Sharin' with Daron (7-1-20)

Here comes the life of the party! The Drive, corrupting the minds and the hearts of our children. With Josh Graham.

Programmed for low expectations. On Sports Hub Triad. Woo! Welcome back in, it's The Drive, Darren Vaught in for Josh Graham. As I was yesterday, Stan Cotton, Larry Sorenson in his stead tomorrow and then I believe a best of edition of the program on Friday heading into the holiday weekend. We discussed Bobby Bonilla Day prior to the break and that's where I want to begin with our first guest but we'll get into the shortened MLB season scheduled to get started here this month as it's July 1. So as we welcome in Richard Justice of MLB.com and MLB Network. Richard, first of all, hope you're staying safe.

It's good to talk with you. Bobby Bonilla Day, should we clown the Mets as much as we do for this contract? I'd have to go back and look at, on a serious note, I know we all celebrate that day. I'd have to go back and look at the real dollar value and see whether it was a good move for the Mets or a good move for Bobby Bonilla. I have a friend that got, for 25 years, got a $500,000 payment a year and in fact I think it's just run out and $500,000 a year. He had a great career and I think somebody went back and put a number to it and thought, you know what, this might not have been the best use of your money but some guys like having that deferred payment. Deferred payments generally don't work for the player but it's really cool for Bobby to get a check for a million once a year for I guess the rest of eternity.

Yeah, and by what I've read there's about 15 years remaining on this so there's only going to be so much life I think to the term Bobby Bonilla Day. With deferred payments, teams, it's rather savvy on their part by my estimation. Wouldn't it stand to reason that if you see major league sports teams valuations going up and projecting up for the distant future, a team like the Mets to make that deal or like the Braves did with Bruce Suter to pay incremental amounts over 25, 30 years. It's safe to say a million dollars 20 years from now based on the projected valuations is less to a team than in that moment, right? Doesn't it make more sense for a team? Yeah, I think in general from an economic textbook side of it, although you got to be really careful about having too many of those because at some point it starts to inhibit your ability to put a roster together for today, I think in general teams do like deferred money and players do not like deferred money because it decreases the amount of the contract. I used to when I covered the Redskins, every NFL contract had two sides to it. There was the guaranteed side, the sign-in bonus side, and then the backside which would be what the papers use, 80 million dollars, and players would come to you and go, what's this year? What's the sign-in bonus? What's the roster bonus? Because he ain't seeing next year.

Yeah, no doubt about it. Richard Justice of MLB.com and the MLB Network is with us. Let's move on to this presumed season, albeit shortened, that we are planning for for Major League Baseball. It's been talked about over the last 24 hours or so that teams evidently will not reveal which players go to the COVID specific injured list. Is this, Richard, an issue more of HIPAA guidelines or is this an election made by the league and by teams just not to disclose that information? You know, it's happening a lot in recent years, the HIPAA guidelines about teams. Some teams are very uncomfortable detailing almost any information about injuries.

When Jeff Luna was General Manager of the Astros, we used to joke a guy could have his legs severed at second base and they would announce lower leg discomfort. I think at the end of the day, we're going to be able to figure it out. I think in most cases players will want that. I think players will in general want the information out there because of the infectious nature of this thing.

For sure. And that would lead to my next question, which is about some concerns that fans have at this juncture, seeing that as a headline. Are you worried at all that this maybe allows the league or teams to obscure what would be an outbreak if we got all the information?

No, not obscure because you can. If five guys disappear, you're going to know. I think ultimately the information generally is going to get out in a hurry. I thought you were going to ask me, will it make fans more reluctant to come back into the ballpark? Like in Texas, even though the virus is out of control here right now, I mean out of control, 7,000 new cases yesterday or today. We have similar, very similar numbers in North Carolina, actually.

Yeah, I have a friend, one of my daughter's best friends is an IC unit in Chapel Hill and they tell dreadful stories. But anyway, the Rangers and Astros are trying to survey their fans saying, would you come back if we are allowed to open? Right now, Texas is still allowed to open and given how polarizing it's become, I assume that they still will be. So would a club feel safe letting fans back in the ballpark, would fans be safe coming back in? There's a lot of things teams are wrestling with right now. But it's mainly, can we get the players to the point where they feel safe, where their families feel safe?

I live in Houston, the Astros have a 71 year old manager and a 71 year old pitching coach. That's a high risk territory. So there are so many moving parts. You know, the labor negotiations were just about money and the money didn't move.

