Drums or Flats?

The ACC just announced its scheduling model for the 2020 college football season. Ten conference games per school. One non-conference game as well. And that non-conference game, here's the catch, has to be played within the state that you're in. So that would allow for the end of season rivalry games to happen for Clemson versus South Carolina, Florida playing Florida State, Georgia playing Georgia Tech, Kentucky playing Louisville. But that's also tremendous news, I think, for a school like Appalachian State that was already scheduled to play Wake Forest. They could find a way to get that scheduling done and have that game happen in Winston-Salem. App State maybe could pick up a game against North Carolina or Duke or NC State. If you're East Carolina, you gotta be feeling pretty good about this as well. Charlotte, Will Healy, he was scheduled to play at Tennessee in the opener.

If that's not gonna happen, he's gonna be looking for some games for his 49ers fresh off a bowl game in his first season. So this is fantastic news. It's a tremendous model. It doesn't abandon the idea of non-conference games the way that the Big Ten did so a few weeks ago. They feel pretty confident. If we have a consistent protocol and we get better in this country in the next month trying to get the season off the ground, we can get an ACC football season in starting on September the 12th. So there's a lot of news that just came down with this announcement from the Atlantic Coast Conference.

I didn't even get to the biggest nugget. Notre Dame is a part of the ACC this year. Which means Notre Dame, they can win the ACC championship. Do you know how long Notre Dame's been playing independent football, Robert? Like, you want to take a guess when they started playing football? When they started playing or how long they've been independent? Is it the same date? Uh, 1906. 1887. This is the first time Notre Dame football will have a chance to play in a conference championship game.

And it's really tough. I don't think they're separating it by division. I think divisions, they are thrown out the door. The conference championship game, we don't even know what date that's going to be.

It's either going to be December 12th or December 19th. The top two teams based on winning percentage. Winning percentage in the conference. They're going to be playing in the conference championship game.

All of this is nuts. 2020, it's been a crazy year. So this schedule, it matches the craziness and zaniness that has been this entire year. There's a situation where you could have Clemson playing Florida State in the ACC title game. Or Wake Forest going up against Clemson in the title game. Divisions, they're completely thrown out right now.

December 12th or December 19th in Charlotte, Bank of America Stadium, that's going to be the ACC championship game. Just wild. So am I 100% confident they're going to get the season off the ground? No. Is this great news?

Absolutely. Do they feel good about the protocols they have? Every coach I talk to feels good about what they're doing. You see testing all across conferences. They're mostly down. I think Iowa had a couple tests early in the week test positive. But Oklahoma, no positive tests. Notre Dame, no positive tests.

Since they've gotten the players into the building, nobody's been testing positive. So why can't they continue that when school starts? The obvious answer would be, oh, Josh, when students get there, well, your bubble's eliminated. But why does it have to be that way? If all the athletes stayed at one spot on campus, stayed in one dorm and had to do their classes online and could only go to the practice facility or go where they're getting their food, go to the stadium.

You could still have the integrity of a bubble, couldn't you? Have that on individual campuses in the ACC. Now you're always going to have the people who say, oh, but that doesn't make them student athletes anymore. That makes them professionals. The safest place that an athlete could be right now, a college athlete who isn't a professional right now is on these campuses or in these facilities. So you see the testing numbers and you might say, oh, it's just not right to have them contained in a bubble.

Okay, well, then you're putting them in more danger of testing positive if you have them go out and be allowed to go to Tigerland in LSU or hit up the bars on Fayetteville Street. Isn't that the name of the street in downtown Raleigh? I forget. I don't even know streets. You don't know streets?

Not at all. Do you take dirt roads? What are you doing?

I use GPS like a normal human being in this century. Got it. How about Franklin Street? I know that's a street. Can't stand it. Chapel Hill.

I could give a **** about North Carolina right now. You haven't hung out on Franklin Street? I have once and it was not fun.

I did not have a good time. I love Franklin Street. A lot of fun on Franklin Street. I enjoy all the campuses, even Duke hanging out in some of the college bars. I enjoy that as well.

Really good breweries in Durham. So that's the big ACC news of the day. Robert, we've been doing radio for years. Never have I had much interest in talking about fantasy football. I loathe it.

I don't really find it to be interesting radio. There's nothing I care about less than hearing about your fantasy team. You isn't Robert Walsh in this instance. You is whoever is interested in telling me about their fantasy team.

But for the first time in the history of the show, I actually want to talk about fantasy football. Because I think any fantasy expert, Fabiano, Barry, whoever you listen to, would tell you DJ Moore is a more valuable player to have on your team than Curtis Samuel. DJ had 87 catches last year. Chris Sims says he's a top 10 wide receiver. He's a superstar.

And I'm not disagreeing with any of that. But if you're talking about fantasy value, I really think Curtis Samuel could have a bigger year than DJ Moore. I don't think that's unrealistic. In fact, I think you're looking at Curtis getting more touches. For one, I expected to take some of McCaffrey's carries. You can't have McCaffrey's carries in usage be the way it was last year. If you're not expecting to compete in the NFC South, you need to protect your investment.

The way you would protect an investment on a home, a car, et cetera, et cetera. You need to protect your future. You've just invested a lot in McCaffrey. You don't need him getting 1,000 receiving yards and 1,000 rushing yards this year if you're not going to win a ton of games.

So you need to spell them. They didn't really bolster the backfield in the offseason. Reggie Bonifant's still around. Alex Armagh maybe can get some of those carries. Jordan Scarlett, same dudes. But I asked Matt Ruhl about how he felt he would utilize Curtis differently than DJ Moore.

