Eat Every Bit Of It

This is The Drive with Josh Graham Podcast. Three internet sensations, guys! Tune into The Drive weekday afternoons, 3 to 7 on WSJS.

You are on Monday Drive. It is WSJS News Talk Sports for the Triad, where everybody in the NFC South has started 1-0. Except the Carolina Panthers. And with this year's team, there will be two stories that come out of every single game. There will be the story about how the team did, and the story about how Bryce Young performed.

And you can argue this year that the latter might be more important than the former right now. So let's talk about him. There was very little that was spectacular about Bryce Young's debut. He had his first career touchdown pass to Hayden Hurst, who then threw the ball into the stands, not realizing that was a milestone score. Don't worry, according to Hurst, they got the ball back to Bryce Young somehow from the stands. Bryce threw the ball away to pro-Deak Jesse Bates a couple of times. One touchdown, two picks, about 150 yards passing on the game. So it wasn't great, but he also was not set up for success by the Carolina Panthers yesterday.

That's the piece that's most disappointing. This entire offseason, it was talked about how you have this nucleus of coaches, all former quarterbacks like Frank Reich and Josh McCown, Jim Caldwell, the quarterback whisperer. You've got Parks Frazier as the passing game coordinator.

You have all these guys, Thomas Brown, he's in the Sean McVay tree. You'd think somebody would look around and say, how about we don't throw the ball 38 times with our quarterback in his debut? How on earth does that happen? You want to know the last time the Carolina Panthers attempted 38 passes?

Actually, let me put it this way. You know how many times the Carolina Panthers attempted 38 passes in a game a year ago? Zero times.

It didn't happen once. Bryce Young's debut, he throws it 38 times. That is coaching malpractice by Frank Reich. He should know better. This is a quarterback in his debut on the road throwing it 38 times in a game. But Frank Reich, speaking about Bryce Young after the game, is confident that Bryce is going to bounce back. I mean, listen, I'm not. Bryce is the last person I'm worried about, you know, how he'll handle this.

He's got the maturity of someone way beyond his years. He's a team first person, you know, he'll be hard at himself and each of us should be. That was kind of the message that we talked about in there.

Every one of us, players and coaches, should be hard on ourself. You know, in the next 24 hours, it should not taste good and we need to eat every bit of it. I need to hear that part again because I was a picky eater growing up, didn't want to eat my broccoli, didn't want to eat my greens. It should not taste good.

You got to do it anyway. It should not taste good. It should not taste good. No.

What was the last part that he said? It should not taste good. And we need to eat every bit of it. That's what we need to do. Vegetables, man. Clean your plate, Josh. And we need to eat every bit of it.

That's what you need to do. It should not taste good. Broccoli? It should not taste good. And we need to eat every bit of it. Exactly.

Amazing. Bryce Young, he was not set up for success. In fact, you could argue he was set up to fail. His receivers got no separation. Go back and rewatch this game. Look at the balls that he threw down the field.

I don't know if you could slide this piece of paper in between the receiver and the defender that Bryce Young was throwing towards. DJ Chark was out. Adam Thielen was not 100%. He was a non-factor in the game.

Only two targets altogether. Even when the Panthers are healthy, their bottom five in terms of skill position players of the league, it's a little alarming how mediocre Miles Sanders seemed at points. Chuba Hubbard was the most impressive offensive player that the Panthers had yesterday.

And if that's the case, oh boy, it might be a long day for you. And while Bryce's performance is getting ridiculed, the offensive line deserves some blame too. Bryce was pressured, according to Jonathan Jones of CBS, on a third of his dropbacks yesterday.

That's not good. There were a ton of procedural penalties, nine penalties as a team altogether. And as a result, Bryce was put into a lot of third and longs. One of those third and longs was the first interception that he threw to Jesse Bates. Ton of third and longs. In fact, Carolina had 14 third down tries yesterday. 14. Want to take a guess how many of those 14 were shorter than five yards to go? One. One out of 14 of those third down attempts. Meanwhile, nine times Carolina is attempting one that's longer than eight yards.

Nine times. That's not a recipe for success. Bryce, he's going to get the brunt of it. He's going to receive most of the blame when things don't go well.

