My Apologies To The People of Tarboro

This is The Drive with Josh Graham Podcast.

We're internet sensations, guys! Tune into The Drive weekday afternoons 3 to 7 on WSJS. You are on a Monday Drive. It is WSJS News Talk Sports for the Triad, where it's game week for college football teams across the state of North Carolina. Well, except for Duke, technically, who doesn't play until a week from tonight on Labor Day Monday, but you get the idea. Before we get too far, looking ahead at the football we have this week, starting Thursday night with NC State UConn and Wake Forest, Elon, we need to talk about what the Carolina Panthers did Friday night. Bryce Young had perhaps a perfect dress rehearsal against the Detroit Lions. He demonstrated in his final preseason game that he is ready for the NFL and ready in a very public way. That touchdown pass was everything you wanted to see from a quarterback.

The anticipation was on display. You hear in the NFL that the windows are a lot tighter to throw in than in college. The reason that is, in order to complete passes in the NFL, you often need to make throws before your receiver even gets into his break. And when you look back at the All 22 of Bryce Young's touchdown down that left sideline to Adam Thielen, Thielen was not even into his route to the left when Bryce let go of that football.

And then you get into the placement of it. It was put right on the pylon on Adam Thielen's face mask for him to catch and for him to score. Bryce, 7 of 12 for 73 yards passing and then he rushed for 27 yards. It was an A plus for Bryce Young to close the preseason.

And we also saw the leadership. He might not be voted captain for the Panthers as a rookie. He might not be voted one of the captains. But the quarterback has to be a leader in order for a team to succeed. It's just part of the role. You're communicating to the offensive line and to the receivers and to the running backs what you're running.

You have a mic in your head, your headset for a reason. The good quarterbacks are also very good leaders. And you see it from Bryce already.

Not that it was doubted because we saw that at Alabama as well. Somebody this weekend I heard said a leader is the person with the clearest vision of what to do. And as soon as that was said, I thought, well, that's what Bryce Young was on Friday. A leader is the person with the clearest vision of what to do because Bryce always knows what to do with the football. He knows exactly, it's almost like he's playing the game in slow motion.

He knows exactly when to throw it away. When he puts the ball downfield, it's in a position only his receiver can catch it, but not the DB. There seems to be very little risk with the way that Bryce Young plays. And then the instincts with the running game, he ran it and he never felt in danger of getting hit.

Even though he's not great at sliding, probably does need to work on that. But here was Bryce Young, or pardon me, here was Frank Reich talking about the instincts that Bryce Young displayed against the Lions. He has that in him. He has that instinct, right? He has that make you miss. Like even when a guy has him dead to rights, you know, we've seen that in practice. You know, little snippets of that. You know, you come out, a guy has him dead, he has that little stop, stop, start hesitation move that's hard to figure out. So that's what I was good by him. Yeah, that little slip move. He knows exactly what to do with the ball every single snap. That's the processing that we heard all about during the draft process.

That word that became a buzzword. And the performance that he had, it's only going to heighten the excitement for Atlanta. He did it at home.

He balled out at home. The fans got to see it in person. And now we have two weeks. Two weeks to have the excitement build until Carolina opens up against the Atlanta Falcons 13 days from now. They have until tomorrow to cut down their roster from now they're at. They went from 93 to, I believe, 82 or 81. They cut 11 over the weekend.

They have to get to 53 by tomorrow. If Bryce was even lukewarm against the Lions the same way that he was lukewarm against the Giants and against the Jets. Maybe that excitement doesn't ramp up the way I suspect it's going to now that we saw what Bryce was capable of doing. The way that he flashed against the Lions. He demonstrated he's ready and he did it in a very public way. On Twitter at WSJS radio, if you want in, that's where we're streaming video.

In addition to YouTube and Twitch, however, and wherever you are listening or watching, we appreciate that. Will Dalton is back as the executive producer of the show. Will, did you miss us? Yes, I missed you. I couldn't stand it. I hated not being here. Well, you were here. I was here. I just wasn't here. Pinch hitting in the morning and you had high school football. It was a busy week for you.

I was around. And this week's only going to get busier. Over the weekend and all throughout the day, pressure has continued to ramp up on the ACC to expand.

According to both Ross Dellinger and David Thiel, a resolution is expected one way or another during a president's call tonight. But here's what happened over the last 72 hours if you haven't really been following it. Over the weekend, supposedly the Big 12 got into the mix. Big 12 rumors have surfaced. And here's the rumor that was put out there.

Mike Silver, I think, was the one putting this out there. He's a Cal grad who mostly covers the NFL. If the ACC doesn't act on adding Cal and Stanford, the Big 12 will. And not only will they add Cal and Stanford, they're also going to add Oregon State and Washington State, too. They're going to get the rest of the four schools if the ACC doesn't swoop in and grab Cal and Stanford.

Now, you might be thinking the obvious. Number one, that doesn't make business sense, adding these schools and just continuing to add schools that don't really net you a lot of money. But it also lacks common sense, too, because if the Big 12, well, the Big 12 makes more sense geographically than the ACC does. And wouldn't they just go there rather than joining the ACC if they had the option? And secondarily, if the Big 12 wanted Cal, Stanford, Oregon State and Washington State, they would have added them already. They just added three schools or four schools. They could have added them already and they didn't.