And I thought this response was telling from a few hours ago. The thing that's always intrigued us about Curtis is obviously he has tremendous deep playability. He gets behind people, hasn't always been connected with. But he has the ability to run by people. But he's also so versatile. We see him as a guy that can be a running back. We see him as a guy that can be a slot. We see him as a guy that can be an outside receiver. So he brings to me, going back to his days at Ohio State, a sense of versatility that we think can be fun, that we think we can utilize. Running back, you say?

I think some people forget. He was drafted out of Ohio State as a running back. He was a really good running back for the Buckeyes. He had the game-winning touchdown run against Michigan, which sent Ohio State to the Big Ten title game his final year there.

It essentially sent them to the college football playoff. Matt Ruhl, he's telling you there, we can get a lot out of Curtis. Versatility, there's more we can do with Curtis than we can do with DJ. He was a running back. He faced Joe Brady when he was at Penn State as an assistant. If you watched LSU last year, a lot of jet sweep action, a lot of wide receiver involvement on shovel passes.

I think Curtis is going to be the guy that benefits the most from that. Also, DJ Moore, he's no longer under the radar anymore. He was at about this time last year. Curtis Samuel, he's still there. I remember talking to Buffalo Bills media and reporters and fans. They were all around watching the intra-squad scrimmages or watching the team scrimmages and team drills when they were both in Wofford last year. And everybody just pointed to Curtis Samuel asking, who is that guy?

This guy's taking over. And there wasn't much drop off at all from DJ to Curtis when you watch those guys. Here's the difference. When the Bills were in town for those scrimmages before the preseason game, Cam was healthy. He had a healthy foot.

A week and a half later, he got hurt against New England, played the first two games on an injured foot. Then it was Kyle Allen and Will Greer. That's the reason why Curtis only finished with 54 or 56 catches last year.

Still had six touchdowns, though. I think Robbie Anderson, he's going to get a lot of attention over the top. I think DJ Moore is going to be the primary target for, I think, the number one corners on the other end. Which means there's going to be a lot of room for Curtis to do damage.

Underneath. I mean, the talent gap already isn't wide, as I just acknowledged. But Curtis, like, he really thrives in space. It's yards after catch.

This number really blew me away when I saw it. Tyreek Hill, who we can agree, probably the quickest player in the NFL, even if Marquise Goodwin has issue with that. Marquise Goodwin, by the way, opting out of the season from the Eagles.

Tyreek, he calls himself the cheetah, he's explosive. When he touches the ball, he's bound to score most times he's in space. He averaged a touchdown every 8.3 touches last year. Curtis Samuel had six touchdowns a year ago. That means it's a touchdown every 8.6 touches. He's an explosive player, Robert. You love me talking, you love fantasy football more than I do. Am I crazy to think Curtis Samuel potentially could be a sleeper player here, could be maybe more productive than DJ Moore?

Yeah, I'm actually going to agree with you for the first time. Not necessarily because he's going to be a better player for your team. A lot of firsts. But he's going to be a better value for your pick. The thing with DJ Moore is he's going in the 6th round around the 7th pick. Curtis Samuel is going in the 14th round. And the difference with just getting a regular backup wide receiver like you are with Curtis Samuel is you're also getting a handcuff at running back. So if DJ Moore, Robbie Anderson, or Christian McCaffrey go down, that increases his value. So he's not really a guy that's going to contribute for your team right away. You might have to find matchups or find games where he's going to be a lot of help. But if someone gets hurt, he's going to be your lottery ticket. And guys like this is what sends you to the finals when you can predict or put yourself in a position to capitalize on other teams' misfortune. There's some more big news regarding the ACC announcement.

Again, there's so much to get to with that. The fact that we don't have an ironclad day for the conference championship game. They're going to be on the 12th of December or the 19th.

You have the season starting on September 12th. Conferences, they're thrown out the window. Notre Dame is involved.

This was included in the announcement. All television revenue for the 2020 season, including Notre Dame's home games, which will still be broadcast on NBC, will be shared equally across the 15 institutions. Notre Dame, they're going to benefit from having the ACC's television contract. But now the ACC is going to get some of that NBC money, which might not be as substantial.

But Robert, does this mean that the door has been opened? That there's a foot in the door to potentially have NBC as an ACC partner moving forward? To have ACC games of the week on NBC?

That's a pretty big deal if it happens that way. 2020, it be happening. Come here to talk sports. It is man at his most man.

And do it like you mean it. What you got, biatch? This is The Drive with Josh Graham. The party's going on. Thank God it's Friday. I thought it was constitutional law that you can only play this song on Friday. B Dot is in studio with us.

We're going to do grammar school at an earlier time than usual, but we've done this a handful of times around this time. Yeah, man. Just kick it off the box right there. Yeah.

Just come out firing. I'm all about it. B Dot and I, we had our Instagram show on Monday night. I almost said Friday night because of the song that was playing.

So if you haven't watched that, you can watch the next one. Monday, 8 o'clock, me and B Dot are together for that. We also were together at No Stress Fest on Sunday. I embarrassed myself because I thought that Travis Porter was a person. Robby, I lost count how many times your boy pointed from the stage. Dude, I'm glad you broke that down to him, though, about why you can't point and why it's just not okay.

He never said why. He just said, don't point. Well, don't point because you look like the narcs. Yeah, like if someone, if you're out because I'm white, say no, because you're pointing.

Because you're pointing. If you and Sarah Bradford were out walking, holding hands, just schmoozing, schmoozing, doing your thing, and then all of a sudden you see one random guy, hand on his belly, and he's just pointing at you. At you. At you guys walking.