But throwing the ball 38 times and this O-line putting him in bad spots and the receivers getting no separation, Bryce Young was set up to fail in the Panthers debut. On Twitter at WSJS radio, that's where you can tweet the show or you can watch the show there. That's where we're streaming video.

In addition to YouTube and Twitch, Will Dalton, the executive producer of this show, W.D. was at Wake Vandy over the weekend. How'd you spend your two hour delay?

11 a.m. kick, but really we started playing for real at around 105 in the afternoon. Well luckily, Wake Forest had a good spread, as they typically do, so I had a little bite to eat. They had some, I forget what the eggs dish is when it's got spinach and sausage in there with it.

I don't know how I'm trying to describe it. Also, it was like a breakfast dish. It was a breakfast dish, they had some sausage, hung out with John Dell a little bit.

We talked about the Spectrum stuff with ACC. Now we can't watch games. Figured out the day.

Did they do it? Monday Night Football. If you are a Spectrum subscriber, you can watch Monday Night Football tonight. That got worked out today.

So John Dell, enjoy that. During my two hour delay, I was at NC State in Notre Dame. They had some chicken tenders. I was hanging out with Sean McDonough, talking about the birds. And here's how small of a world it is when you're at the top of the broadcasting industry like Sean McDonough is.

He's like, oh yeah, I'm going to be calling that game tomorrow. Orioles, Red Sox. No big deal.

No biggie. Birds. Yep.

Trying to take care of business. I was also at North Carolina, App State. We'll get to that game in just a bit. But first, we have Monday Night Football on WSJS tonight. And it looks like to me, this is going to be the biggest night the New York Jets have had in over a decade. Do you realize that the Jets have not won a primetime game since 2018? That was a win against the Detroit Lions in Sam Darnold's debut as the Jets quarterback. That's how long it's been since they've won a primetime game. They haven't had a winning record in a season since 2015. They haven't been to the playoffs since 2010, more than a dozen years ago. In fact, W.D., their last playoff win was the infamous Bart Scott can't wait game when they won in Foxborough back in 2010. That was the last time the Jets won a playoff game. And here's the thing, they've got a playoff team this year. The Jets, they're a playoff team.

And tonight, they're going to show that in primetime off the wings of hard knocks and the whole deal. It's Aaron Rodgers plus a historically good defense that the Jets have. Meanwhile, Buffalo, they're trending in the wrong direction, losing guys. There's some injuries to deal with.

Stephon Diggs, that was an awkward situation pre-season or pre, yeah, during pre-season camp. With all that said, I do think the Jets are going to win tonight. That's the last of my Graham's gambling picks that went three and three over the weekend. We'll see if we can have another winning week.

With all that said, and I hope that guy's OK, JC Horn, more on that later this hour. With that said, it would be absolutely hilarious if the Bills won. That would be the funniest response or result. If you're trying to root for something, root for the Bills because the Jets fans have been so loud, they've been so obnoxious, they finally get Aaron Rodgers.

Hard knocks, oh my gosh, they look like, oh my gosh, they're so excited. How funny would it be if in prime time, Aaron Rodgers is seeing ghosts and throwing picks and they lose to the Bills while Jordan Love is crushing the Chicago Bears and looking awesome, looking like Aaron Rodgers. That would be the most Jet thing ever. The Jets look terrible on Monday Night Football and lose to the Bills tonight at home while Jordan Love Aaron Rodgers replacement goes into Chicago looking like A-Rod. That would be the funniest result. So really, it's a win-win for me. Hey, you want your pick right? Sure, that'd be great. I don't like being wrong, I root to be right. But if I'm wrong, it better be freaking funny, better be entertaining, and it would be pretty entertaining to see the pans to the crowd when the Jets lose with Aaron Rodgers at quarterback.

That would be great. I love Sean Clark. He played for Stacey Searles, he played for Coach Moore, I've known him, he's best friends with Lonnie Galloway. And I love watching those kids compete, I love his offense. Coaching's a small fraternity, that's Mack Brown Saturday night after the double overtime win against App State.

