Do You Believe? (9-4-23)

This is The Drive with Josh Graham Podcast.

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It's live action, Tracy. It's game day for Duke and Clemson, a game you can listen to on WSJS and we'll be getting to shortly. It's also officially game week for the Carolina Panthers and it didn't take long for there to be a damper put on the excitement of that fact. This morning we learned that while Brian Burns has been with the team and even participated in team meetings this morning, he did not participate in a team walkthrough getting set for the Atlanta Falcons.

And pretty clearly, it's a situation where he's unhappy with the fact his contract isn't done. We knew that after listening to Frank Reich speak this morning. And here's some of what Frank had to say about Brian Burns. I mean, it's hard. I mean, like I can say and both of these things seem to be true.

I can say I love and respect Brian Burns and he's got to do what he's got to do. But does that make it harder? Yeah, it makes it harder. I mean, that's just the facts.

I mean, I'm sure he understands that. And, you know, you can't find more of a team guy than him, you know, but life is complicated sometimes. It gets complicated.

So, you know, we just keep moving forward. OK, so that might have confused you a little bit how there's a couple of sides to that. It's hard.

Why is it hard? Brian Burns isn't here. And he's the reason why he isn't here.

He's choosing not to participate in the team walkthrough and we're having to make plans. We be in the Carolina Panthers in this sense for not having Brian Burns available potentially. But at the same time, Brian Burns is the ultimate team guy.

It's interesting messaging that if you haven't been following this closely, you might scratch your head at what Frank Reich saying there. The context matters with Brian Burns's contract dispute. Nick Bosa is the reason why the deal isn't already done. Nick Bosa is the best rusher in the league. And when he signs a new contract, it's going to reset the market for what edge rushers make. He still hasn't signed that deal, though, and he's holding out. See, he hasn't been at Niners Camp the way that Brian Burns has.

Chris Jones at Kansas City hasn't either. The thinking from agents when it comes to their clients is that clients who play the same position as a player who gets set to reset the market will make more money on their next contract if they wait after that market-changing, market-resetting player signs. Than if they were to sign it before that player signs. In other words, Nick Bosa is going to reset the cap and put the standard down for what you're expected to be paid. The precedent is going to raise that precedent. And while Brian Burns might not make as much as what Nick Bosa makes, he'll probably make more after Nick Bosa signs than if he doesn't.

That's why we are in this position right now. Because the Carolina Panthers have the incentive and they have the means to get this deal done. Remember, Scott Federer turned down not one but two first-round draft picks towards the deadline to keep Brian Burns on the roster. They traded away Christian McCaffrey. They traded away in the offseason DJ Moore in order to bring in Bryce Young, trading up to that number one pick. Doing that opened up a lot of cap space on the books.

Carolina has one of the... They're in the top five in terms of salary cap space right now. So they're capable of paying them.

This is not a cheap organization. David Tepper is one of the richest owners in the NFL. Depending on what list you look at, he might even be the richest owner in the NFL.

You have that. You have salary cap space. He plays a premium position. You turn down two first-round picks a year ago.

The reason this isn't done yet is because they're waiting on the Bosa deal to get done. What makes it strange is the Carolina Panthers can't control that. So why would Brian Burns hold that against Carolina? It doesn't seem like Carolina is taking it personally. You heard Frank Reich's language.

Here's some more from Frank Reich talking about Brian Burns' situation. I'm at the stage in this where I'm not involved in the contract negotiation at all. Zero.

I have zero. At this point, I've expressed... Mr. Tepper and Scott asked me my views of certain things. I've expressed my views. I'm just worried about getting our team ready to play Atlanta. That's all that's on my mind. Do I hope that he's there? Absolutely, I hope he's there. If he's not there, I'm not worried about it.

Just move forward. Let's bring it to the Atlanta Falcons then. Without Brian Burns, Carolina's not beating Atlanta Sunday.

Plain and simple. There was also news today. Marquise Haynes, who we thought was going to line up across from Brian Burns before they traded or part of me signed Justin Houston at a free agency. Marquise Haynes seemed to be one of those rushers you were going to rely on. Likely going to start if Brian Burns isn't able to go. He was put on IR at least going to miss the first four games. So you might be without Brian Burns and Marquise Haynes.