Okay. And what would you think? It was a very quick point. Okay, say he's sitting at this table with his hand on his belly and he quickly points at you and says something to his friend. Or he points in your direction as a group of you all.

He points in your direction. See, that's the thing. To him, it was a quick point. Robby, to me, he's still pointing. It was the longest one.

His finger is still. It was slow motion. Like those guys.

It was a bad decision. It's a bad habit. Kind of like me chewing pens or chewing my fingers. You left one in here, by the way. Or in basketball. He's got one in his hand, by the way. Or in basketball, I had a habit of clapping when I wanted the ball.

You got to break out of those habits. Can you imagine, can you imagine you're playing a pickup game and you just hear. And then you give him the ball and he does absolutely nothing with it. He got a bucket. You heard about his favorite moment. That was my third time hearing that story, but I listened as if it were my first.

I get buckets. All right, let's do it. It's time for B-Dots Grammar School. I don't think you realize how popular this segment's becoming. Any time I talk to someone in radio or somebody who says they just started listening to the show, it's always this segment that they point to. Are you serious? Being completely serious. Dead ass, if you will.

Dead ass, if you will. My mom listens to this segment every week. It's her favorite.

Really? Yeah, because I told her how much of a big fan I am of you. And she's like, oh, my gosh, I have to listen.

So, Mom. Is her last name Walsh? No, it's Russell now. Hey, Mama Russell. Nice to talk to you through the radio, Mama Russell.

I can't wait to meet you. Nevertheless, don't try to get on my good side, Josh, and try to use throwback words to show that you're hip right now. You got a test to take, buddy. Five words here. Do people say hip? Yeah, I say hip every now and then. I like hip.

Just making sure. Yeah, sometimes I like to use my 70s jargon just to throw people off. Like, I might say, hey, slick. I might hit you with a slick, Robbie.

Sometimes. I might. I will. Nevertheless, you have five words today. Two are review. If you get three words correct, you pass today's session.

Your first word is a review word. What does it mean to flake? Flake means to not do something you say you're going to do. You commit to something. You de-commit light.

That is 100 percent correct. Congratulations, Josh. You are one for one.

Flake. Second word. What does it mean?

These are two words, Josh. What does it mean to tap in? Tap in.

336-777-1600. I get a lifeline that's you in the audience, but I might as well stop giving the number because I realize that none of you guys really want to help me or probably just don't know any of these words. But here's the thing. If you want to call up and assist, you can call up and give a clue or you can use it in a sentence.

You don't necessarily have to give him the answer. So if you would like to participate, 336-777-1600, and you can call up and just use tap in in a sentence. But I would like to say, Josh, at No Stress Fest, a lot of people were saying tap in. A lot of people were saying it. And when I heard it on stage, I said, I'm going to ask Josh did he retain this on Wednesday. Tap in. Tap in.

Does it mean to like come together in a way that might not be legal? Like, do you really think that's the right answer or are you working through it? I am working through the answer. I'm trying to think of things that were happening at No Stress Fest over the weekend while I was on stage. How was the air quality there? Pretty smoky for you. Loud. Yeah. There you go.

Yeah, it was very, very loud. I'll give you a little ding for that. That's nice. Tap in. Man, I feel like I know the answer to this, but tap in. Not one caller to assist Josh, huh, Robbie? I think he's right.

They'd like to see him flounder. Yeah. But you know what? I'll give you a free little hint. OK. Oh, no, no. I'm just going to go to you. I want to go up to nothing. Robert, I'm going to go to you because I know you know the answer. I don't think I should ever just give you the right answer.

So you're my lifeline. Can you imagine R.I.P. Regis Philbin if they went to the phone line and said this might be the answer, but it also might not. Sometimes it cuts them off. They'd be like, I think it's George Washington, but I'm not sure.

It might be George Washington Carver. I don't know. They don't intentionally try to hurt the person playing. I'm going to be honest with you. I think I know what this means. I have two ideas and I will give you both of them and you can choose what you think is right. How about that? Thank you. I think tap in could either mean like hit my line, come bleep with me, like hit me up or tap in could be like, let's go see each other naked in this bedroom and hang out for a little bit. Whatever that activity would be.

I think it is hit me up, like hit my line. I'm going to go with that first one. That is correct. Gosh. Because if it was the second one, I missed out on a lot.

I saw one where you could have tapped in if that was the right. Hey, if that was my boy sitting there biting his nails in complete confusion. Third word, this is a review word. Your first word was flake. You got that correctly.

You also got tapped in with the help of Robbie. Third word is a review word. It is smize.

Oh, smile with your eyes, man. How do you spell it? S M I Z E. That is correct. That is correct. That is correct.

Ever since we did this word. Do you guys remember the my favorite Christmas movie is the one with the snow miser heat miser. And I want to make one that I'm Mr. Heat Schmeiser.

But it would only be funny for me. Smize. Smize. Third word. I'm looking at a picture on Leonard Hamilton's Twitter feed where he's smizing right now. That is a smile. That is a smile.

One hundred percent. Josh, your fourth word. What does it mean to get ghost? Get ghost.

I'm going to take a stab and say it means you're telling somebody to get lost. Don't contact me again. Ghost me. Lose my number. Get ghost.

Robbie, I'm going to come to you, the judge. Now, get ghost pretty much means I'm going to get ghost. I'm going to get lost. I'm going to leave like I'm about to get ghost per Josh's definition of telling someone, hey, you need to get ghost.

It isn't really used like that. I wouldn't say, hey, you need to get ghost. I mean, but I would say I'm going to get ghost.

I think if I asked the more I think I would. I'm not asking you, Josh. Josh, I'm asking Robbie. I'm sorry.

Thank you very much, Robbie. I think with ghost, we all know what to go. Someone means. Yes.