It was sitting right there on the table and we could have a fight about that. This opponent now is really wicked and there is still so much we don't know about this virus. Yeah, and a moving target for what it's worth. Like you said, the money is going to be the money.

This thing is getting worse and better by the hour, by the day. Richard Justice of MLB.com is with us. Speaking of moving parts, we spoke at the open of our show today about how interested we are in seeing how some of these things are going to be enforced if Major League Baseball does in fact begin its 60 game season plan. For instance, no spitting. Richard, like you and I know that baseball players spit. It's just what they do, whether it's seeds or tobacco or with absolutely nothing in their mouth. They just, spitting is something that happens on a field. How on earth is that going to be enforced?

Well, I don't know that enforcement is possible, but what it is, is these are the recommendations to allow you to be the most safe. It's the same way with you and I going into your supermarket, going to a restaurant. It's the same thing. We all deal with wear a mask, socially distance. They are trying to say this is the best way to stay safe.

We're just offering recommendations and we're hoping that you would try to abide by them. But you're right, habits, lifelong habits sometimes are really hard to break. There's been some back and forth. Players are creatures of habit. I think the players wanted more. Can you test us every day and allow us to use all our training facilities, indoor cages and all of that?

Do we have to leave the ballpark to shower? A number of things like that. It's really day to day. We don't know. Somebody asked me today, is there a tipping point on infections that MLB would say, we're done?

I don't know the answer to that. I don't think Commissioner Rob Manfred knows the answer to that either. All I know is, we're hopeful of getting the game back on the field. People like you and me, we'd give anything to see live sports again. I think you've seen the NASCAR ratings have been great. The golf ratings have been great. To get the NBA and the NHL and baseball back in whatever form it's going to be would be wonderful.

That's a good comparison with us going into a grocery store and being asked to wear masks. Another one of those suggestions given by Major League Baseball is umpires and officials have always tried to prohibit fighting and brawling. If that situation gets to a point where tempers are flaring, I guess that willingness to play along and do what's best for everybody and that altruistic nature of a player or set of players is probably the only thing there that's going to stop them potentially from tussling. Let's get to some of the more fun, hypothetical things with this 60-game stretch that we hope gets played in Major League Baseball with our guest Richard Justice. Given the 60-game nature, it's condensed. Does that favor anybody in particular, any type of team in particular? In your mind, players who are streaky or more consistent?

How do you see that? The team that jumps to mind is the Oakland A's. On opening day, if we had the traditional opening day, they might have been the best team in baseball because they have three young starting pitchers who are bad boys. A.J.

Puck, Jesus Lozardo, and less of a kid, Sean Minaya. But they didn't pitch very many innings last year and the challenge for the A's was, how do we control their workload this year? And now in a 60-game season, you go just throw them out there and let them go. They were going to ask them to make 12 starts.

They were going to make 12 starts anyway. San Diego has a ton of young pitching. You know more about Atlanta. Atlanta is less of an unknown quantity because guys like Soroka and Fried have pitched. Atlanta has lots of depth.

That tells me that anybody has a chance. Oakland has a chance to overtake Houston. Let's say Verlander can't go. The back of the rotation for the Astros, something happens there. Then Oakland wins the A.L.

West and chaos breaks loose. But I think we were already in a season where 21 teams thought they could go to the playoffs. And now I think that number goes up because, I mean, there are probably 20 teams now thinking, hey, somebody's going to win this World Series.

Why not us? I was once covering the NFL and somebody asked Don Shula in a strike-shortened season, Coach, this is an asterisk season. And Don Shula's answer was, buddy, if it's an asterisk season, the Dolphins intend to be the Super Bowl champs of the asterisk season.

Okay. And he said it with that glare that made you say, okay, I'm sorry. That's fantastic stuff. Last thing for you before we let you go, Richard Justice of MLB.com and MLB Network. He's at Richard Justice on Twitter as well. We had the Hall of Famer Rod Carew on the show yesterday, and he famously was chasing.400 for much of his career. He got to.388 in 1977. Others have been close since then, like a Tony Gwynn and others. Does anyone have a chance at that elusive mark of a.400 batting average given this 60-game schedule, assuming we see this full-shortened season come to fruition? Yeah, it's a guy that's not going to go outside the strike zone a lot. You think about Joey Votto, you think about Bellinger, Yelich. Obviously, Trout has a chance to hit.500 just because of the person, the kind of player that he is.