And Brett Yormack's already saying that he's done adding teams. So this sounds like it might be Stanford and Cal trying to apply some pressure on the ACC to add them. Or else they have options, kind of like Florida State.

We have options. OK, prove it. No.

Notre Dame. I don't want to. No, I don't want to prove it. We have so many great options.

We don't like it here. Prove it. No. Notre Dame. They're also clearly leaking all the details here. If you're ever wondering why we're hearing about how many yes votes there are and how many no's there are and the 72 million dollar figure.

If you wonder, how do we learn that? Well, it's because Notre Dame keeps telling people about it pretty clearly, too. Like Notre Dame's the one school that is vocal one way or the other on this issue.

They're the only school. And we know how badly they want it to have it because Jack Swarbrick's going on Dan Patrick's show telling you how badly he wants it to happen. And they're talking to other people like to Heather Dinnich and others saying that they want this thing to happen.

Nobody else is doing it. So when you see the seventy two million dollar figure that's now fifty five to sixty million dollars that's being reported, you should know that's coming from Notre Dame. They're trying to apply pressure. They're trying to make it public, saying here's why it makes sense to do it, because you have to do that in order to try and make something that by and large does not make sense. Makes sense, which it still doesn't.

They're trying to spin it is what I'm getting at here. But it's all going to happen probably tonight. And the reason why it happens tonight versus Wednesday or Thursday of this week, obviously, you want to get it done before football starts. But you also have the college football playoff meetings on Wednesday, which is expected to center on what happens with the Pac-12 now, if that doesn't exist. How many playoff teams are there going to be or how many automatic qualifiers?

How do you divvy up the money? You want to have your ducks in a row before that meeting happens and you start to put some things in stone for what you want the playoff format to look like and how the 12 team format and how you want to distribute the money to. So likely one way or another, we're going to have an answer tonight. And I suspect they're going to add. That won't make it make sense. I'm not going to agree with it, but you need one university president to flip.

You already got 10 who said yes. Why? Because Notre Dame's telling us. Allegedly, allegedly, allegedly. But, you know, you have four that have said no and is one of those four flip because Condi Rice or George W. Bush has been lobbying for it or because of these threats from the Big 12 or Notre Dame applying the pressure to.

I suspect it's going to happen and it's going to be driven off fear and it's going to be a really bad idea. If you. Missed week zero this weekend of college football, the seven games that we had in store on Saturday. We're going to recap it all in the most efficient way possible by attaching letter grades to it and Graham's grades next. Ready? I do it. Do it.

All right. Listen up. This is The Drive with Josh Graham. Be honest, W.D., how much week zero football did you watch on Saturday? The first quarter of the Notre Dame game, and then I had to run out.

I would have watched more, but that's marriage. That's it. You watched one quarter.

Yes. I'm embarrassed how much football I watched on Saturday. I watched the Notre Dame entire first half because we might have had some interest in consuming the entire first half until the final 12 seconds or so.

More on that in a second. We also had what else did I watch? I volunteered at my church on Saturday. So got back at around like six, six thirty. And when I got home, turned on the Jacksonville State game, had to see what Rich Rod was up to. And there was a really cool point, especially with the Vanderbilt, Hawaii game getting pushed back an hour or two, that you had all these games going on at one time where it felt like a Saturday at noon.

At one point, because you had four games that were going on at one time. Oh, San Jose State, USC has started. Oh, you've got Hawaii and Vanderbilt. You've got FIU facing whoever they were playing. I think it was Louisiana Tech. And then you had the Ohio San Diego State game.

They were all going on at one time. And it was just joyous. Even though you didn't really care about any of the teams this coming week, you're going to get the real thing.

I thought it was a very good appetizer. Now, let's recap all of week zero in an efficient way by attaching letter grades to it in Graham's grade. Every week is a test for your favorite sports teams. Who passed the test? If one of y'all says some silly name. Who dropped the ball? I don't know. Josh Graham has the answers. I think you're very condescending and a know it all. Time for Graham's Great.

Okay. A through F. The very good, the meh. And the not so good from over the weekend, specifically with week zero. And it starts with a Sam Hartman's debut.

Could it have gone better? It's the first game of the year for any team in college football. And you're on national TV and you lead touchdown drives every single time you touch the ball in the first half. Four touchdown passes on the game. No interceptions. You could not have scripted Sam's start at Notre Dame to be better than what it was.

Good for Sam. So many around here are rooting for him after the five years he gave Wake Forest. B. UMass football. This is a game I forgot to even mention.

I did take a look at this one actually. UMass, New Mexico State. UMass snapped a 15 game losing streak against FBS opponents in this game. And I think they won by double digits.

Good on them. You want to know the last time UMass opened the season with a win against an FBS team? 1984. Nearly 40 years ago. Name a UMass sports moment post John Calipari and Marcus Camby.