Justin Houston has not played a snap for the Carolina Panthers so far this year. Brian Burns is Carolina's best player. And you think without your best player and without Marquise Haynes as well. And also a banged up receiver room and a quarterback who's making his debut on the road with a new coaching staff is going to win a football game? Even with Brian Burns, that seems like a tall order.

Without him, forget it. So the context, it matters when it comes to the Brian Burns dispute. There's no animosity here, or at least that's not detected. Burns didn't talk to media today. That's understandable. This is not like the Bosa and Jones situations.

It seems like this is a byproduct of those situations. On Twitter, at wsjsradio if you want in, that's where we're streaming video on this Labor Day. In addition to YouTube and Twitch, Will Dalton, the executive producer of the show. This weekend we were in Charlotte for North Carolina, beating South Carolina by two touchdowns. You had Florida State last night hammering LSU. Go ACC, am I right?

They look good. If Carolina's defense can do that consistently, and if Florida State can do that consistently, we know what Clemson's probably going to do. And the ACC. We'll see about Clemson. Here's what I know about Duke Clemson.

It is a win-win for us tonight. Duke Clemson is a win-win. If Clemson wins, you can book College Game Day being in Death Valley a few weeks from now. September 23rd, mark it down, Clemson, Florida State. That's where College Game Day is going to be. Just like College Game Day was in Chapel Hill, or pardon me, in Charlotte this past weekend. Lee Corso putting on the Ram head, and there was a Josh Graham Boston College head in the stands as well.

We need to talk to the person that put up that head at some point during today's show. We'll see if we can make that happen. Clemson's not going to lose to Florida Atlantic after this game, if they win against Duke tonight. They're not going to lose against Charleston Southern. Both those games are in Death Valley. Florida State's not going to lose to Boston College at home or Southern Miss.

Boston College. So you're going to have two 3-0 teams that very well could be ranked in the top five, depending on what type of carnage happens the next few weeks. Which would be very exciting stuff. That's if Clemson wins. If Duke wins, it would be their greatest win in over 30 years. That's as far as I'm willing to go. David Shumate, maybe he'll go farther.

Voice of the Blue Devils, who will join us later in the show. With Duke, it all goes back to 1989, when they won the ACC, Steve Spurrier's year. 41-0, they beat North Carolina to clinch it.

There's that classic photo of them in front of the scoreboard. They also beat Clemson that year. If you want to go back further, then you go back to the 40s and you go to the Rose Bowl win. If Duke wins, it's going to be one of the signature wins in the history of Duke football. But like Florida State last night and North Carolina the night before that, you should expect that Clemson's going to win and probably send a message too. That's what FSU and North Carolina did. Not only did they win the games, they won it and left very little doubt. It's like the coach in Remember the Titans, leave no doubt.

Let them remember the night they played the Titans. All we've heard all offseason. Oh, it's all about Florida State. Oh man, Clemson offensively. Is Cade Klubnick the guy? Oh, look at how DJ balled over the weekend. Clearly it's coaching. They got Garrett Riley in the building now. This is Cade Klubnick's first regular season start. I'm excited to watch the skill position players. Everybody's saying this is going to be a close one.

I don't know if it is. I think the Tigers are going to win and they're going to cover. But if that doesn't happen and I'm going to be at this game, going to be driving to Durham right after we get off the air.

It's a win-win. If Clemson wins, great for the ACC. If Duke wins, great for us. Here in the state of North Carolina, it would mean all four of our ACC schools won in week one. North Carolina and Duke. Wake at NC State on Thursday night. And that, again, is a positive.

So it is truly a win-win situation. I'm being told we are going to chat with the person that infiltrated college game day with the Josh Graham fathead. Josh Graham, Boston College face fathead. Did you see that on Saturday? Well, we'll tell you about it and how it happened next. The highlight of the weekend was college game day on Saturday.