So if you put in to get ghost, I think it's a very specific tool or action that needs to be done. And he didn't fit that qualification. So I would say no.

I'm going to go with Robbie. And that's a no. Josh, you already passed the test.

It really doesn't matter. This is no. But like, I want to go five for five and you ruin the drama of that.

You got to get you got to get a little more. Get ghost. I had a clear understanding for what it was generally. It's your departure, though. That's not understand. It's not for them to get ghost. It's for you to get ghost.

The guy who corrects people the most is like, I was close enough. That's horseshoes and hand grenades over here, buddy. Final word on today's episode. Thirsty. Oh, what is the definition of thirsty, Josh?

God, this is the first test after summer. You went easy on him today, man. Thirsty.

You're just upset I didn't give him any acronyms. Let me ask you this. Thirsty is generally applied to women, but can it be applied to men, too?

Absolutely right. So, you know, if a guy's like dressed up and puts a picture up an I.G. with like three or four buttons down on the button up, it serves the same effect of a woman wearing like a short dress or a revealing top in an effort to try and get guys get someone from the opposite sex or maybe even the same sex to notice. You are thirsty if you're looking for some physical companionship.

He went around his elbow to get to his butt for that one. I mean, because it simply means you're thirsty. You're desperate for attention. That's all it means right there. The desperation.

I just added more description. Like with what you're describing when women post that that is a thirst trap. Yeah, that's not thirsty. They're not thirsty for putting that up. They're trying to get men that are thirsty. Well, actually, they are thirsty for that. They're desperate for that attention to post that thirst trap. Maybe not.

Maybe they just love the way they look and they understand it's like a bear trap. One of those pitfalls, you know, as soon as I see this like this, they don't fall in the DMS. That's fair. Josh, here's my test for you.

Usually you tease your next segment. What I would like for you to do is use each one of these words in a sentence, referencing your experience at no stress fest. Well, I was not thirsty. I was the opposite of thirsty. I did not want anybody to notice me in a negative way, certainly.

After I mistakenly said Travis Porter was a person instead of a group, I wanted to get ghost. Yeah. When I met people that I didn't know were famous and B.

Dot told me was famous, I tried to impress them at that point by smizing. Jesus. You didn't know who Chico Bean was for real? No clue.

No clue. Oh, wow. We're just walking around, people are taking pictures of Bean. I lost it. Chico Bean, if you're listening, tap in. Let's get together sometime. And I swear I'm not going to flake. Roll them out there, Josh. Hey, we're getting somewhere, baby. Who in the sports world would you most want to fight?

We'll talk about that next on The Drive. Introducing the world's greatest entertainer, the hardest working man in show business. Ladies and gentlemen, the star of the show, Josh Graham on Sports Hub Triad. Tell the club up, tell the club up, tell the club up, tell the club up, tell the club up, tell the club up, tell the club up. I've seen people get hit with tears.

Man, I've seen the worst fights in the club in my life, the 3-6 Mafia. Sorry, Josh. That's B.

Dot. This is also the song that was playing in the Dodgers' clubhouse last night. Right before they stepped on the field and started throwing baseballs 100 miles an hour at Astros players at the plate. It had me thinking, though, if you can start a fight or just generally punch somebody in the face, throw a baseball at a particular athlete, baseball, football, basketball, whatever, who would that be?

3-3-6-7-7-7-1-600 on Twitter, at Sports Hub Triad. Look, I don't even know what the equivalent to throwing baseballs at people in baseball would be to football or basketball. I guess football it would be pulling the bad news bears, or not bad news bears, but longest yard, don't block for the quarterback and just let Adam Sandler's head get knocked off, or if you're going older version, Burt Reynolds. Maybe just knocking out someone as they go across the middle of the field.

I remember playing two-hand touch football and somebody really wanted to clean my clock, so I caught one across the middle of the field and he leaned in with the shoulder and two-hand touch just drilled me in the head. I immediately got back up, though. So, who would be the guy... He didn't really get me.

I immediately got back up. Just letting you know. Flip the ball to the non-existent referee afterwards. Who's the NBA player you would want to punch in the face, you dislike so much, you find so annoying, so obnoxious? Gosh, like right now? A current player?

Current? Former? Take your pick. A former player, it would definitely be Reggie Miller. I would punch Reggie Miller right square in the nose.

Why? I just always hated him. I love Reggie Miller.

He's just funny looking and he's just so animated. I was so team Jordan that I just hated Reggie Miller. I definitely would want to just punch him in the face and then I would say, aha, that's why your sister was better, punk.

Cheryl. Robert, it looks like you have an NBA player you want to jump in with. I was going to want to punch Matt Barnes in the face until B-Dot told me that he's a real one.

I didn't think he wasn't, but I also didn't have his G card right in front of me where I could check the credentials and stuff. Hold up. B-Dot, you know Matt Barnes?

Absolutely. I wish I could go back to my Instagram, man. We took a picture one time because I was at Chris's house for a New Year's Eve party and he had a onesie party. And Matt Barnes was there with a onesie. But Matt Barnes, when he took a picture and all the females are on the comments talking about, wow, Matt Barnes wraps around his waist. Wait, why is it newsworthy that Matt Barnes was wearing a onesie at a onesie party?

Because that just shows you how intimate of a setting it was, how cool and relaxed it was, and how you really got to know somebody. But presumably you were in a onesie, too, and so was Chris Paul. Everybody was in a onesie. But just the fact that Matt Barnes, he had a short onesie. Maybe he had to borrow one of Chris's onesies. So why'd he bring his pet snake then?