I'll listen. It's been like a quarter century of bad Minutemen sports moments if there were sports moments whatsoever. UMass football taking down New Mexico State in what our guy Ryan McGee calls the bottom ten Super Bowl. Where UMass was his worst team in the country going into the year. They got a W despite being touchdown underdogs.

Fantastic. Unless you were one of those who bet on the under for UMass and New Mexico State. That might have been the worst beat of the weekend.

W.D. did you see what happened? What was the final score for New Mexico State and UMass? It was 41 to 30 UMass. That's what I thought. Going into the fourth quarter of this game it was 13 to 10. So you're probably thinking we're in the clear baby. 13 to 10 that under is going to fire off.

And then trying to do the math really quickly in my head. 28 plus 20 equals 48 which means you're toast. That under ticket is garbage. C. Speaking of which my picks. It's a C. We went two and two. Sarah Bradford got into it.

Wait which pick was yours? Like I turned on the Notre Dame game and it's 21 to nothing. And Notre Dame has the ball at their own 20 maybe. And there's a minute and a half to go in the half. And all I tell Sarah Bradford as long as they don't score a touchdown we're good.

Like under 25 and a half it's going to hit. We're going to start our season in a fantastic way and we can eat dinner tonight. And Sam Hartman marches all the way down the field and scores a touchdown with 12 seconds remaining in the half and there goes your under. Also we almost had another catastrophic beat. I wouldn't even describe that one as catastrophic.

The worst one W.D. would have been if San Jose State didn't get home. San Jose State was down seven at halftime to USC.

They hung around. The spread was 31. Halfway through the fourth quarter USC was leading the game by 35. Scary.

Scary times. But then San Jose State did the right thing and they scored a touchdown and then they tried an onside kick and things were stressful and Lincoln Riley's challenging a challenge and I'm sitting here watching a 28-point football game at 1130 at night. Two and two. Some were close to hitting that didn't. Some hit that were close to not hitting.

All four of them were stressful. Two and two. We're fine with that start to the year. D. Caleb Williams' opener. Oh but Josh they blew out San Jose State. If it wasn't for that fluke touchdown which by the way he fumbled the snap on then you're talking about a seven-point game at halftime. He wasn't that great in this game.

USC. In fact here's how I know he wasn't so great in that game. He wasn't even the most impressive player on USC. Give me Zachariah Branch what he did over what Caleb did. That punt return. That receiving touchdown. The last time someone did that for USC I believe it was some guy named Reggie Bush who went on to win the Heisman.

Well did he though? Zachariah Branch. I didn't know if you know this but I'm a Blitnikov voter.

Is that right? Zachariah Branch is on my radar screen. Oh buddy.

Zachariah Branch officially on the radar screen. It was not the Caleb Williams show so it was a D because everybody's watching you and you're playing San Jose State and yeah you had the highlight play but you fumbled the snap on that play and you only led San Jose State by seven points at halftime at home. F. That aforementioned FIU Louisiana Tech game. That is an F and here's why it's an F. FIU was leading this football game WD until about six or seven minutes to go and they were leading the football game despite the fact that their starting quarterback had four passing yards one two three four passing yards.

You can count them on one hand and have the thumb to spare. FIU was leading this football game. If that doesn't give you a sense for how gross the game was.

I don't know what else will. If you look at the offensive efficiency ratings in this game which I have. What a waste of time. I have way too much time on my hands to check offensive efficiency ratings of FIU and Louisiana Tech gross gross gross football. That's an F. There's your recap from week zero action of the college football season. Thanks in large part to our next guest and Joey Jones with the app state athletics department. We're happy to announce we're ramping up our mountaineer coverage this year starting this week. We'll be carrying mountaineer talk on WSJS this year. We're going to be giving away tickets to app state football games throughout the season and who knows. We might even have a pair for this weekend's game later to give away this hour and on top of that we'll be broadcasting our show from Boone a couple of times this fall and we'll have regular visits with our man who's joining us now app state coach Sean Clark joining us coach from a recruiting perspective and from a fundraising perspective to just how important is the triad area to your program. It's huge everything about us big and we have a lot of alumni in the area and help me get down there to talk or to be around alumni is big for us.

You know, I think it goes back to our fans travel very well and that's a big recruiting tool for us to get to sabbat these sold-out stadiums week in and week out to put our program on national stage. So we can't take them enough really can't thank you enough for having us on I'm very excited to get you up here to do a mountaineer talk and to one of the best sports radio shows in the state of North Carolina last week app state athletics announced that it's going to retire our Monte Edwards is number 14 at halftime at the Georgia Southern game and he's going to be the fifth year fifth player in program history to have his number retired and this is a pretty huge deal just from a numbers perspective. Now, I'm not a math magician coach Clark, but you got 85 scholarship players plus walk-ons so and you only get two digits that you're working in you only got 99 digits that you can work with.

So why did it feel right for you to take number 14 out of circulation for our Monty? Well, it was time anytime you have one arguably the most decorated players in the history of your program. It's time to put that number aside and really honor him and we're a fantastic football player is even better person the way represented the state of North Carolina app nation. I mean, why not and no fitting than the Georgia Southern game with this the last game of the year and you know, we have a kid Kanye Roberts is in 14 right now, but and we've explained to him he'll wear that until this time is over and that number will go on forever. They won't ever wear that number again. That's such a cool deal Armani. He should get into the college football Hall of Fame for the Michigan game alone.

