, in less than a week. That's the only way I keep trying to convince myself to think about these things. Slade Surratt obviously not playing for Wake Forest either.

But this is what I find interesting. Sam Hartman and Devin Leary are both sophomore quarterbacks. Sam Hartman has twice as many starts as Devin does, though. And that's even acknowledging that Jamie Newman started most of the games last year.

Brian Geisinger with us here from accsports.com, League Pass, Lair. Also has done high point games last year as well. If the Clippers get by the Nuggets tonight, I still like them against the Lakers. They were my preseason pick. I'm not worried about fatigue with them getting three days rest and not worrying about travel and the bubble. How do you feel about the Clippers, not only tonight, but also at a potential All-LA Conference Finals starting Friday?

Oh, man, is that a loaded question? I'm not giving the state of the Clippers right now. But yeah, no, just speaking tonight initially, they messed up. The last two, the second half of game five and six have been a disaster. And a lot of that is Denver being great and Nikolai Jokic being great. And part of it, too, is that the Clippers are really struggling to make shots and really struggling to guard pick and pop between Jamal Murray and Nikolai Jokic, too. But I do think they win tonight, although, again, one game sample against Murray and Jokic is a dangerous proposition.

Beyond that, assuming they do win tonight. I've thought since October the Clippers were the best team in basketball, and I'll continue to ride with that. As far as the feel I have for them versus L.A., super interesting to sort of ponder that. Again, I thought the Clippers had been the better of those two teams all season, but the margin is thin, and I do sort of wonder now, too. I mean, we saw the Lakers all season. They've been one of the biggest teams in the NBA. They've kept their centers on the court. We saw in the Houston series they really went all in on playing Anthony Davis at five and playing some of these other small ball lineups with LeBron at four and Marcus Morris occasionally at the five, too. And I'll be interested to see if the Clippers do get beyond that. Again, I do think the Lakers would go back to playing their centers a little bit more, but just if they've sort of weaponized the AED at five lineups at the right time, I mean, that remains to be seen. I still like the Clippers, but I could look really dumb in a handful of hours from now saying that. Yeah, we'll see what happens tonight. That's the nightcap of the doubleheader. The Eastern Conference Finals begins with the Celtics and the Heat.

I'm having difficulty getting a read on this. It sounds ridiculous to say that the Heat have a better culture than the Boston Celtics do, but I mean, when you consider Pat Riley and Eric Spolstra are still around and the titles that they've won, not just with LeBron James, but Pat Riley was around for that 2006 championship as well, I think it's accurate to look at that and to say that that matters. I'm probably leaning Miami just because of how physical that series was against Toronto for Boston and the fact that Boston doesn't have as deep of a rotation as the Heat seem to do. It seems the Heat, all the pieces fit well together, which is kind of why I like the Clippers over the Lakers.

Everybody seems to know what their role is, and it never really feels disjointed. For you, what do you feel will be the difference in Heat Celtics? Oh, boy. Man, great points on Miami's culture. You know, on a tangent, there's another through line throughout all of this. Bam Adebayo seems to be the next generation. Jimmy is the bridge as well now.

Jimmy Butler's the bridge. Bam Adebayo will be the next generation of all of this. I'm fascinated to know how Boston matches up with Adebayo. Jalen Brown covered him a lot in the regular season, but Miami Heat were playing Bam at the 4 a lot, and they've just dialed up and gone all in on Bam at center.

Since they got to the bubble, that's been a really good formula. Their offense is so diverse, but I think a lot of it will start with where do they put Marcus Smart and where do they put Jalen Brown. You know Tatum's going to be a great help defender, so where do they station those other two guys? And then what does Miami do defensively against Jason Tatum? I mean, look, Kemba's amazing.

He's in the engine room with Tatum. Those guys make this offense tick, but Tatum's their best player, and he's a star on the rise. He has struggled when teams force him to play inside the arc. They'll let him get to his pull-up three-point game, which is deadly. And so what does Miami do to limit that?