On the other side of the ledger, the man he was talking about joins us now, Sean Clark, head mountaineer. Sean, I've never heard anyone in the business say a negative word about Mack Brown, considering who he is, a legit Hall of Famer who has a home on the mountain, who once coached at App State, and what he had to say about your program. What's that relationship like even after you lose a game Saturday?

It's a great relationship. I have a lot of respect for Coach, the way he runs his program. And he's been at two great institutions, and both places he's won and done it the right way. He's been very good to me throughout my early head coaching career, I've had questions I'd call and he'd give me a truthful answer, so for that I'm always indebted to him. Take me behind the scenes, and hopefully it's not too personal, give me an example of a coaching question you might have to a guy like that.

I'm sure we can all relate to looking up to somebody in the industry and having someone take them seriously. Well, I think the first thing, the first time I really had a chance to talk to him was during the season, and he really didn't know who I was, and he took my phone call, he gave me his number early on, I got called him, and really he had no clue either what he was doing. So that was the relationship where we started, and then you call and ask just about recruiting, what do you look for? Because again, when you recruit an offensive lineman versus recruiting, for your whole team there's a different aspect of things, and then make sure you get the right guys.

And then even with the analytic stuff right now going on in college football, when you're down 14 on the road, do you go for two to make it a six-point game, or do you take a field goal and hopefully tie it up? But just great questions you ask the guy to lean on, he's done it before, and done it at a high level, you want to get that with him. And I'm very fortunate to have him in my phone to call, and I'm very fortunate to have Coach Moore also here to talk with.

I felt this was a cool moment on Saturday, and I hope you don't mind me sharing it with the audience. But 30 minutes before kick, you and I were visiting, you walk up to me, and even though you knew it probably would help the Tar Heels, one of the first things you told me was, man, I wish Tez Walker would be able to play in this game. I wish he was eligible. How closely were you following that leading up to his hearing last Thursday?

Well, I followed it closely. He's a great player. I can watch him at Kent State, and he said, I mean, no one can cover him in the MAAC. That was when Tuesday night, Wednesday night, Maxson was taken off, you'd watch him, and he's a great player.

I mean, I don't know all the details. I'm for the kids to play, and it's unfortunate it happened, and I hope you guys get eligible, but that's just one of the situations. You're not really sure what the right answer is, but I know listening to Coach Brown speak, he's a great kid, and I hope things work out for him. How many quarterbacks have you scouted and faced better than Drake May?

Not many. When I was in the Big Ten, there were some great quarterbacks in the Big Ten, but Drake May, he's going to be a Heisman candidate without question, and then he's going to be possibly the first quarterback taken in the NFL Draft. You watch, I thought we did a great job of taking some things away from him, but he didn't get rattled. I thought we were going to make him run the football, and they did, but I mean, he's a great quarterback. He can run the ball. He can make the right read. He's getting coached by Coach Lindsey.

He's a good friend of mine, and I just think that the sky's the limit for him. I think he's going to have a great NFL career. You watch him make the throws against South Carolina, you're like, man, this guy's pretty special, and he is.

There obviously is some pick your poison element to it with how diverse his skill set is. I remember hearing you describe what you were trying to take away reminds me of visiting with Wade Phillips and him talking about what he did against Cam Newton in the Super Bowl that nobody was able to do that year. He had no issue having Cam roll out of the pocket while everybody was so worried earlier than that of having him get out of the pocket.

When you were trying to figure out a game plan for Drake, now that you know you don't have to face him again this year, what specifically were you trying to take away? Well, I mean, he can make any throw in the football field. He can throw hash to sideline, hash to hash, he can beat you in the deep balls, but if you go back and watch that game, there were many times we were dropping eight and nine linemen coverage because we knew we had to take something away, and to their credit, they saw that, and they ran the football, and you got to pick one or the other.

Those two backs, those are NFL backs also, so the game plan was to keep the ball in front of the stolen and beat us deep over the top, which he did several times, but if they ran the ball, rally it through it, and a first down wasn't going to lose the game for us, but if you threw a few of those bombs, which you can throw, it was going to be a long night for us. Make sure you listen to Mountaineer talk on WSJS with Adam Whitten. You'll hear from Sean Clark as well later in the week ahead of the East Carolina game.