So I think it's somebody that's going to make a lot of contact and not walk. Because it's a 60-game season, it ultimately catches up with everybody at some point. It caught up with George Brett and Pete Rose and all the guys that got close. But we're talking about 60 games. 162 games reveals your strengths and exposes your weaknesses. Maybe 60 doesn't.

I don't know. It'll be fun to watch, and it'll be fun to see who emerges at that. I guarantee players are thinking that very thing.

No doubt they are. It's a fun silver lining. None of this is fun, the circumstances surrounding this delayed start and whether or not we're actually going to get the full-shortened season.

But some fun storylines in the event that we do. Richard Justice on Twitter of MLB.com and MLB Network. Really do appreciate the time, man. That was fun. Thank you for having me. That's Richard Justice again of MLB.com and MLB Network. Long time writer in the MLB circles. You heard him reference his time covering NFL and some other sports as well. One of the best in the business, a bonafide expert in the sport of baseball. So some good stuff from him. Those fun storylines.

I mean, look. Rod Carew, who was with us yesterday, one of the best contact hitters to ever live. And he only got as close as.388. But that was in a 162 game season. And I think in some cases with him, they were still at the mark of 154 before they upped the total of games in a season. By the way, you guys know a lot of you listening watched Tony Gwynn hit. If he couldn't do it in 162, not many guys are. 60 games offers an entirely new set of possibilities.

So if we do get it, it'll be a lot of fun to watch. He's looking at me like I'm speaking Japanese from the other side of the glass. He doesn't really know baseball that well. So we're going to try and help inform him, educate him on the sport of baseball on the other side with what we like to call baseball for dummies.

That's next. You're tuned into the drive. Appreciate you listening.

My thanks also to Richard Justice, our first of two guests. Who was with us prior to the break talking about the 60 game stretch that Major League Baseball is planning to go through with. And of course, all of this is assuming a COVID-19 outbreak doesn't get so serious that they feel the need to put a halt to the season altogether yet again, as they did at the start.

But some interesting things. Given the shortened nature of the season, baseball is a game where people cherish numbers. That's why that 400 batting average is so coveted for a long time. Pre-steroid era, the home run records for a career and single season were historic in nature and they were just on this different pinnacle that no other sports records are treated with the same type of reverence that Major League Baseball records are treated with. And a batting average of 400 would be one of those numbers.

And it's really the only one for which a shortened season would favor a player. Obviously, fewer games you're going to hit fewer home runs. You're going to hit for fewer runs driven in.

Any other kind of record. A pitcher is going to have fewer strikeouts with fewer starts. Fewer wins with fewer starts.

Every other record or record potential number suffers except for the averages. And there are a lot of those in baseball. So it'll be interesting to see, again assuming we do get the 60 game season, if anybody can chase that batting average of 400 and get it for the first time in a long time. Ted Williams still technically the last guy to hit 400 in Major League Baseball.

I say all this, and Robert Walsh, the producer of this program, is only catching bits and pieces. Not because he's not paying attention, but because he just doesn't really know much about baseball. Which is why we created Baseball for Dummies. Robert doesn't know diddly-squat about baseball. When Robert hears, Strikeout, he thinks all about his failed past relationships. When Robert hears, Breaking Ball, he winces. Gas? Get the point. While everyone else is swinging for the fences, Robert is simply trying to get on base. This is Baseball for Dummies. There's a couple different places we could start here with this.

I have some analytical questions. I have some maybe sad questions. Let's not start with the sad stuff.

Let's start with the cool stuff. As a kid growing up, I did not play baseball in high school. I stopped playing in middle school, but one of my favorite things about high school games were the walk-up songs. I was infatuated with the professional wrestling. I loved the entrance part of being a wrestler.

That's a direct parallel for sure. I always wondered what my walk-up music would be, but I have a couple questions before we get to that. In the majors, do they have walk-up music? Is it copyrighted music?

I know college they can pick little excerpts of whatever songs they want. Is walk-up music so easily defined as something that gets you pumped up, or is there a different meaning behind walk-up music? It's specific to the individual player. Having interviewed players from the 70s, as we did with Rod Carew yesterday, and because of my affiliation with USA Baseball, I've talked to guys who played in the 80s, 90s, 2000s, and even today, the view on walk-up music has changed. Inner Sandman by Metallica used to be the song that Mariano Rivera came out to when he would close out a game.