I know he was eligible for the Hall of Fame starting this year. And by the way, it's not just app state gear we have in studio. Thanks by the way for the helmet you provided for us in our in studio setup. This has also been framed in our studio for a while the 2007 Sports Illustrated cover after app state beat Michigan. So you should just know we've got a copy of this sitting here every day. We're doing the show coach. Well, that's pretty impressive. I'm glad you got the right black and gold filing in your studio.

But listen, I have the same one to sign by Dexter Jackson. So again, anytime we can represent do things the right way. We're going to do that. But that was a fantastic win for our program really per our program a national stage. And then so we're very proud of that the upset there in Ann Arbor.

But help me out here. If memory serves your Eastern Kentucky at the time when app state won the game. What do you remember about learning about or following what app was doing in Ann Arbor Day?

What if all they get back then you couldn't watch TV on your phone. So I was following by scores and the tracker and then, you know, we were watching we were in pregame warm-ups. We were playing the University of Kentucky that weekend and we had a really good offensive line and I had all these cameras around me during pregame warm-up.

So hell I must be a pretty good offensive line coach. Everyone wants to talk to me and having no idea what was going on what was happening at the time and then as soon as we broke for individual and I was able to talk to the me they announced that app say just beat Michigan and then announced over the intercom the University of Kentucky the place went wild. So as a great memory, I thought was about me at the time but really one of the all-time upsets of all college football. How long did it take you to get in touch with Coach Moore after that one? Do you remember it was a while?

I know I listen to his schedule talk with some of the coaches are on staff that he didn't say no to anyone. So it probably was a few months later, but that was a proud moment for me been alum. I know what it meant to the town of Boone all that nation.

So what a great picture. We hope we have many more down the road somewhere app stay coach Sean Clark's with us here. Let's not do the thing where we only talk about 2007 in September of last year. You got a game this week against Gardner Webb and you announced that Ryan burger is going to be your starting quarterback earlier today every player every quarterback. Where every quarterback has their strengths and weaknesses. What's the strength that separated Ryan to win the job?

Well, then it goes back. We told her a whole team. He had to earn your spot on the team this year.

This matter if you're all-commerce player coming back you had earned your spot and it was a real competition. We went through all through January all the way up till till yesterday. Who's gonna be the starting quarterback and both quarterbacks are capable of playing winning football for us just the last five or six days Ryan really stood out. This is command of the offense how he things relevant smoother at the time and then we felt Ryan gives the best opportunity to win now, but we mentioned to the both guys last night.

We met with them that listen. This is a don't look over your shoulder, but we're gonna play the best person gives a chance when we can and week out from a coaching perspective. I'm interested in what you think about this last year you open the season with the tar heels. It was power five game right out of the gate and it was a crazy game 63 61. Meanwhile, North Carolina who you were facing had a week zero game.

So they broke in Drake May a week ahead of going to the mountain this week. You have a home game before you play the Tar Heels obviously Gardner Webb comes first, but from a preparation perspective when it comes to scheduling power five opponents. How much of a difference do you think it makes having a game of tape to evaluate or a game like that versus it being your opener. I think it goes back to really what you're rocking looks like last year. We had a lot of experience going back with Chase Bryce at the quarterback and experienced offensive line to those guys were playing the National Football League. We had Nick Hampton who's playing for the Rams right now. It's well experienced team last year this year. We're a young football team not so much as far as age-wise, but it's just not much playing experience. So again, we have a tough game. We're not looking ahead in North Carolina right now. It's all about Gardner Webb and you look at their roster, you know, they have 10 preseason all-conference players on defense and they have three preseason all-americans.

So we know that's what the biggest task at hand right now is Gardner Webb and then we'll go to North Carolina. App State football coach Sean Clark with us here on WSJS. How much football did you watch over the weekend coach?

Not much. We had a mock game on Friday night. We gave the staff the players off and then I had to be a dad for a little bit. My son played in a baseball tournament over in Kingsport, Tennessee, and it was all about him and to be around him for the last weekend before everything breaks loose, but not much football.

I had a chance to watch 12U baseball. So that was a little bit more exciting for me as a dad. How vocal is dad in the stands versus dad on the sideline coaching?

You wouldn't know I was there. It's all when I when I'm there, it's just been dad. Oh, that's both my kids. My daughter, Gianna, plays volleyball and my son plays football and baseball and basketball just to be encouraging to make sure they give their best effort.

Like, I don't care if he strikes out, but if he doesn't hustle, then we'll have an issue. So that was that's just a problem for me has been a data through your kids play. You spend as much time with other people's kids and try to develop them. Sometimes you lose sight of the big picture.

And that's our two kids at home. What's in on a couple of important things? It's Ryan Burgers, your quarterback. I've got to ask what what's your ideal topping situation on a burger? Ideal topic on a burger.