When at 9 a.m. after walking Willow the dog, I turn it on. The new intro for college game day. Pretty good. Spinoff of the big and rich coming to your city, getting Laney Wilson involved, Darius Rucker involved. And from Charlotte, about a minute into the broadcast. Right behind Lee Corso's shoulder, I saw the Josh Graham Boston College face emerge from over a few fans, different signs. A few of which I don't know if I'm allowed to read on the radio. That was a fun conversation with my mom. Hey, mom, turn on ESPN.

Well, which one are you? I'm behind the sign that says the heels came to Charlotte to beat the Cox minus the done there. Right.

Had to explain that. That was fun. The guy who was responsible for that fathead emerging on college game day is Kyle, the Amazon driver that joins us now.

Kyle. How early did you get the college game day to get prime positioning the way that you did? Man, first of all, thank you guys for having me on the show today, man. I left my house at about five o'clock a.m., which apparently was too late because those jokers are there. I got there, I think, around six forty six forty five. The place was already packed by then. You know, we had been guys have been standing there behind me since like six thirty. And imagine that no traffic, man, I ran right through that some gun and got there about six forty six forty five, waited it out with everybody. It was a good time, man.

You still had a pretty good position, though. How confused were the people around you with the fathead? Well, see, that's the thing about carrying that fathead with your face on it around my neck, man. There's three types of people. OK, there's one type who stares and just kind of gives a little half grin like, OK, yeah, that's funny.

Doesn't even matter to them. The other half literally stopped me and say, hey, what is that? And I go into explaining it. The general consensus that day, man, as you could see on college game day Twitter, when they do the science thing, I was in a crowd of my people, man. As weird as we were with our science, as great as those signs were, I was in a crowd of people that had a lot of signs, a lot of funny things going on. There was one or two people that did kind of recognize it. They were like, hey, I've seen that somewhere, but I don't quite know where. And I had to explain to them, man. Hey, listen, this is what it is. This is what we're doing.

There's a lot of things I wanted to do with it. I wanted to put a little I wanted to put a little I wanted to debut the Graham Williams. What are the Graham Williams?

Graham William Williams, the four. Yeah, man. Yeah, man. See, the thing is, they don't when you're in the pit, they don't allow signs with sticks.

It has to be all hands. So I had the stick, the t-shirt go around it. And then I had the little UNC headband. But yeah, they weren't allowing all that. So it was all good.

No, that could that could still be said for another time. B-Dot still is mad at me over the Graham William Williams, the fourth, which is a sign which is a sign that it hit close to home that there's some residents there. You did what you were supposed to do. W.D. is a Tar Heel fan.

Graham William Williams, the fourth as a Tar Heel alter ego. I think there's something there. You're wearing them down, man. You're wearing them down. He's going to come around here soon. He's starting to like me a little bit now. You might be emulating some people on frat row, maybe.

Yeah, I think I think that's exactly what we're going for. It's a select group there. Not all of them, though. I got a question. Whose idea was it to make polos and khakis the normal wear for football games, man?

It is funny. Mike Golick Jr., who was calling the game on television, not on television, he was doing it on national radio. He pointed that out to me. We were talking about polos and khakis and talking about Golden Bachelor.

Those are the two things that we got to. And Mike Golick Jr. was wondering about that being the decorum. And it does seem like this is a southern thing since I've only grown up in the south.

It's all I know. But I guess you saw a lot of people even wearing the the garnet in black that were donning the polos and khakis tour. Just Carolina fans, North Carolina fans, Carolina men.

We're a special type, man, because I remember a game they reached Davis. You know, it was first of all, it was a very pro South Carolina crowd at college game day. Right. And in the stand it was. Oh, my gosh. It was it was it was a sight to see because there are a lot of things said to me. I was told this wasn't our state anymore. It was South Carolina state and things like that. But as far as the dress, man, I mean, they were going to church. I mean, my goodness. And they treated it as search.

I guess down there. That is their you know, the football game is their church. The women dress up. I didn't know that the dudes dressed up. I know the women dressed up. And these dudes were dressed up and they had the polos on the khakis.

Every single last one of them looked the same. But it was funny because, you know, even Reese Davis made the joke before the show started. He said, I'm glad to see a healthy bunch of South Carolina fans.

I guess the North Carolina fans are somewhere eating their brunch with their with their mimosas, with their pinky out. And all that stuff. Oh, man. He's got me fired up.