The Hall of Famer, Mariano Rivera, the closer for the New York Yankees. So pitchers have their music too. You've seen Major Lee, Rick the Wild Thing Vaughn, as Wild Thing play as his music when he comes to warm up to pitch. He made their hearts sing. He made their hearts sing, I guess, proverbially. So, I have come to find out in recent years, Mo Rivera didn't choose that song. He left it to the sound guy to pick a good song that he thought was appropriate. And it turns out, Mariano Rivera is forever tied to this song when you go to a baseball fan and most of the time, you play word association.

Mariano Rivera, they'll say, oh, Inner Sandman. So, some guys take it way more seriously than others. Usually, it's sort of a, all right, let me get in the zone, which for some guys can be something a little bit more calming and something a little bit more upbeat. It depends on the personality and that's the fun in it. And to answer your first question, major leaguers can choose anything.

Okay, cool. So, most of the time, it's popular music, whatever genre they prefer, country, pop. What's cool about the majors too is with Latin American players, you just get this injection in a ballpark of something that might be popular in Colombia.

For sure. And not as popular here, but that's a player's origin and they really like that song, so that's how you hear it. Did you have a walk-up song when you played and what would your walk-up music now be? So, I did have a walk-up song and I played at a very low college level, just to make things clear, but we were advanced enough to pump custom tunes.

Collegiate nonetheless, don't downplay your... So, my walk-up song was self-esteem by the Offspring. Okay, familiar with the Offspring, not the song.

Which starts with the... It almost sounds like a drunken chorus. No music behind it, but the guys go... La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la.

And it starts on the hard riff, right? Oh, that's nice. It suited me, right? My teammates would hear that for the first time when I would go up and they'd say, Oh, that's totally you.

It's so you. And that's how I knew I picked a good one. I had a teammate, a little more of a goofball, who would always choose something a little bit quirky. He picked like boy band jams some years. But one year in particular, he picked What Is Love, the song from The Night at the Roxbury.

Oh, that's great. What is love, love? You're bobbing your head right now, and I'm telling you, every game, that's exactly what the opposing dugout was doing.

Bobbing their head. And in his mind, he's like, I got you. You fell for it. You fell for it. I got you.

I am mentally superior, and I'm ready for this at bat. That's great. Oh, man, you got me fired up now.

I spent a lot of time on walk-up songs there. No big deal. No big deal. It's your show.

You can do whatever you want to do. With minor league baseball being canceled, I wanted to look at the bright side, and I love minor league baseball mascots. I don't know why.

Down East Wood Ducks, they have like a Hispanic night, and they turn into avocados de luchadores. Yeah, and those major league mascots are so damn pretentious. Yeah, just come on.

Just reach down there and just grab something. Really fanatic. Never met a more entitled, green, fuzzy, whatever. Like, I know that there's one based off the Simpsons town that's like the something isotopes. The Albuquerque isotopes.

I knew you would know. Yeah, that's the team name now. And I was always a fan of the Warthogs growing up. I had so much Wally gear. I had a Warthog bat. But I didn't know, in your opinion, what is the best minor league mascot.

Well, we're in a great place for it, right? I think the starting points are probably mascots like Will Ebel of the Durham Bulls. For sure.

And there's also Homer the Dragon, who has a fascinating story in which someone stole the mascot costume at one point, and took Homer the Dragon gallivanting for a night on the town in Charlotte, North Carolina. That's fantastic. It's findable. You can certainly find that. It's just a treat of a story. I don't know that the Knights brass would want me talking about it, but... Come and get me. If you can, look that one up.

I'll check it out, for sure. And that's baseball for dummies. All right, I haven't left as much time for this segment, and I've been looking forward to it all day. Darren Vaught in for Josh Graham. This is The Drive.

Robert Walsh producing on the other side of the glass. And just to quickly get into it, because I know we've got some quirky sound and fun stuff to go with this, Robert. Let's get right to our trading card war. This means war!

You're a tough little guy, aren't you? This means war! Hey, hey! It's cool!

It's cool! This means war! What?

Does it have to? Can it mean something else? Okay, you dirtbags! This means war! Finish him!

Come on! So, Darren, as a first-time war participant, I'll break down the rules a little bit for you. We are going to open our packs of trading cards, which I have already done. I cheated just a little bit. Oh, that's okay. You're allowed that. I wanted to wait so that people, because I know this is just a beloved sound, so that our listeners would hear me rip into the pack.

Trading card ASMR. That's what it should have been called. Anyway, we come up with five superlatives, if you will. And those five are going to, you're going to try to match people from your deck of cards with those five superlatives.