Sean Clark joining us now on WSJS. Given that I'm an East Carolina graduate, I've heard all the talking points about how it doesn't benefit the ACC schools to play the Pirates back when they had Lincoln Riley as their play caller and Zay Jones, who had a great touchdown catch yesterday, catching passes. So now that it's being said about the Mountaineers, it's not really a surprise that I hear those same things being said about you guys, how do you counter the argument that many have made over the last 48 hours that there's no reason for the big boys to play AB?

I don't agree with that. I think if you look back to the last three times we played North Carolina, there were three sold out stadiums and we're talking about fan experience and taking care of the fans. All three of those games come to the last possession. In 19, we blocked the field goal to win the football game.

In 21 or 22, it's a shootout in the fourth quarter and we go for two to tie at the end. And then this last game, that was a great college football game. And again, we should play these games in state. These regional games matter. Every time we put the A on, I don't care if it's in football or any other sport, we go out there and expect to win the game. And we traveled roughly 4,000 fans to Chapel Hill who were dressed in black and gold.

And our fans expect to win. So it's a win-win for the state. They're keeping the money here where it belongs. The economic impact of the state of North Carolina is right here. I'm not sure if they'll have that kind of crowd again, unless they play Duke and they're having great seasons.

But I just think it's great. I appreciate Coach Brown and the athletic director playing us in the three game series. We'd like to continue that. We have games with East Carolina. We're playing Charlotte down in Charlotte in a home and home here in 25.

So it's great. That's what the fans want to see. We're going to have to give them a plane to fly all the way to California now to watch an ACC game. It was a three hour drive for us. We're not riding an airplane.

We're driving down, getting a hotel. They cussed down on costs. And that's what college football is about. We should learn a lesson from NASCAR.

When NASCAR went national, ratings went down, they couldn't put people in the stands. So I think the Sunbelt Conference has hit this round the head. Let's keep these games as regional games with passionate fan bases. And you can tell with us, all of our games are still out this year. I mean, that's hard to do.

And it's the second year in a row we'll do it. And to back up what you're saying, it's not like one of those fake sellouts either. We see a lot of fake sellouts all over the place. You mentioned that it was a fantastic crowd, one of the best crowds you've seen. I go to a lot of games up there in Chapel Hill, and that's the best crowd that they've had post-COVID without a doubt, probably the best since the Miami game in 2019. And that's four years ago.

So there is a lot of truth to what you're saying there. Looking ahead, though, speaking of the Pirates, that's who you'll be playing Saturday at 3.30. Take us into the mind of a coach this week. After a game like what we saw in Chapel Hill, are you more concerned about the physicality, the health of your team, or the mentality and the emotions of your team going into this week? It's definitely about the mentality going into a great college football game. I told our team after the game that that burning, that feeling you had in your stomach, man, you can't forget that.

That's what makes us special here. We expect to win these games. We have a 24-hour rule, and that's just not coach speak.

We had to get our coaches off the cliff yesterday morning when they came in the office. These games matter. Every game matters. But then these end-of-state games matter, but we've had to move on. We have a great ECU team coming in here, and don't let the record fool you. They're 0-2. They played Michigan and Marshall.

It was a close game until the fourth quarter, and Marshall cost him breaks and made the score a little more lopsided on what it was. I'm just excited for it. I think we should continue these with more state schools. I mentioned this earlier. That's what college football and college athletics was based on from the very beginning. Now we're forgetting about this. It'll be my wife's first trip up the mountain for a game. Do you remember the first time you ever watched a game at the Rock? Was it as a recruit?

I know. The first time I watched the Appalachian State was after I graduated. I went to 4QM Military Academy out of high school, and my official visit was in January in a major snowstorm. So you really get a chance to see much of Boone, but I just fell in love with Coach Moore and the way he talked to his players and the plan he had for you and just what they expect to do in the future. All that's come to fruition. You look at where we are now as an athletic department. We used to be the best-kept secret in all of college athletics, and that's not the case anymore. Week in and week out, we're on ESPN.