Then I look around. I'm like, we look like the rowdy bunch out here, man. Yeah. Here in our Nike shirts. You know, we're living a good life. And like I said, these dudes are dressed up like they're going to the to the board meeting down here at Alamance County.

A.B.S. Kyle, the Amazon driver, had the Josh Graham fat head up at college game day on Saturday. If you missed that, it's up on our social media. What was the coolest part about watching game day in person for people who haven't seen the show that way? I think one of the coolest things is really just the general atmosphere. It's it surprised me how little was about the actual game was just a big celebration of college football. You know what I mean? Seeing how they did the TV things, you start realizing, like, OK, this is for TV.

And I've been to other TV events and you start seeing kind of the production value and stuff like that. I mean, it's like they had everything covered down to, like I said, no sticks in the pit. They had signs where they had to mark out on Hellman's because it was a Duke sponsored event of it. I remember somebody had a sign that said Drake may eat Hellman's man. He's my man.

Called him at the gate, took out a Sharpie and started marking it out. Lee Corso being there was also one of the coolest things I've ever seen. Being that close to those guys and Pat McAfee, man, he's got his way with the crowd. Oh, that was one of the coolest things.

Just seeing him come out and just get the vibe going with a look. I mean, he looked at the crowd and all of a sudden the roof blew off. I mean, oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. Seeing Charlotte in that way.

I'd never seen it that way before. It was amazing. It was one of the best experiences in my life. I would love to go back. Hopefully it'll be a little bit closer to my hometown because that was a lot driving back and forth. I spent like six hours on the road that day.

Yeah. If North Carolina keeps playing the way it did, maybe College Game Day will be coming to your city. Really do appreciate you doing what you do, Kyle, the Amazon driver. We look forward to seeing what's next on the Josh Graham Fathead tour. Hey, flying by the seat of my pants, living on the edge of a lightning bolt. I have no idea what's coming.

If anybody's got any suggestions, let me know. And I will be there full force, baby. There to shoot us some ideas for Kyle, the Amazon driver. There he goes.

Spending some time with us here on Labor Day Monday. But he is right about the show itself. The one thing that struck me and it really was what bothered me most about our show on Friday with the ACC news. We had to talk about it. We knew it was going to take over the show. But what bothered me the most is I didn't feel like we talked enough about the games that were coming up. Game Day, those three hours, they didn't talk really expansion at all. It's like, you guys are probably sick of this.

You probably hate it. We're just going to talk about the football games. And that's what they did. And North Carolina, Lee Corso picked the Tar Heels and the Tar Heels won. That's something that's never happened. I remember that he picked North Carolina another time. I think it might have been when they hosted Florida State in the 90s and they did not win. Florida State won the game. But North Carolina picked by Corso and then they came through later that night.

It was cool to follow that. In terms of other locals, see NC State and North Carolina or pardon me, NC State and Wake played on Thursday. Duke plays tonight. We had the Tar Heels there. My ECU Pirates covered.

They did. Kicking a field goal at the end. Of course you kick that field goal. Oh, but you already knew you were going to lose. No, of course you kick that field goal. You don't get shut out.

They haven't been shut out since 97 and they covered. Boom. You ruined someone's day there. That's what makes me happy.

It does. App State struggled a little bit with Gardner Webb, but they got the result they needed. Ahead of App State, North Carolina and Chapel Hill this week. Coming up, why Deion Sanders is making it hard, really hard to root for him. It should be easy after Saturday. What a game that was. But he's making it hard. And that's next on The Drive.

It's The Drive with Josh Graham, WSJS. This is a tough topic because our show is generally pro fun. We're pro anarchy in a lot of ways, too. In the context of sports, chaos can be fun for what we do. So really, we should love everything about what happened in Fort Worth on Saturday. Deion Sanders and Colorado winning by far the best game of the weekend against TCU. It's a remarkable achievement that they were able to win that football game.

Let me start there. I hope for college football's sake that Colorado is good this year. Because if Deion Sanders is relevant and his team is relevant, that makes the sport more interesting.

That helps everybody involved in the enterprise. With that said, Deion is making it tough to root for him. Because when it comes to coaching, it's pretty clear he's insecure. He is not. He was never an insecure football player.