Do we have a judge to determine whether or not one is better than the other for a category? This is kind of just like where one of us will just agree to disagree. Okay, no, that's fine.

I'm perfectly fine with it. Yeah, I'm sure me and you will be able to... We're reasonable people. We can work this out. Yeah, for sure. The five superlatives we're working with today, most likely to be involved in a fireworks accident, most likely to win a pie-eating contest, could successfully wrestle a pig, is the grill master at his barbecue, and would skinny dip in a blow-up pool.

All good categories. We have to get it out of the way. You don't have J.P.P. No, J.P.P. Jason Pierre Paul in your card, because that would be in bad taste if we played him as the most likely to get into a fireworks accident. For sure.

Although he would be, because he's the only one that did. Yeah. If you got your cards in order, you think you can figure this out, or are you still working on it?

No, we're good. I feel good about this pack, man. You probably heard me go, ooh, as you were explaining the rules, because I got a lot of good names in here. Sometimes you just get lucky and just get a stack back.

Oh, man, everybody knows it, right? There are dud packs. And usually it's Josh who's like, oh, man, I've got a great pack, and then he'll walk in here and just come into a buzzsaw.

That is my pack. Love that. But anyway, starting things off, most likely to be involved in a fireworks accident, I am going to start off with A.J. Green. A.J. coming out of Georgia should be a dominant wide receiver, but somewhere along the line, he just always gets hurt, always gets nicked up. He should have put it in reverse, Terry, and just avoided those fireworks, but he didn't, and that's why I'm raising A.J.

Green here. All right, this one's a little off the board, but I feel good about it, feel good about this pick. Philip Rivers. Okay, he is in every pack. Dude's got a billion kids. Accidents happen galore.

Oh, wow, I didn't even think about that. Think about it. He literally has, like, eight or nine kids. He's literally putting out fires, little fires, everywhere. Every day. All the time.

Every day. His life off the football field has to be sheer chaos. You step up to the plate and knock it out of the park, Darren, you win that first.

But I'm not going to let you go so easily. Second category is to win a pie-eating contest, I am going to raise you George Kittle. He is a massive man, the largest man in my entire deck. I feel like if anybody on that 49ers team, including offensive linemen, could win a pie-eating contest, it would be this guy and he would do it with swagger. My pick is George Kittle.

I have what I believe to be the perfect card for this one. Oh, no, you got an offensive lineman, the rare offensive lineman. That's what you would think. That's what you would think instead of playing an offensive lineman. Oh, no. I'm going with the cover boy himself.

Oh, no. He's on the packs. Ben Roethlisberger. How are you going to walk in here and dust me and make me start 2-0, Darren? How are you? I'm over here. There's no arguing with that. I can't. I can't. And I'm probably about to, you know what? We're not going to do successfully wrestle a pig because I think I'm going to lose that one.

We're going to put that to the end. Fourth one is the grill master at his barbecue. He's been a grill master everywhere he's been and I don't think that's going to stop at his new landing spot. Cam Newton is not letting anyone get close to his grill. And it doesn't matter what he's cooking, he's in charge. I don't know, man. Cam seems like the type to have people cook for him. Ah, come on, man. He's out there wearing a Gucci apron.

I have a newly minted retiree. Oh, who you got? Eli Manning. I'm sure he's wearing the dad grill shoes. He's got socks and sandals on. Oh, yeah.

His cotton gray athletic shorts and an overly sporty watch on the hand that he's flipping with. I don't know. What do we think about this one? I don't know, man. I'm going to have to lean Cam.

Mostly because I want to be alive. If I'm more in favor of Cam running the barbecue or the grill. People don't like it when you call barbecue a noun when you use it that way. If he's running the cookout, I'm more likely to go. For sure. So you get that one. For sure. The last one, because we skipped Wrestle A Pig.

Skinny dip in a blow up pool. I'm going to put in Tom Brady because... You actually got a pretty good, by card collecting standards, a pretty good pack of cards. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Stacked.

The Cam and Tom duo is funny there. But per our very specific categories, I think I crushed you. Oh, yeah. I don't even want to revisit the pig one because I know you've won. We got another quarterback. The most likely to skinny dip in a blow up pool, Baker Mayfield. Oh, my...

I've never got washed. If you would have done the pig category, by the way, I've got Aaron Donald waiting in the wings. Oh, dude, I had Sammy Watkins. You would have literally 5-0'd me, Darren. This is your first trading card war and you won. You know what? Claps for you.

Every kid, give it up. Because that's amazing. Good for you.