The App state brand is an all-time high, and people know when you say Appalachian State who we are and where we're from. It is something that's changed over the decades, but because of work that you've put in and Scott Satterfield and Jerry Moore before you getting that type of stuff done. The first time you ever took in a game at the Rock, you were wearing a uniform. Yeah, the first time ever.

1994. I can remember it like yesterday when we were playing Liberty. It wasn't like it is now. Everybody had 12,000 to 15,000 fans here, but to me, that was big time. I came from a small town in West Virginia with Charleston, and I never played in front of that many people in my life, so it was big.

It's even better now, and a lot of great things are happening here at App State. I'll share this with the audience before we let you go. The first thing you asked W.D. when you got here was what movie he's been watching. He's got Forgetting Sarah Marshall this week, which he's very, very excited about. When you think comedies, let's go 80s, 90s, what comes to mind? I guarantee you he's seen none of them. Oh, gosh, that's some great movies right there. The Eddie Murphy movies back in the day. Beverly Hills Cop? Beverly Hills Cop was great, and I'm going blank right now. Watch the other day. No chance he's seen Beverly Hills Cop, by the way. You don't even know who that is. Have you ever seen Beverly Hills Cop? I've never even heard of it. Oh, gosh.

This is what we do. We have to watch the movie with Eddie Murphy and, oh, gosh, Arsenio Hall. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, you're talking Coming to America.

Coming to America. You had McDonald's, and you had McDaniels. McDow... McDow... McDow... McDow... McDow... McDow... McDow... McDow... McDow... McTow... McDow... McTow... McDow... McDow... McDow... McDow... McDow... McDow... McDow... McDow... McDow... McDow... McDow... McDow... McDow... McDow... McDow... McDow... McDow... McDow... McDow... McDow... McDow... All right, whenever you're ready, this is The Drive with Josh Graham. Graham's grades, 15 minutes from now. We have to get to that NC State Notre Dame game from over the weekend.

Wake Forest Vanderbilt too, and we'll do that in just a bit. Carolina Panthers lost to the Atlanta Falcons yesterday, but the part that made it especially painful was the fact, despite so much that is different for Carolina now, oh, how much of it felt the same. Yesterday felt like the last five years of Carolina Panthers football. We've seen that loss many times before. There were so many missed opportunities. Somebody cue up the Ron Rivera t-shirt, the Ron Rivera-ism.

Missed opportunities, missed opportunities. Speaking of Riverboat Ron, how about a horrific fourth down short yardage call to boot? Hey, let's give it to Chuba Hubbard up the middle on fourth down after we just got stuffed on third and one.

That's a good idea. Let's fire that one up, Frank. Carolina lost to Atlanta when they were missing perhaps their most dynamic player, Cordarrel Patterson. That by definition is a missed opportunity. Then the Carolina Panthers beat themselves. That's how they lost. It wasn't Atlanta rolling over Carolina. It was Atlanta making fewer mistakes than Carolina did. Carolina beat themselves. There's the Matt Ruhl DBO sign.

Let's get that up. Don't beat ourselves. And then Matt Ruhl's teams time and time again vomit all over themselves. And the guy who gave it away twice to the former Demon Deacon Jesse Bates Jr. or Jesse Bates II. The guy who did that is the risk averse quarterback that you traded multiple first round picks to take number one overall. That's the guy who's throwing picks.

The guy who's supposed to never throw picks. Frank Reich says it's too early to jump to conclusions on those turnovers though. Yeah, disappointing that we lost. I mean, and there are multiple reasons for that. Obviously, we've got to protect the football, you know, but I would be careful to say much more than that. I mean, because, again, I got to see the film, there's multiple things that go into turnovers.

It's not always what it appears on the surface. So you got to dig into the tape a little bit more. Watch the tape? If that doesn't remind you of the last five years, I don't know what else will. Got to go watch the tape.

That's what we got to do. There really isn't a great positive to take away from this game. Oh, the defense, Josh played well, they had four sacks.

All of them came in the first half. What happened in the second half of the game? They were not getting to Desmond Ritter as much. And if you're also talking about positives on defense, JC Horn, our guy, left the game in the first half with a hamstring injury. Still no information on his status when Frank Reich was asked about it this morning.