Exactly. We were like, yo, at least let him breathe, bro. It was ridiculous. Was Frank Gore there, too? No, Frank Gore was there.

I don't even know what that means. On Twitter, at Sports Hub Triad. Do you know this athlete? I don't know an NBA guy then. That's kind of hard for me, but there are plenty of NFL guys I would love to punch in the face. Phillip Rivers, Jay Cutler. Phillip Rivers does probably have the most punchable face in the NFL.

Besides Eli Manning. I would love to pulverize his face like a whoopee cushion. It's a dumb looking face, but Phillip Rivers is a very punchable face, to quote Step Brothers. It's not you, man.

It's just your face. Pow! Pow!

Pow! Thanks, Josh. I'm just going to punch Phillip Rivers in the face. I'm trying to think, major league baseball, it's one of the Astros. Man, I'd want to throw a baseball at Alex Bregman, too. I'd like to throw a baseball at Carlos Correa and Jose Altuve.

And those cheating mother bleepers. A-Rod. That comes to mind. I don't value any word that comes out of A-Rod's mouth.

I didn't as a player. I don't as an analyst because I read over the weekend or the last two weeks that he wants to buy the New York Mets. He wants to buy a baseball team. So, every word that comes out of his mouth is not going to be the words of an objective baseball analyst.

It's going to be the words of a guy who's looking to become part of the club and buy a major league team. So, A-Rod was that guy. I'm a huge Orioles fan, so I couldn't stand A-Rod when he played with the Yankees and I can't stand him as a broadcaster today. If I had to go football, I got to go Marshall Faulk.

I hate Marshall Faulk. That's a strange one. Why? Well, because he tried to grandstand on me one time at a football game when I asked him to sign my jersey. Okay.

Question asked, question answered. I remember Miguel Tejada one time. He pulled the, I'll sign you inside, when I was looking to get a shirt or a hat signed. He pulled out the cell phone and acted like he was on the phone.

Ouch. Yeah, I hated that. And then I went out and when he came out on the field, I was on the front row.

I was like, can you sign my thing now? And he acted like he couldn't hear me. I figured you would want to punch Devin Funches in the face too. Why don't you like Devin Funches? Ask Devin Funches why he doesn't like me.

Betsy and Lewisville, let's go to the phones. What do you got in terms of athletes you'd like to punch in the face? Hey Josh, I try not to resolve my conflicts by punching other people, but as a Tar Heel graduate, I would love to punch Grayson Allen or Christian Leitner in the face. I think I knew that was coming.

As soon as I heard Tar Heel associated, that's where I thought we were headed. But I like the classiness, not the punch coach. K, thanks Betsy. I love her style. Like she's somebody who I'd like to follow on Facebook or LinkedIn or something. Maybe Christian Mingle. Christian Leitner Mingle?

Ooh, you're really good at that. Betsy, go in the Tar Heel route. I'm a little surprised you didn't go the Tar Heel route.

I know, I was thinking about it. I thought when you were going NBA, I mean basketball, I thought you were going straight NBA. There's a lot of Duke guys the last decade who were in the league.

Just look at the Pelicans. But see, I don't want to punch any of those guys in the face. Reddick? I could possibly punch JJ Reddick in the face.

Frank Jackson you probably don't care enough about. But I will punch him in the face. Okay, how about, I mean you just look at the front office, you're talking about... Not going to punch Trajan Langdon in the face. You're not going to punch Trajan Langdon? Nah, I'm not going to punch Trajan Langdon in the face. For some reason I liked Trajan Langdon. I wasn't a fan, but I wouldn't punch Trajan Langdon. What Duke players were you fans of? You liked Zion, you liked Trajan Langdon. I liked Greg Paulus. Just because you liked the way Danny Green dented himself in his forehead.

I got a chance to meet Greg Paulus and it was in a setting where we were just kicking it and he was a cool dude. I told him it sucked that he was a Duke guy and we laughed it off and then he got dunked on. John and Winston Salem, who would you like to punch in the face, John? I would like to punch James Harden in the face. Why would you like to punch James Harden in the face? I would like to punch James Harden in the face because he compared himself to Allen Iverson for one thing. Number two, he can't show up in the playoffs.

Number three, he has the unmitigated solve to think he gets better than Giannis Antetokounmpo. Let me ask you this, John. If you were attempting to punch James Harden in the face, would you even try to go uppercut out of fear you might only get beard or do you go with like a jab or a hook? No, I got to get him looking for a jab right in the nose.

Right in the nose. I want to ask John a question. Why does it bother you so much that he compares himself to AI? He's a point guard that drops buckets just like AI was, no? First of all, to set the record straight, Allen Iverson was one of the best gear stores in the NBA. He decided to try and mitigate his game after he modified the rules of the line. He just guaranteed himself $85 to guarantee himself to get some retail line and make 85% upset 3-point. AI managed to take an entire team of what they came to in September who was back in prime, you know, and all those other guys with him to the NBA Finals, and managed to take a game away from probably one of the best duos in NBA history in 2011.

Thanks so much for the call. Allen Iverson, I've just learned B-dot. When someone likes Iverson, you don't question it. There's two people you don't question in sports anywhere. It's AI fans. It's Michael Vick fans. You can't tell those people anything.

That must be that Virginia thing. My man John had his phone in his pocket talking to us, didn't he? Clearly.

Probably had a Bluetooth or something. Wayne in Greensboro, who would you like to punch in the face? Wayne's an Astros fan. Wayne, who do you want to punch?

I'll get to that in a second. I'd really like to get at Alex Rodriguez because he has no business being a color analyst of anything. Yes. Hey, I've learned to know, Josh, that you're not naive.