Congratulations. I have, for what it's worth, incredible luck opening packs of cards lately. So I told you I had the one pack of baseball cards waiting on me when I got home yesterday. And I pulled a Chris Bryant game used jersey insert.

He played with the Cubs? You know it! I'm getting it! And in tune with what we're doing on the show, that's Chris with a K. Don't think I didn't recognize the Mortal Kombat theme. Oh, look at that. What can I say, man?

You're rubbing off on me. All right, you're tuned into the Sports Hub. This is The Drive, 93.7 FM in Greensboro. High Point, it's 104.9 FM. 101.5 in Winston-Salem.

And in Burlington, 104.5. This is the Sports Hub Triad. That's fun. The trading card war. Man, that's something. If not for anybody else, for us.

I hope people had as much fun listening as I did playing. Because just like flipping through these cards when you get them in the pack. It feels so good in your hand, too. These are sleek cards. I had a Mitchell Trubisky I didn't use. Man, I had a holographic Juju Smith Schuster that I did not use.

Also, anybody want some trading cards, hit me up. Maybe it was the player there. Ed Oliver? Is he going to be a rookie for the Bills out of Houston? It's his second year, but yeah. So this was a rookie card? Yes, correct.

You're right. So Clay Matthews was in here, too? As a ram? Or as a packer?

As a ram. I had a good little pack here. That's fun. Dude, I love just flipping through cards, seeing the names. It's so nostalgic. But it's an industry. And I don't know how much the pandemic has had to do with this. Because there are pieces that have been written about the resurgence of people buying old cards. And going through their old cards and getting back into collecting.

Because they don't have much else better to do. But there has been a little bit of a resurgence in the industry. Like some newer sets have really taken off in value and price pointing. Where for a long time it was just like, okay, these are just going to be pieces of paper forever. So it's kind of cool to see that there's a little bit of bounce back value with collecting cards.

Baseball cards in particular. Alright, no more talk of Karens. That's going to cease for the remaining time we have this evening on The Drive. I'm Darren Vaught in for Josh Graham.

It's been a fun couple of days. Our last guest in the gauntlet that has been the past two days of sports radio joining us now. And it's Roddy Jones of ESPN and the ACC Network.

Formerly the team captain, running back star even for the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets football team. And a good friend. Roddy, welcome in, man. How are you?

Thanks, Darren. I'm good, man. How are you? I am, you know, all things considered, doing well on the occasion getting to host a sports radio show. And just hoping, man, hoping that we get some college football and we get it on time and that everybody, as many people as possible anyways, can stay safe. And we can mitigate this whole thing and get past it sooner than later.

I mentioned at the start of the show, Roddy, today marks the beginning of the second half of 2020. And we're trying to be a second half team. I gave my version of a halftime speech at the beginning of our show just to get us off on the right foot. And it actually made me think, you as a player probably saw some pretty good second half comebacks in your days. But probably some incredible halftime speeches. Does one come to mind from a coach that you played for?

I don't know. I don't really remember the speeches. I think the ones that stand out are when we're getting beat by a lot and we're just getting tongue-lashing. But I guess the one that was the most effective was in 2008, we played the University of Georgia up there and hadn't won in seven years. And we were down 26-12 at halftime. Sorry, 28-12. We were down by 16. And Coach Johnson, I just remember the last thing he said before we walked out of the locker room was, Hey, if you guys don't believe that we can win, then stay in the locker room because we're going to win this game. And sure enough, we came back and won at 45-42. So I don't remember what happened before that.

I just remember the result. Roddy Jones is with us. He's at RoddyJones20 on Twitter. A new-ish podcast, right? ACC AF. ACC All Football.

That you can find wherever you get your podcasts. Speaking of Paul Johnson, he's a very smart guy. And subdued in his mannerisms. Doesn't seem like the type to really get into you at halftime. But I imagine playing for him, you saw just about every shade of him.

Yeah. He's a guy that's been a scrapper his entire life. So when his back's against the wall, you see the competitiveness come out. And he was a ton of fun to play for because you knew you were going to have an advantage schematically on a week-in, week-out basis. It wasn't a raw, raw, warm, fuzzy coach. But when those competitive juices started flowing, he could get after it a little bit. It was fun.