That is a concern given how important he is to the team and the type of injury history that he unfortunately has. The running backs. Oh, Chuba Hubbard played well. Chuba Hubbard wasn't the guy that you signed and paid a ton of money to this offseason. Miles Sanders was, and he was outplayed by Chuba Hubbard. And now getting the ball on that key fourth down. And he fumbled it away. What a game for the aforementioned Jesse Bates II, punching that ball out. Yesterday, whether it be the missed opportunities or beating themselves or Frank Reich saying we need to rewatch the tape and all that stuff, it just all felt super familiar. And the familiarity has been, oh, this is what it's been for the last five years for Panthers football, which just so happens, coincidentally, to coincide with the ownership of David Tepper, since David Tepper has taken over this team. Sure, that's just a coincidence, though. On Twitter, at WSJS Radio, if you want in, let's get to, or 336-777-1600, hey Josh, how about you give out the phone number more? Okay, okay, okay.

336-777-1600. NC State. Looked like it was going to be a close game, but after Sam Hartman marched him down the field and scored a touchdown right before half, Joe Giglio looked over to me, and this is after a two-hour delay and all the stuff that happened that pushed this game around, he said, I think you're good to go to Chapel Hill now.

And I listened to him. And on the drive over to Chapel Hill for App State, North Carolina, I heard on the radio another Notre Dame touchdown, and another Notre Dame touchdown, and Notre Dame ended up winning it by three scores. And what Notre Dame revealed, watching it back, was how limited NC State's offense is. You should expect it to look the way that it did last year when Devin Leary went down. In the games that Devin Leary didn't play in, NC State did not exceed 30 points in eight games.

That's what you should probably expect. That this offense is not great, they could score enough to win some games, and fortunately the schedule is pedestrian enough, we'll talk about that in a bit, that you can pile up some wins if you're Dave Doran, but you're not going to be outscoring teams in a shootout. State's defense is good enough, though, that they can win games that way.

They've scored 24 in each of the first two games. Now, to be clear, this is not a huge criticism or an indictment of Brennan Armstrong, the Virginia transfer. They don't have good receivers. Who's the best NC State receiver? Kashawn Lesane? Porter Rooks?

Whatever the answer is, it's not as good as Emeka Emezi was, it's not as good as some of these, as Thayer Thomas was, not as good as even Jacoby Myers was. They don't have dudes on the perimeter, and that's a problem. Brennan led the team in rushing yesterday, not Jordan Houston, not really that impressed with the NC State run game, and they've been losing draft picks up front, namely to the Carolina Panthers, Iki Iquanu, six overall a couple years back, and Chandler Zavala started at right guard for the Panthers yesterday from last year's State team. What Notre Dame did was reveal how limited the pack were up front. The good news is the schedule, though, allows them to hopefully make some strides before they have another loseable game. You tell me how many of these games are loseable over the next month. They will host VMI this week.

That's probably secure. They're at Virginia. Be bad if they lost that one. Brennan Armstrong's not going to lose that game. No.

And Robert De Nye, D-O-C, I don't think so. Louisville comes to Raleigh. State's not losing it home to Louisville. Is it loseable?

Sure. But State's going to be favored in that game, and State's going to be favored against Marshall at home, too, despite the fact that Marshall took out my ECU Pirates this weekend. The next loseable game, like a game that NC State's not going to be favored in, potentially, is NC State at Duke on October 14th, and are we at the point now with Duke football that we're saying, oh, yeah, you can't beat Duke?

I don't think so. Duke will probably be favored in the game, but that sounds like a great game, the Pack and the Blue Devils playing each other. But Notre Dame, Sam Hartman, that had to feel good. You finally win in Raleigh, and what's the stat line you put up? Four touchdowns, no picks?

Decent. Decent work by Sam Hartman on the first leg of his revenge tour. I think Matt Ruhle and Nebraska is going to win this game.

Not only do I like that pick, it's my favorite pick of the weekend. You can clip this. If this ends up being a Sarah McLachlan for next week, by all means. Let's cut through the crap. Let's cut through the hype. Nebraska is going to win this game. We're going to need to go back and watch the tape.