Never. Or a baseball player. As an athlete, he was so confident in everything he did, he played multiple sports at one time.

He would try to play three games in a 24 hour span. That's the confidence that he had as a player. As a coach, it's different. There was that fiasco a few years ago where he called out the media or a media member for not calling him coach. You wouldn't call Nick Saban Nick. And all I could think was, I called Mike Krzyzewski Mike.

Why? That's his name. That's his name.

It's not disrespectful to call for one adult to call another adult their name, especially in sports. And it seems that he consumes a lot of media. He consumes a lot that's said about him. And things that are said bothers him. There's something about that that's bothersome when the postgame press conference that should be about what these kids did comes about Deion Sanders. Listen to the way he went after Ed Werder, where it became Deion Sanders interrogating Ed Werder of ESPN for that, quote, bull blank or bull junkie that he wrote.

Let's just listen to it. What's up, boss? You believe that you will? Oh, oh, oh, no.

Do you believe that? Huh? Oh, no, no, no. I read through that bull junkie wrote. I read through that.

I sipped it through all that. Oh, no. Come on. Do you believe you don't believe you just answered it? You don't believe the question, the question that we need everybody to ask today, the question that everyone's trying to answer today. Do you believe that's the question? Do you believe that is the question?

Let's try to answer the question on offense. I believe they have some dudes. Do you believe?

I believe in that. We know anybody who watched Jackson State knows. Hunter's a dude.

Oh, is he a dude? There's no doubt. And Dylan Edwards, the reason why he was looking at Notre Dame and before Deion Sanders, a ride to Colorado was going to be going to one of the top schools in the country. Do you believe that you knew? We didn't know really. Sanders would come in and throw over 500 yards, but they're pretty good at Jackson. So do you believe? Yeah.

And Deion made a point when he was asked about his son, Chidor to kind of cloud the media, clown the media again. For real, Chidor Sanders from my HBCU, the one that played at Jackson last year, the one that you asked me, why would I give him the starting job? No, not you. I got receipts. I know who they are. Not you, baby.

I just got to say it. I would never do that. I would never ask that. I would. I would ask that. You know, it is a pretty big jump coming from Jackson to Colorado.

That's why you didn't just take his team with him. Do you believe? Oh, I'm being pressed here, I think. Well, he never defined what believe meant. Is believing meaning that you're going to win the Pac-12 and win nine or 10 games or is believing meaning you're going to make a bowl? Because if you would have asked me going into the weekend. Is Colorado going to make a bowl?

I'd probably say no now. Yeah, I think I do believe in Colorado making a bowl game, but someone needs to tell Prime. It's just one win, dude. Do you believe it's against a TCU team replacing their quarterback and their offensive coordinator? You put up all those yards. Welcome to the Big 12, man.

Do you believe? Look at the numbers Cliff Kingsbury put up with Patrick Mahomes at Texas Tech. What did they win? Exactly.

Nothing. Yet Deon Teare acted like he won a Super Bowl. Do you believe? This is the part where I think it goes a little bit too far and it makes it hard to root for when you get to he's already talking about Heisman stuff for Dylan Edwards and Travis Hunter, like not a joke. Here he was talking about Travis Hunter for the Heisman. I try to tell you but you want to believe me because I'm just you know, I'm just a lofty old young coach. I don't know nothing about football, you know, I just played in the NFL for 14 played at a high level in college before, you know, and been coaching youth all the way up for a long time. Travis is him like the young folks say Travis is it.

I really think you know, I always promote all my kids. I really think we got a couple guys is a should be front runners for the Heisman right now. We got a couple on that who did that who did what they did today? Do you believe we're talking Heisman after one game? I mean listen one game. I understand but it's talking about the Heisman Trophy after one game.

I mean if Travis Hunter can sustain some version of I got breaking news for you. He can't well, we don't know yet. I do know that I do know that you can't play a kid a hundred and twenty snaps across an entire season.

He will get hurt. Can you do it picking and choosing your spots? Sure. You could do that against TCU because you need it to win.

You could do that later this month against USC where you might need him to play a lot of snaps. Can you do that over 12 games? Impossible. Do you believe?