We had some good teams, so it was a lot of fun. He was a good guy to be around and learn football from, for sure. Another coach that got after it back in a former time and has been back getting after it at UNC in Chapel Hill is Mack Brown as he continued his recruiting prowess yesterday. As the Tar Heels landed five-star cornerback Tony Grimes a big get for the Heels. Roddy, do we chalk this up just as the Mack Brown effect now that he's back and he's got some time behind him as the newer coach of the Tar Heels to get this recruiting thing going?

What else goes into that? We knew Mack Brown was going to recruit well, or at least those that weren't caught up in his age knew that he was going to recruit well. Because he'd been relevant. Everybody said, oh, high school kids don't know who Mack Brown is. You go in and you pop on the tape of 05 Texas and Vince Young. All these high school recruits know who Vince Young is. All these high school recruits watched college football, or at least a lot of them did. Mack Brown was on TV covering college football up until this year. Then he was really smart in bringing in two rock star coordinators and some rock star recruiters.

I don't think it should be lost on people. Who were the two people that Tony Grimes mentioned that he felt uncomfortable with? It was Mack Brown and it was Dre Bly. Dre Bly has been fantastic on the recruiting trail for North Carolina. When you look at teams that are building something throughout the country, who are building something that looks like it's going to be a powerhouse in, I don't know, two to three years. North Carolina is right at the top of that list because of what they're doing on the recruiting trail. Because you've got two coordinators that are absolute rock stars. And a fan base that if you have to start getting into some bidding wars, you've got some deep pockets. I mean, they certainly come out for Carolina basketball. And if Carolina football can get to the point where it's competing for ACC championships, they should come out there too.

And you should be able to keep those guys. So, I really love what Mack Brown's doing because it's good for the league and it's good for Carolina. Which is one of those brands that, whether it's football or basketball, you see that logo and you know exactly what everybody's talking about. We're talking to Roddy Jones of ESPN and the ACC Network.

Roddy, with you being a former player and formerly having made those decisions, I think you're a good person to ask about this. What Mack Brown is doing is significant within our state of North Carolina here especially. And it leaves fans of other teams in the Big Four of ACC North Carolina teams sort of shrugging their shoulders as to say, you know, like, why can't we ever have spells like that? And we've seen it with Dave Doran. He's had success up until very recently, was the front runner in the state of North Carolina as far as recruiting is concerned. Obviously, people are drawn to David Cutcliffe for all of the many great superlatives that we've been known to give him over the years.

And then Dave Clawson has his own thing going in Wake Forest as well and has them on the uptick. What goes into liking a coach for that fit as you are a 17, 18-year-old boy at that point? And then sometimes, you know, sometimes teams get on your radar before that.

You're 15, 16 years old. What goes into nurturing that relationship and building it to a point where you have that kind of trust with a coach? Well, I think the biggest thing is you have to believe in somebody. And when Mack Brown walks into a room, there's just a genuineness that you get, this feeling of magnetism. Like there's some guys and people in general that when they walk into the room, you're just drawn to them. You're drawn to what they have to say.

You're drawn to who they are. And Mack Brown's one of those people. He's a guy who has evolved over the course of his coaching career from a fiery, in-your-face, hands-in-everything head coach that led him to a lot of success at North Carolina the first time and then a lot of success at Texas. And now he's evolved into more of this CO role, the guy that's there to motivate, to take the temperature of the team, and to let his coordinators go do the X's and O's on a daily basis. So I think there's just the belief there.

And honestly, all of those guys you mentioned have it in different ways. But the philosophy is different for Carolina and NC State. Like I've grouped those two together, and then I grouped Duke and Wake Forest separately because Duke and Wake Forest are always going to be developmental programs. They're going to bring in guys, they're going to reach them, they're going to grow them up, and they're going to play them as redshirt juniors and seniors. Whereas Carolina and NC State are going to shoot for the best in the state, are going to try and compete with Clemson and Virginia Tech and Maryland. All the people that are close that try and dip into North Carolina, Georgia, the list goes on and on, that are trying to dip into the same recruiting areas, and they're going to compete with those.

And so I think that the team that has the most to lose by Carolina's ascent is NC State because the pool of guys that are not going to go out of state, that are going to choose between the in-states, so we'll get smaller if Mack Brown's snapping them all up. But I think to answer your question, again, it's that belief. And I mean, I feel it when I talk to Mack Brown, both when I talked to him as a colleague, when he was at ESPN, and now as a coach, when you talk to him, you just believe him, you know?