It forced him to play inside the lane where he's not as successful shooting floaters, finishing at the rim, etc. So those are the main things I'm keeping my eye on, but I think it's going to be a fascinating series with two brainy coaches and both rosters that play all different kinds of style. It also helps Boston has Gordon Hayward likely coming back, too, which should help some of their depth concerns that we saw against Toronto. 6-30 start for that game, Eastern Conference Finals on ESPN, and then the nightcap.

It's going to be Game 7, the Nuggets and the Clippers, Game 1 of the Western Finals, not until Friday. VeeGee, look forward to seeing your breakdowns on Twitter, bigice underscore bird, and we'll see what happens at ACC Football this weekend when our rankings come out next week, accsports.com. We can find that. Thanks so much for the visit, man.

It's good to hear from you. Absolutely. Take it easy, y'all. There you go. It's Brian Geisinger spending time with us, his stomping grounds in the Triad. If the Clippers lose tonight, man, I would love to see what Steve Ballmer's initial reaction is.

Because think about this, Robert. Think about all the Clippers have given up in order to have the team that they have at this moment. They give up the slew, the bevy of draft picks to Oklahoma City to bring in Paul George because they knew if they didn't do that, they would not get Kawhi, and they'd rather trade all those picks to get Paul George, knowing that they get Kawhi, than not have either of those players, then you got to consider when it became time to sign the contract, what did they do? They signed a four-year deal with a player option after two seasons. So there's a very real possibility here, Robert, that the Clippers gave up their entire future. Put together this team, they went all in on what they have right now for two seasons, two seasons of Kawhi and Paul George.

I think that's a really real possibility. I mean, yeah, but how long are people usually relevant? How long are teams usually relevant without doing that? Two years?

Three years? I'd say there are windows, yes, and we usually overvalue or we usually freak out and think that teams are going to break the sport and that they're going to dominate forever. Like Golden State, we did that. Oh, goodness, they brought in Kevin Durant. They're going to win the next million titles. They won two, OK? They won two and they won one other in 2015. Yeah, they went to the finals, however many straight years, five straight years, but they won three out of the five. That's basketball. That's always been the history of basketball.

The year before the Golden State run began, we had four years of the Miami Heat go into the finals, and they only won twice out of those four years. And basketball contracts aren't like football contracts. They're not like five years, six years.

They do contracts ahead of time. Most of these contracts are like four years with a player option at the end. The year before that, Boston or L.A. was in the championship game or in the championship series the previous three years. And then the Spurs were in there a handful of years. Then the Lakers were in consecutive years. That is so when you're talking about the window, the window that you're referring to, I don't think it's ever been as small as two years unless you're talking unless you're counting Toronto last year. Like that's the only time where it's we are pushing all our chips in to try and win this championship with Kauai, understanding there's a really real possibility he's going to leave after just one season.

So we have seen that. But Toronto, how much did they really invest, mortgaging away their future in order to bring in Kauai? Like talking about the one year rental, they gave up Tamar DeRozan, but how much more did they give up?

I honestly don't remember. They gave away a first round center they drafted and a first round pick. So really not a ton in comparison to what the Clippers have given up just for the two years that they're getting here. Yeah, but think about all the Clippers have gone through to get to this moment. Oh, yeah. They have sucked bad.

Never been to a conference final or haven't been to a conference final in 50 years. For forever. So the owner was probably like, yeah, I'll mortgage our entire future. Well, he'd be like the GM, whoever you want to say is in charge of this. Well, no, I mean, it is the owner, but he's only been in place. I mean, Donald Sterling got replaced in 2014. Steve Ballmer, he's trying to build like he wants his own arena. He doesn't want to be in Staples Center. He is the richest NBA owner.