No, don't believe in that. But again, the attention should be on his players not him and while he did shine praise on him there if you sit and listen to those 12 minutes of that press conference. A lot of it is just him. It feels like settling scores with the media and nobody cares. Nobody cares about what people wrote and said about you. Except you. You do. It's like a fantasy football team. Dude, no one cares about your fantasy league.

Nobody. Do you believe? And he's not deflecting it. Instead, he's going to make things harder for him. It reminds me a little bit of Cam Newton in 2015 when he went 15 and 1. Boy, he was soaring like a rocket. We're going to dab and put on all these outfits and do all this. And then what happened when he lost the Super Bowl?

He wears the hoodie. Slumps down and three minutes into the press conference, he just bails. Get ready.

That's probably going to happen at some point this year with Deion Sanders because he does strike me as the guy who will dance and dunk on you. Oh, do you believe to the reporters in the front row when you win a game? Does it strike me as the guy who's going to answer the questions all that well when you lose?

Because here's the thing. Colorado is going to lose games. But that doesn't mean I'm not a believer. I think he's going to win there. And I think it's fantastic. And I want to root for it.

Do you believe? He makes it hard to root for because of the insecurities and how much. Self flatuation there was in that entire press conference afterwards, and that's a shame. It's not just Jimmy Buffett that we lost. Steve Harwell, lead singer of Smash Mouth passed away.

We learned at 56 as well. We'll get to the music. Skips or plays with Hayes in just a few minutes as Hayes Permar joins us now from Sports Channel eight. But when it comes to Buffett, the reaction I've seen this weekend, I wasn't quite ready for. I wasn't ready for an entire football stadium in Charlotte to be singing belting out Margaritaville at the top of their lungs. I didn't think that Jimmy Buffett had that type of resonance. What separates him from many of the other acts out there?

Hayes Permar. Well, I mean, like you said, the what would be on the list of songs that like if you have to walk up to a random stranger and bet you don't know their musical taste at all. They're just a person in America, let's say. And you got to say, all right, I'll bet they'll be able to sing me the chorus to this song. Like, I mean, you got if you're not counting like happy birthday or Christmas carols, you know, if you're starting to it has to actually have been like original pop music, you know, song could be country or rap or whatever. Like Margaritaville is pretty well known. Right.

I'm trying to think of what would be on the list like Earth Brooks. I've got I got friends in low places like so. Yeah.

Songs that do carry a karaoke a lot. You know, Caroline. Yes.

Yes. We care a lot would be one. But Margaritaville definitely in the mix. It's almost like Take Me Home Country Roads. I mean, it is a great song, but now you sing it everywhere. And it's probably because, you know, I mean, I've noticed from my days at minor league baseball, like you're trying to figure out what song do at least 80 percent of the people here not only know, but feel like they know well enough to sing comfortably out loud.

And like when you when you find one, like if you play Wagon Wheel in, you know, around central North Carolina, there's certain places where, you know, certain songs, but just anywhere, wherever. I mean, seeing the clips of like The Rock and Stone Cold singing a Margaritaville duet during it. Dude, it was amazing.

Go look at it. It's just a classic Monday Night Raw moment where it's like, OK, we got to work our two stars into the program. We can't have a fight every week, but at least we can come out there and have them and they sing Margaritaville together.

And then one of them like chokeslams the other one, because that's what wrestling does. But so, yeah, I think when you have a legacy of your song, at least one and then he's got multiple were like people mostly new cheeseburger in paradise or fans or, you know, your songs are pretty well known. That's a that's a pretty strong legacy. Haze Permore with us here from Sports Channel late before we can get back to music with skips or plays with Haze, you have taken on a project of restoring a monument, as many people see it in the capital city and Raleigh, the Rialto Theater. We learned last week that ACC football games will be shown in movie theaters this year and that there's some type of relationship and partnership there. I guess the best way to ask this question would be what challenges are there and what appeal is there to having ACC football games in movie theaters?

What most interests you about that? I mean, those are the same questions I'm asking, Josh, as a now movie theater owner. But here's the question that my first conversation with the theater sports network folks was good. And, you know, it was I was almost walking them through ACC fandom. You know, they were like, oh, Duke Clemson.