I'm pretty basic. My last rule on earth, I want a big cheeseburger with a big slice of tomatoes from Duke's mayonnaise. I'll call it the end of the day after that. There's nothing better than some Duke mayonnaise and a big slice of the tomato on a cheeseburger. You go cheeseburger. So we got cheese on there.

Then you talk a tomato and some Duke's mayonnaise. OK, we're about that. Getting to since you didn't watch much football, you might not have paid attention to this. But there, believe it or not, you're going to be stunned to find this out, coach, that people overreact to things in a small period of time. And we're already seeing some overreaction to the new clock rules and how quickly things moved in the game and Dublin between Notre Dame and Navy. How noticeable of a difference do you think the new clock rules are going to be? I think you'll probably be an average, I would say, between five and 10 plays shorter throughout the season. Again, you have to take an effect. Also, that running clock with you're playing Navy, all I do is run the football.

So that cost going to turn no matter what. So we've had two scrimmages. We had officials here to rough the umpire of the game. And, you know, we didn't see much difference, but I think over time you'll probably see five or 10 plays shorter. But, you know, really the crunch time you get out to the last two minutes for the half and the end of the game is back to normal rules.

So other than that, it shouldn't change too much. John Clark, thank you for all that you allow us to do. And we're excited for a very jam packed full of mountaineer football, mountaineer talk and all of the above. Thanks so much for doing this as always. Yeah, thanks for having me on your show and appreciate all the fans in the triad area.

And look forward to getting up here to the mountain and little mountaineer talk here soon. There are a lot of so-called sports talk guys who don't do anything but flap their gums. Yeah, exactly. But not Josh Graham.

He doesn't even like gum or flapping for that matter. So talented. You're on the drive with Josh Graham. Got a Charlotte FC note to pass along. Leo Messi's first MLS match was supposed to be against Charlotte. This would have been not last Saturday, but the Saturday before that. But due to the League's Cup, how far both Charlotte and Inter Miami advanced, they had to postpone.

We now have that postponement date. October the 18th, Charlotte will face Inter Miami in Miami, which is a week after Leo Messi and Miami visit Charlotte. Charlotte is going to close its regular season against Inter Miami two matches. They're going to face them in back to back matches to close the year.

That's according to our guy, Will Pelagic. So wanted to pass that along. If you'd like to go see Charlotte FC Wednesday night against Orlando, give us a call right now at 336-777-1600. First person to call in gets those tickets.

7 7 7 1 600. Let's go. So if you can't be the first person to call in and win those tickets, then you can listen right here on WSJS. It's a busy, busy week here at WSJS. Shifting the conversation to what Sam Hartman did Saturday against Navy.

And I want to hit on this in a different kind of way. Focus on this from the Wake Forest perspective. Prepare yourself, Wake Forest fans. The Sam Hartman hype campaign is about to become obnoxious for you. September is going to be a pain in the neck the way that this is going to be talked about because there is prominent national media that has not seen him play. It's kind of staggering.

You look at the reaction to Saturday afternoon and most of it is people saying, whoa, Sam Hartman. He's really good. And we're all thinking. We know. We watched him play. Not one, not two, not three, not four, but five years at Wake Forest. And he's not doing this all due respect in Conference USA. It's in the ACC. He broke the career touchdowns record in the ACC. It's just clear some national media were not watching Wake Forest, even though Wake was in the top 10 at one point last year and in the top 10 at one point the year before that.

They just weren't watching Wake Forest. It kind of reminds me of Nicole Jokic. Jokic is in the NBA.

Jokic won a couple of MVPs, but it wasn't until he was in the playoffs and winning the finals and getting to the finals where people were like, hey, you know who's good? Joker, man. Yeah, that Joker guy. Whoa.

You'd be surprised how many national media members aren't really paying attention to things they probably should or you expect that they should. I will give credit to Marcus Freeman, though. Marcus Freeman, he's not the one dropping Ignace. He actually kind of tamped down the, whoa, surprising Sam Hartman carving up Navy on Saturday when he was asked about Sam after the game. He told me today, this was, I think, the 48th or 47th game he's played in.

I think he's started 42 games. This moment isn't too big, and it's about him going out there and just executing. And what I really, really thought he did a great job was putting our offense in a really good position to execute the play. There was a couple things, a couple calls that we had that was, depending on what the defense was showing, we were going to check to a run, a pass, or a certain protection. And just to hear the communication of our coaches, to making sure that Sam is putting our offense in a great, just really a great situation to succeed was really good. Yeah, Sam played very well. But if you're a Wake Forest fan watching Saturday, it had to annoy you the way that it was being treated, as if it was some type of surprise that Sam Hartman was pretty good. And here's the thing, it's only going to ramp up. Sam Hartman was on with Dan Patrick today, and they're going to be unbeaten heading into the Ohio State game.

I've got news for you. Sorry, NC State fans, but Wake, pardon me, Notre Dame, they're going to beat Tennessee State this week 2-0. They're going to beat NC State the week after that. I think there's one more game after that. You're going to be talking about a 4-0 Irish team that's hosting Ohio State at Notre Dame Stadium. It's going to be the biggest game that week. And who knows, even if they lose that game, they're probably going to be 6-1 heading into the USC game.