Like I read a crazy stat that I don't know if it's accurate, but this is kind of what I remember it being. So I'm paraphrasing here that if you put together all the net worths of the other 29 NBA owners combined. They all are they all still pale in comparison to how much Steve Ballmer is worth. Like Steve Ballmer, he didn't just buy the Clippers for them to stay irrelevant, like they're adding as much as they could possibly add. But they better get a title out of it.

That's kind of where it's at. Like there's so much urgency on the Clippers and for the Lakers because LeBron, you look at the watch 17 years, how much longer can he go or play at this rate? I don't know the answer to that, but that's kind of my feeling about the Clippers and what predicting what the headlines are going to be tomorrow if they should lose later on tonight. But I think they're going to win.

And me and B Dot, we have a bet that whoever wins a Laker Clipper series in the conference final, there's going to be Ruth Chris and Greensboro hanging in the balance there. Tom Brady is going to face the Panthers on Sunday. It's the first time the Panthers have played Tom Brady since 2017.

You might remember the game winning field goal Graham Cano had. Caroline has won their last two meetings with Tom, but there are some overreacting to his slow start, I think, losing to the New Orleans Saints. You see the stats where he's thrown a pick six in three straight games, something that only Blaine Gabbert and other credit quarterbacks have done in their career.

And some are arriving at the conclusion that Tom is washed. I say this slow start, it probably should have been expected. I mean, the Saints, I think they have the best roster in the NFL. The defense doesn't nearly get enough credit for that, though.

Usually it's just the coach, the quarterback to get the shine. But on defense, they still have that Cameron Jordan guy and Sheldon Rankins and Marcus Lattimore. And they added Malcolm Jenkins in the offseason. Dennis Allen, he's a tremendous play caller on defense. He's a tremendous coordinator. And unlike Tampa, the Orleans didn't need really an offseason.

They didn't have much turnover. So Tampa, Tom Brady, he's trying to get on fields and organize practices with guys, maybe even breaking rules to try and do so so he can build chemistry. The Saints are saying, you know what, we're not even going to do virtual offseason. You guys, we're fine. We're going to be ready in the fall.

Just make sure your bodies are ready. And we saw how good they were. The first four games, they're not usually an accurate gauge of who's going to be great. The Ravens were two and two last year. Best team in the AFC. Especially with no preseason, we shouldn't be overvaluing these early games. Plus Tom Brady, he usually has one or two duds the first month of the season.

This isn't a recent thing. Look at the last four Super Bowl teams he had in New England. 2018, they started one and two, losing to the Lions and the Jags.

Everyone said, Tom Brady's watch, this is it. Wins the Super Bowl. 2017, as I mentioned, Panthers beat them. Alex Smith in the opener and Kareem Hunt, slice and dice New England.

Still go to the championship and they lose, getting outgunned by Nick Falls. 2016, lost to the Buffalo Bills early on. A team that didn't make the playoffs. 2014, started two and two. Monday Night Football loss to Kansas City where Trent Dilfer is on there on television saying, Oh, this is the end of the Patriots legacy and the Patriots dynasty.

It's all over. And then Tom went on to win three Super Bowls after that. I'd be surprised if he doesn't play well, Tom, against the Panthers on Sunday.

Panthers, we saw how the defense looked against the Raiders on Sunday. They're motivated. There's more urgency on that side. Tom, slow start. Don't overreact to that. I guess if you keep on saying that Tom's watched and you've been doing so for the last decade, eventually you're going to be right. But Tom's made a lot of those people doubting him look stupid. So I'm not going to be added to the list. I'm not.

I've for a long time been done saying Tom Brady is watched, saying when Tom Brady is incapable of winning at the top level of football. Robert, what do you got in ticket to the house today? You thought that Taco Bell wine was bad? Wait till you hear this. Wow. Taco Bell in Canada pulling out the jalapeno noir to pair with the chalupas they have up there. I'll be honest, I didn't even know they had Taco Bell in Canada. So we'll see what's worse in Robert's eyes when we take it to the house next. You'd be surprised how many people are doing it. Honestly.