A lot of people go to a movie theater. What's that? That's Clemson's big team. And I was like, no, no. I mean, maybe if it was Monday night, I sort of told them in general, I'd be less likely to carry a game every Saturday. But I might have done something like Labor Day weekend called a college football blowout. And I might have carried every one of these like primetime games if offered or at least North Carolina, South Carolina on on Saturday night. Oh, yeah. We had NC State Thursday night to play UNC South Carolina on Saturday and Duke Clemson on Monday.

And just call have Labor Day weekend be the one weekend and then maybe come back in college football playoff and do it. Here's the challenge as far as I see. Right. I will not name this place specifically because I'm not especially if they happen to be operating in a gray or illegally.

I'm not trying to call anybody out. But there is a new age sports bar like that sports bar on steroids. And they have a screen that is bigger than mine. So whatever they call themselves, they've got a huge screen, just like I have a huge screen.

Right. I have no doubt that on Saturday night at this place in Cary in the new Fenton neighborhood where there's a lot of sports and socializing. But I will tell you the name of the place that you can go in there for free and on that 42 foot screen that they brag about. I guarantee you, North Carolina, South Carolina was on there and they don't care that you're not paying anything to get in. They just want you to come in and buy somewhere between three and 30 beers and some shots each or whatever is ethically good to push on a crowd, whatever they could take the drink. That's what you're doing. And then they make a big haul. So if what they are doing is legal and I presume it is or they wouldn't be operating so boldly and, you know, raking a bunch of cash doing it, then why would anybody pay 20 or $30 to go to a movie theater and watch it?

Like, I don't think the experience is that much different. And then also, if they are doing that, why can't I just do what they're doing and not have to go this theater sports model? I'm already paying a business cable package. I presume that any other sports bar would. So I'm I need someone to explain to me what my appeal as an owner is. If I could legally just show the game, not charge anything, pay my business cable package, and then people will buy a bunch of beer for me.

What's the game? Yeah, that's an event I might try to do. I'm trying to charge $30 a head like they're suggesting. Then it's tougher. I'd much rather try about the $30 a head.

Nobody would do that. But I am thinking about like Notre Dame facing Wake Forest. If your team's like on the road, that's a huge game.

Sam Hartman facing Wake again. I wouldn't mind going to a movie theater and buying some popcorn and a big gulp and watching that game. I think there's one off opportunities. But yeah, the price point is huge. Now, maybe I mean, $30 is based on what they know they're going to charge. Like they're basically to charge me, the theater owner, $20 per person watching. Now I can charge whatever I want. If I want to charge $10 because I think within 400 people might come and I'll get a huge bar and forget that I'm not even making that much of the tickets.

Or if I got like a sponsor, if The Josh Graham Show wanted to pay to be the sponsor of the watch parties at the Rialto with the Josh, sponsored by The Drive with Josh Graham, then you're paying something that in theory defrays the cost of what every customer comes in and your name's on there and all that stuff. When Boston College faces NC State, I think we're all over that as the sponsor. Oh wait, Boston College this year is the first ACC team ever to not face a team from the state of North Carolina this year because of scheduling. So that's not going to happen. No one's in charge anymore. It's obvious. They lost to Northern Illinois.

So that's actually tough for our state's teams. All right, let's get to skips or plays with Hayes. Here's all I know. WD says I'm going to recap the weekend with music. I don't know what that means. First of all, can we address the fact, isn't that Walking on the Sun playing right there? It's your minute of Walking on the Sun? Pretty good.

That's pretty good. Are we not playing with Jack the Smash Mouth? Shout out. What is the first song that you have in your weekend recap, WD? So because Jimmy Buffett passed away, I thought we'd start there. Now, I don't want to go basic and do Margaritaville or we've already done Lovely Cruise. So it'll be Cheeseburger. Let's go Cheeseburgers in paradise.

I defy Permar to skip me today. I mean, I mean, there are certain Buffett songs that if you gave me, I'd be like, no, it's a skip. This is not a good song, but it's a good song. I legitimately like this song. It's cheesy, but also it's super fun. It is a lot like a Smash Mouth song. Makes you happy. Makes you tap your feet.