So answer this question for me. Do you honestly think that when they put all these video rooms right next to the dugout, that the Houston Astros were the only team cheating, or are they the only ones that have got caught? I'm going to say I don't know for sure, but they did investigate the Boston Red Sox, and they found that even the guy who was directly involved with the Astros didn't do it to the degree with 2018 Boston. Yankees are next on the list. There's a judge who's going to pull out a memo that's been sequestered for a trial that somebody's suing the MLB. And both MLB and the Yankees keep appealing and say, no, you can't let that become public.

Yeah, they're talking about potentially using armbands or Apple Watches back in 2017. Thanks for the call, Wayne. It's appreciated. If I'm wrong, if it does turn out to be widespread, give me a call back. I'd be willing to eat my words and eat some crow. But they've done investigating, and they found that Boston, whatever they did wrong, was not nearly as bad as what they did in Houston. And the Yankee-Apple Watch incident apparently isn't even comparable to what happened in Boston, which is certainly not comparable to what happened with Houston. So that's where I stand on the Astros.

I'd like to throw baseballs at them, and I'm glad the Dodgers were throwing baseballs at them, and I hope they throw baseballs at them at seven o'clock tonight. I know we're about to go in like 30 seconds, but can you please, before I get out here, let me know why baseball fans hate A-Rod so much? He cheated. He was suspended a full season because he cheated, and then tried to lie about the fact he cheated, and then went to like an arbitration meeting with the commissioner at the time, stormed out of it after making faces, went to a radio station, and then talked trash about Major League Baseball, how he's getting screwed over.

The biggest star in the sport. Yeah, we don't want that guy playing. Just a ton of things happening at one time right now, where the ACC in the last hour announced it will be doing a 10-game conference schedule with one non-conference opponent for each team. Notre Dame is officially a part of the ACC for the 2020 season.

A lot of stuff coming out of that. We don't know when the conference championship game is going to be. It'll either be on December 12th or December 19th in Charlotte. The NBC Notre Dame home games, that television contract will be shared across the 15 team members.

There's just a lot to unpack with that big news. While that's happening, the Dodgers face the Astros tonight at seven o'clock after the brouhaha we saw last night. Joe Kelly just got suspended eight games according to Jeff Passan for taunting and throwing a baseball over the head that buzzed around Alex Bregman and Zion Williamson. Big question in the NBA. Is he going to play in the NBA's restart tomorrow? It is a game time decision, according to the Pelicans and according to Zion. We use that as a transition to be joined by Todd Grafinini, good friend of mine, who knows this area very well, but also is the voice of the New Orleans Pelicans. And on top of that, a big Dodgers fan.

So a lot to get to. We heard the Zion news, Todd. How surprised would you be, given the urgency of eight games left, if Zion isn't in the lineup in some way tomorrow night?

First of all, Josh, thanks for having me. Good question. I'm really 50-50 on it because, yes, it is a sprint, not a marathon. But I just know the way that our training staff and front office have handled Zion since he has been a member of the organization. And especially the way after he came back from the injury in the preseason, they have always erred on the side of caution. And if he's not ready to go, if the training staff feels that he is not ready to go and we've got the best in the NBA, then he's not going to play and they're not going to risk it. Now, he's going to say, and he already has said today, that he feels fine and everything, but he hadn't been there in a couple of weeks and they're just not going to put him into a situation where he's going to hurt himself because he's not ready to go. So obviously people here want him to play. He came back into the bubble and we haven't been there in person, but we've seen the pictures when he arrived in New Orleans before the team left. I mean, he looks fantastic, as good a shape as he's been in probably since he was at Duke. So people were really, really excited to see him go.

It's just unfortunate that the family situation happened. The good news there is whatever he was dealing with, he felt it was good enough where he could go back to Orlando. He went through the quarantine. He actually practiced last night. He got his test results that came back negative right before practice. So he's actually had two practices under his belt before the game tomorrow night, but we're just going to have to wait and see.

And we'll learn probably earlier in the day when they have shootaround and then of course the game tomorrow night to open up the restart of the NBA. I'm with Mark Cograff and Nene, the voice of the New Orleans Pelicans with us here on Sports Hub Tryin, covering Zion season at Duke. You just never knew who was going to be in the gym.

I mean, you see Jay-Z at Pittsburgh, you see for the Duke Carolina game, President Obama, Maverick Carter, Spike Lee. I remember one time I ran into the Carr brothers, Derek and David Carr. They were both lost inside Cameron and I had to tell them how to escape.

They were worried they couldn't find the exit. You're on the road. You have more access to the team being the voice of the Pelicans. So I'm interested, what's the best story you have for me that speaks to just how popular Zion is? Well, you know, before I came on, I sent you a text of Zion signing autographs outside our hotel in New York before we went to Madison Square Garden.

And when you see that, that's pretty much what we see going everywhere. But the one story that I'll never get out of my mind was we had just, it was mid-December, and we had just lost our 13th game in a row here in New Orleans, which was a franchise record. We lost to the Brooklyn Nets in overtime and had to leave that night because we were on the front end of a back-to-back with the back end being up in Minneapolis. So we were going to play the Timberwolves the next night, which was the start of a five-game road trip over the Christmas holidays, five games in 11 days.

So we were going on the road for a long time. Now, most of the players' families went along on the trip. So they met us in San Francisco, but everybody traveled because Zion wasn't playing at the time. But he traveled with the team. And we left New Orleans at about 11.30 and landed at 1.30 in the morning for such central time in Minneapolis.