And if they're unbeaten, ugh. But what you should mostly expect, that people are going to get the facts wrong. People are going to get the facts wrong with Hartman and Wake Forest all throughout this week.

And that's something that should bother you, too. That's what reminds me about the Russell Wilson and Mike Glennon situation 10 years ago. There are a lot of similarities between the two. Don't get me wrong.

It's not the exact same deal. Like, it's not like there was a second sport that Sam Hartman was playing. And it's not like there is a coach that was pretty miffed by, you know, Sam Hartman.

Dave Claussen, great relationship with Sam. Five years on campus. It is kind of a different circumstance.

But here are some of the ways that it's similar. Why is Sam Hartman playing football right now? I think he is. He could have gotten drafted after this year. Dave Claussen says he had a fifth or sixth round grade based on what NFL scouts are telling him at that point. He decided that he would go to Notre Dame because. He probably with more exposure and playing in a pro style offense, we saw him under center on Saturday more than we saw him probably all of last year under center at Wake Forest. Probably can impress NFL scouts more and bump up that his draft stock to maybe a second third round pick.

That's part of the reason. That's what reminds me of Russell Wilson. Hey, Russell Wilson goes to Wisconsin. And he probably would not have been drafted given his size at that point out of NC State. But because he won the Rose Bowl and had a great year at Wisconsin with more exposure, he's a third round draft pick all of the sudden. And we saw the NFL career that he had. Another similarity between the two.

There's this idea. And I heard from people who were not Wake Forest fans who saw I was commenting on Hartman over the weekend on Twitter saying, oh, Wake fans probably can't stand them. Oh, they're rooting against him.

He's a traitor. No, he spent five years there and he was going to go to the NFL or go somewhere else all along. We knew that. And on top of that, Wake isn't heartbroken.

He's not there. Just like NC State wasn't like there was a misconception that NC State pushed Russell Wilson out. No, Russ just didn't show up to spring.

Practice because he was playing baseball and NC State wanted their starting quarterback at spring practice. And it turns out Mike Glennon was pretty good and went Mike Glennon to transfer out potentially if Russell Wilson came back for another year. Similarly, Sam Hartman, for as great as he is, has one more year left. Mitch Griffiths is three and he's already been in the offense for three years.

So it's kind of a unique circumstance. You don't want to risk losing out on Mitch. I bet you if you call someone never say it, but if you injected Dave Claussen with truth serum and asked him, would you rather have Sam Hartman for one year or Mitch Griffiths for three? He'd take the Mitch Griffiths for three.

So that's a piece of this, too, that makes it similar to that. You should expect people to get the facts wrong. But that's going to it's going to be an obnoxious next month for Wake Forest fans seeing the way that Sam Hartman is covered in South Bend. Hayes Permar, he's going to be with us in a few minutes. W.D., how'd you spend your week zero weekend this next week? We're going to have plenty of games to go to. You and I are going to North Carolina, South Carolina.

I'll be at Wake, Elon. I'll be at Duke and Clemson. So three games in the next week for yours truly. So I didn't do anything this past weekend. How'd you spend it? So I did watch a quarter of that Notre Dame game.

What did you do outside of watching a quarter of Notre Dame and Navy? So I discovered that. So there's a pool room, like a billiards room up in my apartment complex. And this whole time I thought it was locked whenever the office is closed. And so I went in there. There's a side door, apparently. So the main doors of this pool room are locked, but the side door isn't. So I snuck in there and I played a lot of pool this weekend, had a buddy come over and play. I don't know if I'm supposed to be in there or not. You didn't hear that from me, but played a little bit of that and just hung out at the house, man.

Trying to get myself organized because we are going to be on the road a lot. I feel the way Seth Rogen feels in the movie 40 Year Old Virgin when he asked Andy what he did that what he did over the weekend. And Andy went on talking about how he really wanted some type of like egg, like egg salad sandwich of some sorts. And it it culminated with Seth Rogen pantomiming as if he was shooting himself. Oh, I see.

After the story that Andy told. Great story, by the way. Thank you.

Great, great job. I sense genuineness on that. We're going to play skips or plays with Hayes Permar and we're taking negative takes off the table. We're going to talk positive takes only when it comes to the ACC. Cal and Stanford next.

Before we get to skips or plays with Hayes, Hayes Permar joining us as he does each week. All I see are negative takes, negative opinions when it comes to the ACC adding Cal and Stanford. And we get it. It's a bummer. It doesn't make any sense. Most of the opinions should be negative.

But just to swerve a little bit. Hayes Permar, I'm taking all the negative takes off the table. We're only going to be ACC propagandist for this segment and talking about how this is awesome. Adding Cal, adding Stanford, adding SMU. So tell me something that excites you. Tell me something that's positive, that's cool about these additions that are inevitably going to be made in this university president's meeting tonight. Alright, first of all, let me check because I was totally off the grid last weekend in West Virginia. Is this still happening? Are we adding Stanford, Cal and SMU?

What's going on here? Tonight, tonight, university presidents are going to meet and it's probably going to happen. What? Okay. Positives.