It's good music to play. Hayes Permar. There's the running bit. I think it might have been Kevin Hart. Maybe it wasn't Kevin Hart who said, like, try to try to frown on a jet ski. It's impossible to frown on a jet ski. No, that was Daniel Tosh.

That's who did that. It's like that. That song's like a jet ski in that regard.

Try to try to frown while hearing Cheeseburger in paradise or singing that song. What's the next one? So to get to the UNC South Carolina piece of the weekend, Eric Church, you might have seen, was running around with a Taz Walker jersey down there in Chapel Hill. Hugging Mac Brown. It's amazing how many people know Taz Walker's name and cares about this Kent State transfer.

Oh, my gosh. You would have thought like like Jim Harbaugh that he died this weekend. Oh, wait. Jim Harbaugh didn't die. They were doing the tribute with the four fingers up against ECU.

No, just out for a game or two. Taz Walker. Unbelievable. OK, so anyway, we're going drinking my hand by Eric Church.

Throw it down. Kent State grad. Yeah, so here's here's my trouble with Eric Church. I need to listen to him and figure out which songs I like because I'm sure he has some good songs. But like I kind of don't dig his voice like his voice. It sounds like I'm not saying he is, but he sounds like a guy singing like fake country voice. Almost, you know, guys, some people have like a fake radio voice. Like everybody's kind of you work in radio. Nobody talks 100 percent the same they do like in real life. But there's guys that it's just like feels like it's totally.

Just the opposite. He sounds like a radio guy, but he sounds like that all the time. Like you you do talk like that, but it's been all the time. It's like turn it off, Josh. I'm like, I don't know how.

Yes. So he sounds like a fake country voice. Almost like he's tried too hard to sound country. And I'm not saying he is.

I'm just saying it puts that thought in my mind. So he's a skip. Get him out. Hey.

To read also. Also, I know this is this is fan gatekeeping a little bit and I don't like to do that. But like you got to chill being a tar heel when you weren't actually a tar heel. It's OK to fly the final four. It's OK to say you're pulling for you and see what we're doing.

But you can't be. Are we subtweeting B dot? Is that what I mean? If you get hired for the program, that's one thing that's totally different.

You get hired that that changes things. But like and and like that's B dots. That's B dots work. Church is doing this. Yeah, I'm sure it's like helping his brand.

I'm sure he's like loves being boys with Jordan and you know, the whole Charlotte crowd and all that, you know. But it's too much. It is. It's too much. It's too much. It's too much tar heel. I say that as somebody who pulls for Carolina.

It's too much. The last song of our weekend recap is. Yes. So the story of the college football weekend was probably Deion Sanders and what Colorado did the TCU. So I got the thing about this. I'm like, OK, like I find an artist from Colorado.

No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm going straight to the source. Must be the money by Deion Sanders. You know, ever since I turned pro in nineteen eighty nine. Did he do the dance? Please let him do it. I still have the hurt foot into the press conference room. Great pull.

I need him. Just I mean, that was the greatest dance of all time, especially when he would bust it out for like the last ten yards of the touchdown run. Just either high stepping or starting to dance. No, that's a play. Huge play. Deion Sanders.

I mean, you know, you know, this is going to be you know, they're not going like eleven and one and like they're going to go five and six or something. But it's still awesome as it's happening with Deion. Deion just gets the Deion over everybody.

It's it is fun to watch one of you. I looked at the point spreads for this week and I just fully expected Colorado to be favored by double digits against Matt Rule in Nebraska and Boulder this week. Five point spread. Vegas knows Vegas knows what's about to happen this week, that Matt Rule and Nebraska are going to beat him. And then Deion's going to pull a Cam Newton in the Super Bowl and not show up for his press conference.

Well, I'm definitely pulling for Colorado this weekend against Matt Rule. I wish only bad things on that guy. But no, but I agree. I think I mean, look, Deion can call me out if I'm wrong. But like, there's no way it stays this good. Right.

I mean, I believe I want it to. But there's no way. Right. Hayes Permar, we'll talk to you next week. Enjoy your Labor Day. Thank you, guys.