And the temperature, and I checked my phone to make sure because I remember I took a screenshot of it. The temperature when we landed was one below zero. And we stayed at the Lowe's Hotel, which is literally connected to the Target Center in downtown Minneapolis. And when we pulled up to the hotel, there were no less than 50 people waiting outside with Duke jerseys, Pelican No. 1 jerseys, basketballs, and Zion Williamson posters waiting to be signed.

In one below zero at 2 o'clock in the morning. And I literally walked, well I sprinted off the bus actually, and ran into the lobby, and I could not believe that there were people out there waiting for this guy in, not frigid, I mean bitterly cold temperatures, and they've been sitting out there for a while, you could tell. And that's Zion Williamson.

I mean that's a snapshot of what we see everywhere we go. It's amazing, it really is. Follow Todd on Twitter, at ntgraphy, he's the voice of the Pelicans here. The Pelicans are going to open up the NBA's restart tomorrow night.

I want to get through a couple things with you real quickly here. See, you're a big New Orleans Saints fan, in addition to being an LA Dodgers fan, Joe Kelly again just being handed an 8-game suspension, which would be the equivalent of a 22-game suspension if it was... I'm curious Josh, did any of the asterisks get suspended? I don't think they did, did they?

They did not get suspended at all. Do you really want to get me going on this? Because I can go all day. What's going to happen tonight?

Anything going to happen tonight? I think it, now I was watching this last night, and I went on a show on Monday, and I said, all I can tell you is this, and this was the day before, I said if I was Correa, or if I was Bregman, I wouldn't dig in. I mean, an orangutan could have frickin' told you what was going to happen last night.

I mean, it didn't take a genius. But Joe Kelly didn't hit anybody, didn't hit anybody when he threw behind him. Do you know what it reminds me of?

It reminds me of college basketball last year. Remember Sylvia DeSosa from Kansas got up and had that stool and almost hit somebody with it? Dick Vitale wanted him banned from basketball forever because he picked up a stool, didn't hit anybody with the stool, but, ma'am, what an image that was.

He had the stool in his hand. He didn't hit him. Let me tell you something. Bregman got off easy. Correa got off easy. They could have gotten a 98-mile-an-hour fastball right in the ribs or right in the back.

And let me tell you something. Those bruises don't heal for a month. Those two guys don't have a mark on them. Not a mark, but you know what was my favorite part of last night? What was that? You could tell Bregman's heart was beating like a rabbit, too, when he was at first base because he deserved it, and he knows he deserved it. They threw back. Kelly threw over there three times in a row to make Bregman die back. And he was huffing and puffing. And you know what? Bregman didn't say a peep, didn't utter a word. You know why?

Because he knew he deserved it, and he knew it was coming. Yeah. You see, I want to get to some stuff with the Saints as well. You loathe the Carolina Panthers, maybe not as much as the Atlanta Falcons. They're third on the hate list, but they're up there. Right.

There are some guys you like, though. Teddy Bridgewater, he's going to be the Panthers' starting quarterback. Everybody I've talked to in New Orleans loves him. Joe Brady, he was an assistant for Sean Payton. I remember in the championship game LSU was playing, Michael Thomas showed up at the game because he had such a close relationship with Brady. Gives him a lot of credit for the reason he really stepped out and had a lot of success early in his career.

What stories have you heard about those two? That might be applicable to those two having success with the Panthers? Well, just as far as Teddy Bridgewater, what a class act.

You know, I worked obviously closely with the team last year covering training camp. He was a pleasure to be around. He always was generous with his time. And look, he deserves everything he got. That man is a folk hero now in the city of New Orleans. I mean, we went from, oh my God, Drew Brees is hurt, to they were chanting Teddy's name in the Superdome, sold out Superdome chanting Teddy, Teddy, after he had won his fifth straight game. He just captured the hearts of this city. And I'm really happy for him in the sense that he was able to parlay his success here in that time to a big contract because he deserved it.

Now, we would have liked for him to have gone somewhere else out of the division, but it is what it is. So hopefully he's successful other than when he plays the Saints twice a year. Joe Brady, I mean, you talk about the boy wonder. Going from the Saints and Ed O'Juron picks him up at LSU. And all Joe Brady did was work closely with Joe Burrow. And you know the results there, literally the greatest season in the history of college football when you're talking about what LSU did offensively.

So Carolina got themselves a couple of good ones. The thing about Teddy is he had a big-time cast around him. And I don't know if he's going to have that as far as what he had. I don't know if he's going to have that in Carolina because he had a really solid offensive line. He had a really good running game. And what really carried the Saints during those five games that Bridgewater was quarterbacking was the Saints' defense.

They weren't giving up anything at the time. So Teddy did what he was supposed to do. He managed the games. He moved, I'm not sure, eight, nine touchdowns, ten touchdowns. And no interceptions.

He did not turn the ball over at all. And if he can do that, he's going to be successful. I just don't know if he's got the surrounding pieces that he had here in the world. He doesn't. He has Krista McCaffrey, good wide receivers, but a bad O-line, terrible defense.

It's going to take time with the new coaching staff. Well, you just answered the question. There you go.

Todd Grapanini with us here on Twitter at ntgraph. In honor of Lou Williams, and also the fact that it's National Chicken Wing Day, are you a flats or drum guy? You know, there's a barbecue place around the corner from Tulane's ballpark called Mo's. There's really a whole not a whole not a lot of good barbecue in the city of New Orleans.

Mo's is pretty good. I knew it was National Chicken Wing Day, so I went in there and I'm thinking I actually thought of that myself, Josh, walking in if I was going to get drums or flats. And I said, you know what? Just split them up.

I'm not going to I'm not going to debate it. I think a lot of it depends on how the wing is cooked. I think if it's more of a crispy type, then you go drums.