Where's the DBO sign? I take it we don't have a montage for my Falcons pick over the Panthers. Or Kansas blowing out Illinois on Friday night.

Or Notre Dame taking care of NC State by double digits. It's only when I'm wrong. What's the number one rule? What's the most entertaining content? When I'm bothered. When I'm being mocked.

That's the best content. College game day. Going to Boulder this week. You also have the weeks after that at Oregon and at USC. I don't know where you begin to set a total for Colorado and USC.

No idea. Like if it's not 80, then we're taking the over. You have to start at 80 I think with that game. How many points when Prime meets Caleb Williams.

That's what I've got to know. And we need to figure that piece out. Getting to what happened in Chapel Hill. The Tar Heels completed their three game series with App State over the weekend. And here's how the games went. In 2019, App State won in Chapel Hill 34-31. The Mountaineers blocked the kick on the final play of that game. Next year, it was maybe the craziest, damnedest thing I've ever seen. Up on the mountain, North Carolina evened up the series 63-61.

And then over the weekend, double overtime was required. North Carolina 40-34 winners. And predictably, the conversation has centered on, should this series be continued? It's already going to be difficult. We'll see if the ACC bumps up from eight to nine games when they add Stanford Cal and SMU next year. We'll see what exactly college football looks like over the next five years. If there's a place for North Carolina to play App, they are booked up through 2027 and they have three opponents booked in 2028. So if it were to happen, it won't happen anytime soon.

But getting to the hypothetical of, if you can schedule them, should you schedule them? Many Tar Heel fans are saying today, no, we should not. We've had enough of that. There's no advantage for us. There's no benefit for us. As an East Carolina grad, I've heard many of these arguments before. When Lincoln Riley was calling plays and Zay Jones and Justin Hardy were catching a ton of passes and Ruffin McNeil were knocking off teams and dropping 70 on the Tar Heels.

I've heard many of these arguments and they're not good ones. North Carolina absolutely should play App State and there is value for the Tar Heels. It's not just for App State. For one, it's good for the state of North Carolina. And if it's good for the state of North Carolina, it should be good for the Tar Heels as well. That shows in the stands. That was not one of those fake sellouts, like they're going to announce for the Minnesota game this week. Whoa, we've sold out the Minnesota game.

We'll see if those stands are jam packed full. That's the best environment, without a doubt, I've seen post COVID for North Carolina, legitimately packed inside Keenan Stadium. And this is a state where football's never come first. So of course, having more noteworthy games that people want is good for the state of North Carolina. Playing App is good for the same reason it's good that North Carolina plays Wake Forest.

Let's think about it this way. If Wake Forest were not in the ACC, would you say that North Carolina should play Wake Forest? Oh, but Josh, the history between the two.

Okay. Since 2015, Wake Forest has played North Carolina four times. Two of those games, it was a non-conference game. Since 2019, North Carolina and App have played three times. What benefit is there for North Carolina to play Wake Forest? If you're using that logic, is there a team in the state of North Carolina if conferences didn't exist?

You would say there's a huge advantage for you to play? If you're going to look at it that way, oh, you have to play NC State. Now you have to play Duke. You have to play Wake Forest every other year or so now with the way the schedules work. But I'm saying if you didn't, what value would there be to play in those teams? And if you're arguing there is value for North Carolina to play Wake Forest, then how could you argue there's no value in playing App State?

You can't. It's good for the players. It's good for the parents. It's good for the fans. And I know I can feel you rolling your eyes at that type of response.

Oh, cool. It's great for the fans. That's really the argument you're making, Josh Graham? No. Mac Brown is the one making that argument.

Listen to what he was saying when asked about realignment just last week. Without fans, we don't have a game. And a lot of times we forget fans. But without our fans, without them buying tickets, and without them paying money for facilities and coaches and NIL, we don't have a game. So we can't forget our fans, and without the players and their parents, we don't have a game. So I think that's where we need to put more emphasis and common sense into it instead of it just being about money. I know we've got to have money, but I'm worried that we're losing some rival games, we're losing who we are, and we're becoming national as leagues across the country. How doesn't that apply to this?