You just feel like he's telling the truth, and you feel like he has your best interests at heart. And I think that is a big deal for a college recruit. Last thing for you, Roddy Jones, before we let you go, at Roddy Jones 20 on Twitter of ESPN and the ACC Network. Again, check out the podcast, ACC All Football, wherever you get your podcasts, he's been doing some good stuff there as well. A few days ago, this Sports Illustrated piece came up, and it was reimagining conference realignment, as we're about 10 years from the last time that realignment was truly shaken up in a major, wide-spanning way in college sports.

And it was made in a way that it would be better for non-revenue sports in terms of travel cost and the savings for those. And it combined, to our audience's interest here, would mainly be with the mid-Atlantic region that was in this hypothetical scenario. And it includes Clemson, Charlotte, App State, Duke, ECU, UNC, NC State, South Carolina to be paired with Clemson there, Wake Forest to round out the Big Four in North Carolina, and then Virginia Tech and Virginia as Virginia teams. And then there's Old Dominion, sort of stuck in there as the oddball.

It's fun to play around with these things. I don't think this is a realistic shaking up of realignment. This would require a lot of cooperation from the top down. But in your eyes, is there any need to get a little bit closer to something like this in college sports? Well, we'll see coming out of the pandemic how much schools are looking to, I don't want to say cut corners, but shave costs and travel costs is certainly one of them, particularly when you're talking about some of these teams that have to go multiple states over to be able to compete. So if that becomes the big issue, if schools are losing that much revenue, whether it's due to ticket sales or due to a reduced or maybe delayed football season, then we might have to think about it.

But the thing that, it won't happen because TV revenue drives it all. And when you throw in some of these schools that have smaller TV markets, athletic directors aren't going to be really excited about inviting them into a conference. I mean, look at how the last round of realignment went. Rutgers has no business being in the Big Ten, even in Maryland. But why did those two join the Big Ten? Money for them. And for the Big Ten, you now have access to the New York TV market and you have access to the DC TV market. Two massive markets.

So you make that move. And there's examples of that all over. Like the one that makes me the maddest is that Nebraska is no longer in the Big Twelve.

Why is that? Because the Big Ten figured out that, hey, if we have a conference channel and we do it the right way, we can make a lot of money for all of our schools. Where the Big Twelve was beholden to Texas and Texas said, no, we're going to do a long-haul network. You guys can go do your own thing.

And the cut is much smaller, obviously. So Nebraska said, we'll forget you. We're going over here. We can make more money. So with it driven by that, the revenue aspect of it is going to, I think, supersede anything that would push it the other way. Because the schools that are going to hurt the most with the non-revenue sports and the travel because of the lack of revenue are those schools like App State, Old Dominion, the small Charlotte, the ones that you mentioned that are not currently in Power Five conferences. And the Power Five conferences are not going to be really excited about inviting them in because they're all in the same TV market.

He's Roddy Jones, formerly of Georgia Tech, now with ESPN and the ACC Network. For what it's worth, Roddy, your yellow jackets in this scenario would have been put in what's called the Deep South Conference. And you would have taken Florida State and Miami from the ACC with you, but would have joined Georgia as a conference rival and the Florida Gators. So again, in theory, all of these things could be a lot of fun. But I'm like you, I don't see them happening anytime soon unless circumstances get way, way, way more severe.

Maybe then you could get hired on to be an analyst for the Deep South Network, if that exists at that time. Again, thanks for the time today. I'm glad to hear your voice. Glad you're doing well. And hopefully we can get past this pandemic stuff and see each other and catch up soon. Yeah, man, I hope so.

I appreciate you plugging the pod too. We've got the team previews going on this week. So NC State drops tomorrow for anybody in your market that's interested in the team preview of the Wolfpack. Very good. That's ACC All Football, ACC AF, wherever you get your podcasts hosted by the Roddy Jones, our guest. Roddy, good to talk, man. We'll talk later. Good to talk to you too, man. Take care.

He's at Roddy Jones 20 on Twitter. One of my favorites. Just a good dude.

Really good football player back in his day as well as a team captain with the Yellow Jackets. Robert, I think I'm going to leave you a little extra time here to take it to the house. What do we have on the horizon as we close out today's show? As the July 4th weekend approaches, if you're going to smuggle something across the state line, it better be worth it. OK, can't wait to hear that.

That's next on The Drive. You'd be surprised how many people are doing it. Honestly, I never thought I would.

Now I can't wait to do it again. What is he doing? What are you doing? Check out The Drive with Josh Graham podcast and listen whenever and wherever you want. Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Anchor.

I just hope you know what you're doing. The Drive with Josh Graham. I like it. Yeah, let's do it.

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