Wake and Duke fans love not being the nerdiest fans in the ACC anymore. Easy. Done. How about this?

It's kind of like maybe we can do a Sports Channel 8 video where we parody the racial draft from Chappelle's show 20 years ago. Tiger Woods, ACC legend now. First overall pick.

I love you, Dad. Like, we can do it. I don't know where Cal falls in this, but I know Stanford is good. Like, forget, we're playing it for the future, right?

ACC legend Eric Dickerson. We know, no, no, no, we know we're ahead of the game. If you're going all in on football right now, you're behind the trend, dude. It's way too late to get on the football game and start a football program, okay? We want women's lacrosse, field hockey, rowing.

If we bring in Stanford, you're telling me that Duke can't get a top-notch rowing team together like that? No, we buck the trend. Football, that's so 20th century, dude. That is 1990.

Yeah, it's still the last gaffe. They're holding on for another 25 years. Are kids even going to be playing football in 10 years?

That's what I mean. Kids are not signing up to play football anymore. It's men's and women's soccer. It's field hockey, field hockey. Bring it on.

All the Olympic sports. Again, I don't know if Cal helps us there, but Stanford definitely does. So, we're in. And then, SMU, we... They were giving out kids, forward thinking, they were giving kids buckets of cash before it was even legal. That's what I mean. It used to be that we take all the ills of UNC or anybody else and just dump them on NC State. Now, we can just dump them on SMU.

That's where... Throw all the books at them for recruiting violations and other things. Like, SMU, those are our bad boys now. Florida State and Clemson can go dirty recruit and get away with whatever because we'll just throw the book at SMU. So, yeah, that's another positive story. Greatest ACC game ever.

The band is still out on the field. Greatest ACC moment I can think of. Yeah, we're just co-oping their entire history, all that stuff. That's how this works. I like that. You know, being in California is nice. Sunny California.

Texas isn't a bad state to be in. SMU, that is the one. California and Stanford, I don't want them. But when you see Power 5 teams that are just out there, I mean, formerly Power 5 teams that are now just out there adrift, it makes sense to at least explore. All right, we could probably get them for cheap. They're desperate.

Let's talk to them. Yeah. SMU is the one that I'm like, what?

Where? I made this analogy earlier to WD. I'm just like, hey, it's like going up to the hot girl at the bar and being like, I'm not even expecting anything. You don't have to pay me for like seven dates. I'm not expecting.

But I don't want to date you still. No, but I'm like, hey, you don't even have to pay anything. It's like, why do we want you still? OK. Or it's kind of like the dog, like on the side of the road that you see like a buck fifty dog or like a five dollar dog that's dirty. It's like, oh, yeah. Who wants the five dollar dog? Like if there's a dog that's there for five dollars, you're immediately thinking, well, why do I want the five dollar dog? That's right.

Raise your price a little bit. SMU value yourself a little better. Stanford, don't they come in like number one every year every year every year because they swim well, they grow well, they do all this stuff.

And just to get complete. And they have a obviously a great prestigious university academic wise. Wake. Wake Stanford baseball rivalry already dial it up and the way they were just completely faded like Big Ten. You know, we Big Ten and ACC used to both claim, well, we at least want to we want to see what your university is made of. Like we care about these things. But then we got Florida State, we got Louisville, we stopped Karen. Like you would think the Big Ten would be like, ah, Stanford, that could add to our like, you know, prestige.

What we think about ourselves. But like, nah, screw it. Let's go get Oregon. Now let's now let's play skips or plays with Hayes. It's time for skips or plays with Hayes. And I'm legitimately interested this week, Hayes, because behind baseball or behind the scenes a bit, maybe an inside baseball thing here.

W.D. told me that the what the theme is already. He said that it's week one of college football. It's football themed songs. And I started like trying to figure it out in my head.

And I didn't get very far of what qualifies as football music. So we'll see what he comes up with. Is that right? With the theme? That would be correct.

You are not wrong on that. And what is the first song you have for Hayes Permar football theme? We got to go with the college game day theme.

Come into your city. Big and rich. Yeah. Well, they just announced last week that for the first time in 17 years, this isn't going to be the anthem anymore. What's the new one? They said they had announced on Saturday. So we'll see if it's like Eric Church, Luke Combs or Marin Morris, Casey Musgraves. It's got to be country, right? They got to keep it country. They are speaking to too many red blooded Americans. Do not go country. I will say I don't like this song.

I don't like big and rich. But once it was like three or four years into the college game day, you're like, I kind of like it, especially getting ready for football. I always like I feel like they gave me the option because sometimes they update the verses. You know what I mean? We got the stuff in down and games. We'll see.

You know, they change it every year. Yeah. I think I could have written some better verses. But I got to say, as much as I try to hate on this song, every time they hit me with it, if you got a little bang bang bang, if you got a little bang bang bang, if you got a little yang yang yang, come along. I'm like, you know what? That's a play. Yeah.

Hey, sperm. OK, so we got that. I like where we're at. But every time we come on, I'm like, I am going to watch this through until I get a little bang bang bang. Kind of like one shining moment. Not a good song, but it's kind of like well-placed.