And if and if they're not as crispy, you go flats. Is that that's a good answer. Yeah, it's good analysis. If you want to hear great analysis, more of that, but just for basketball and Zion Williamson and such, and maybe railing against Major League Baseball and hating on the Panthers and loving the Saints on Twitter at N.T. Graff.

Shoot him a follow. It's good to hear your voice, buddy. I look forward to hearing your voice tomorrow night and having you get back to work. Thanks so much for doing that. Yeah, Josh, I didn't think when we were going through this in late March and April, I did not know if this day was ever going to come.

And it's hard to believe in twenty four hours we're going to be we're going to be watching NBA basketball for real. It's amazing. Yeah, enjoy it, buddy. Good to hear from you. Thanks, man. There you go.

That's Todd Graff in any voice of the New Orleans Pelicans. Let's get to the two big questions of the day. Robert, in honor of Joe Kelly and the Astros and all that nonsense, if you can punch one athlete, one guy in professional sports, even college sports, too. But let's not punch college kids. Who would you punch out of anybody?

NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball will go current or former. Who do you want to punch? Probably sticking with my earlier answer of Eli Manning. Eli Manning's the guy you want to punch.

I'm probably going Alex Rodriguez or any of these Houston Astros, too, because that apology they gave wasn't really an apology. It was nonsense. I would punch Billy Cundiff, too. Oh, come on. He tried. That's like me trying to punch John Casey.

He kicked the ball out of bounds in the Super Bowl. It's unforgivably bad, but he wasn't trying to hurt my team. He made a mistake. Are you telling me who I can and can't punch? Yeah, I'm just saying, come on, man.

He played for your team. He wasn't trying to mess up. He just messed up.

Yeah, well, he can still get knocked in the snoot, too. That's not nice, Robert. Well, then maybe don't ask me who I would punch.

Yeah. Is punching anyone nice? If they deserved it, Draymond Green, I might want to punch him. I'm not a big Draymond Green fan. He's acting like he's the King Kong in that locker room, and he's never been that. There's Steph, and there's Clay, and there's KD, and then you're a big part of the reason why KD's deciding, yeah, I don't want to play on this team anymore, because you have to be the King Kong guy. Other question, flats or drums?

336-777-1600 is the phone number. I thought I probably would lean drums, but the more and more I think about it, I don't think there's anything better than a good flat. I like the flats, man. I'm a flat guy.

Yeah, same. I prefer flats. You got to eat them, right? I hate seeing people that just leave the meat on the end of them. Oh, they don't even try to get the ones in the middle of the flat. They just leave it. There is nothing more infuriating when people don't finish the bone or finish their wings.

After you learn how to eat flats, the whole break the end of them and then take it all off, I've never eaten them any other way. You've seen me eat wings. I have. You even pointed it out while we were having dinner last week. B-dot told me after the fact and my friend Julian that you were just whispering across the table, hey, Josh is about to eat some wings. Dude.

Let's stare right at Josh. I have seen kids in their high chairs have less food on their face than you after you eat. I mean, I wipe it off. I know, but it's still just barbaric. There's no way to eat wings without looking barbaric. Yes, I promise you.

I don't think there is. You still don't have to like smear in it like it's in a trough. Like you just got to eat them, not necessarily like put it all around your lips. I'm going to dispute that it was all around my lips. I'm going to dispute that.

I don't agree with your assessment. I stand behind the fact that when I'm eating wings, I'm in my own world and I acknowledge that it looks barbaric. However, I would say anybody eating wings and eating wings, well, the way we're describing it, eating drums or eating flats, excuse me, you're going to look barbaric and doing so getting your tongue all up in there in order to get the middle of the... Whoa, whoa. We never did that before. Why do you think today was the day to do that? I have never stuck my tongue anywhere in or around any part of a chicken, let alone the wings.

What do you be doing with your tongue? In other news, Damian Williams just opted out of the season. Chiefs starting running back. He joins Laurent Tardif, the offensive lineman, starting O-lineman for the Chiefs that decided he's going to stay in Canada. He also works in the medical profession. I think he's a surgeon. Like pretty legitimate reason to not want to play football this year, try to protect lives of others, but Damian Williams not playing. What does that do for you?

Anything at all? Oh yeah. That just leads the way for Clyde to take over that backfield. He's already going super high in ADP and expected drafts, but now this dude's going to just skyrocket.

Has to. He's going to be Clyde Edwards-Hilaire and I'm trying to think who else is even in that backfield. The other Damian Williams or the other Williams.

It's not Damian. Darryl. Darryl Williams. Darryl Williams. I don't know where Darryl Williams went to school.

Let me think. Arkansas. I think. Yeah, he was. He was in the SEC. Arkansas might've been LSU.

I think he might've actually been college teammates with Clyde Edwards-Hilaire at one point maybe, possibly. Am I making that up? Have you already seen this news about the date ACC football is going to start?

No. September 7th through the 12th. Yeah, so September 12th.

That's going to be the start date. Okay. So you did see it. Oh, I was just making sure it was.

Like on the thing it said, okay, we're looking at September 12th, but I didn't know if you can play the non-conference game before September the 12th. Yeah. This said breaking, but I never know with you. Half the time you're like, yeah, I already saw it. So. Yeah. It's going to be ACC, a lot of stuff happening, which means I have no idea who we're going to have on tomorrow's show.

Just no clue. It's going to be ACC-centric. It's going to be a lot to do, to react to this massive headline, this bombshell. But the good news is they're planning for football. And I'm glad to hear that. Robert, what do we got in ticket to the house? The only rollercoaster I would ride. That's the next one to drive. You'd be surprised how many people are doing it. Honestly, I never thought I'd-