OK, what's the next one? Some Kenny Chesney boys a fall. I feel that you smell that fresh cut grass. I mean, this is a football song.

I'm back in my helmet cleats and shoulder pads. Different vibes. Very. Listening to the call. Fans going crazy for the boys. You know, this song didn't let just anybody. I think I know the chorus. It's the one that goes, it's the other here. There's a football ballad.

That's what we're doing. I think that's what it is. It's supposed to be like emotional. Get you in your feels. Probably high school football is the theme. If I had to guess, what's also what's Kenny Chesney's best song? Let me think about that as we hear the chorus here.

It ain't doing it for days. I can see it is just trying too hard to be like, oh, this is written to be on your high school football team's end of the year slideshow. Like Kenny Chesney was like, this will make every end of the year slideshow.

Right. But I need more songs that are like kick it off and kicking up the adrenaline. And this song's not doing it for me. Best Chesney songs? Probably There Goes My Life. Actually, no, no, no, no.

Yeah. There Goes My Life is probably his best song. The most noteworthy is probably No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problem or She Thinks My Tractor Sexy. OK, I was going to say she thinks about tractor sexy.

No shirt, no shoes, no problem. I mean, ultimately, what I'm getting at here is, is Kenny Chesney good? Yeah, he's good. Is he great? No. OK, I go see him.

He has enough hits. I'm OK. So we got this. Now we're scraping the bottom of the barrel already. Like, what could you possibly pull? I mean, listen, I'll be honest with you. Combs, what do we have?

I mean, I kind of struggled to find a third song. So I tried to get creative here. This is for Big Ten football this year. It's always back in the studio that you only see for like March Madness. The SEC is no longer on CBS after this year. So this is going to be Big Ten football.

This is the theme. That's a play banger. He found three football songs.

Well, two and a half, it sounds like. I couldn't think of any football song. Really? I can't. I mean, unless you count like tailgate songs.

That's a little bit different, though. Now, my quick Google search gives me mostly soccer songs. Somebody write a better football song. Make it happen.

Because all we got is big and rich. And then we'll figure out. I mean, you've got the other you got the the other theme songs, right? You got.

Are you ready for some football? That's good. And then, you know. Oh, yeah.

I mean, you got the other themes, but like outside of those. It's good question. Somebody right. Good football song. Great football songs.

Actually, I don't even try to think of who sings this in in the triangle. W and C is the public radio. And on you just be Saturday nights.

Now, I think it's Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights. They've got a thing called backports music where they put on like folk music. And then if you're a if you donate, they'll send you a CD of like some of the best songs for backports music.

I mean, I bet there's people in there that prefer to Merle Fest and other places. And there's a song. It's it's really about a love song about a guy that got left by the girl. But the name of the song is She Walked Away Just Like Jim Brown. Basically, like I thought things were still good. And she walked out like when we like. But, you know, that was the that was the time to leave. So that's it's not really a football song, but definitely football theme.

She walked away just like Jim Brown. Pierce Pettis, I believe, is the artist that is. And also, before we go, happy birthday to Pepsi on this day in eighteen ninety eight. Eastern North Carolina baby became Pepsi. So Eastern North Carolina two five two.

Shout out. New Bern, the Carolinas, Craven County. I watched Conjuring for the first time last night and then I just learned in the last half hour because someone told me on Twitter. So, you know, it's true that it was shot in Wilmington. Then know that.

Oh, I didn't know that. A lot of movies were shot in Wilmington before like twenty twelve or so. The North Carolina General Assembly strongly reduced the greatly reduced the tax benefits for filming in North Carolina. And that's why we lost a lot of stuff to Georgia, like The Walking Dead went to Georgia. These things that might have been in Wilmington, the Conjuring, Dawson's Creek, One Tree Hill. All these movies were being filmed down in Wilmington. And I do think they lost Todd Gurley to Georgia.

I think there's a resurgence of movies in Wilmington, but it's not the same as it was. Yeah. Eastern North Carolina lost Todd Gurley. Shouts to Goldsboro.

Hey, Haze Permart, thanks for doing this, buddy. We'll talk next week about the Tarboro Tarboro. That's right. Oh, sorry. That's I've got it mixed up with Montrez, Harold. That's that's also Tarboro. Yeah. Both. No, no.

Tres is from Goldsboro. No, it's not. All right. We're not we're I don't even care if we have a two minute segment in our next segment. I don't care.

He's going to Google Montrez, Harold. I mean, I feel very strongly on that. I do, too. Yeah.

I could see his face. Yep. Yep.

Yep. He's from Tarboro. See this different high school, though, in Tarboro. How do you not go to Tarboro High?

He's not a Viking. Probably like an academy for his last years. North Edgecombe is where he went to school. That is a and then he went to Hargrave. You're right.

I think he might have played for Keats. How about that? Well, we did at Louisville.

He did do that at Louisville. I know that. All right.

Haze Permar. We'll try to have some fun next week, too. How about that? We will do it. My apologies to the people of Tarboro who you offended by trying to take away their legends.