Almost every single word. I know he was talking about realignment, but fans matter for realignment, but it doesn't matter when you're talking about playing teams in the state of North Carolina. North Carolina is the one that claims to be the flagship school. If you're the flagship school, play the teams within the state of North Carolina.

Play the top programs. Play East Carolina out east. There are a lot of kids on your team that are from that way.

It'd be great for their families. Same thing for those, there are kids from up on the mountain that play for the Tar Heels. You're the flagship school, play East Carolina, play Appalachian State. Just like North Carolina votes against the expansion from last week. They claim, we're going to be the ones that are right.

Okay, if you're the ones that are claiming to do things the right way, then do the right things, and be about what you say you're about. Oh, we're about the fans. We can't forget the fans. And then Mac Brown's going to say, I don't want to play App State again. These other schools, they can do it.

And here's the thing, they are doing it. You know who has App State scheduled? Clemson, South Carolina, NC State.

Wake Forest says they want to get something on the books soon. So yeah, North Carolina, what makes you special? This is the part that actually legitimately infuriates me when I see Tar Heel fans saying, oh, we're above that. It doesn't help us. We get no benefit from playing Appalachian State.

You have not earned the right to be above it. Are you kidding me? Josh, look, we were 17th a week ago. We fell three spots in the rankings.

Who the bleep do you think you are? How about if you're going to worry about the national rankings of things? How about win one ACC championship in the last 40 years before you start talking as if you're Georgia? Before you stop to start talking like you're Alabama.

Hey, we got to worry about our resume here. Oh, we got bumped back three spots for the Winoguts app. It is gross. It is disappointing that they got bumped back. They should not have. It should be something that's applauded a little bit more. But spare me the you're above it mess. Win something before you start acting that way. Of course, North Carolina should play app. It benefits the state, so it benefits the Tar Heels. We must talk.

Go ahead. Talk back to the drive with Josh Graham. Over the last 24 hours, we've heard all the negative.

And there was a lot to pick from. That's what happens when you lose by two touchdowns to the Atlanta Falcons. We've heard the negative stuff from yesterday. But I want to put a smile on that face.

And to do that, we welcome in Darren Gantt, one of the cheeriest people I know, probably not after what happened Saturday to his app state mountaineers against North Carolina. But perhaps we could get to that in a bit. You have got to get out more, my friend.

You have got to get out more. What positives do you extract from yesterday? It's over. They don't have to go back to Atlanta again this year.

That's always fun. No, I mean, I think in all seriousness, the defense played really well yesterday. You take away the fact that they didn't fall on a couple of turnovers that were out. And I think they had an opportunity to have a really good game defensively. If you look at the way Brian Burns was getting after people in the first quarter, and then the Falcons just basically abandoned dropback passing for the rest of the day.

Everything was either a quick out screen, something like that, or run. And the Falcons want to shorten games all year long. That's their MO. That's what they want to do.

So I don't think that part of it's any necessarily a surprise. But they were getting after it pretty good on defense, all things considered. I mean, based on the kind of game it turned into, if people are going to try to drop back, the Carolina Panthers can pass rush you, and they can make stuff happen. They've got dudes to get that done. We learned that the Atlanta Falcons also have dudes who can rush as well.

Uh-huh. That Bijan Robinson kid, he's okay at football, isn't he? He's pretty good.

Algier, pretty good as well. They weren't missing the Joker all that much. A second Joker reference in this segment. Wow.

Algier and Madison didn't play in the game, but flipping the side of the ball... Wait, was the first Joker reference a Steve Miller band or a Batman movie? Batman movie.

Put a smile on it. Okay. Wouldn't have been my preference, but I'll hear it. Flipping the side of the ball, though, about a third of Bryce Young's drop backs were pressures, and he threw the ball 38 times, which no Panther quarterback did a year ago. Yeah.

And you- There was a reason for that, by the way. You're missing DJ Chark, Adam Thelem was banged up and only had two targets in the game. It didn't really seem like... I mean, putting the obvious aside that he's a rookie playing on the road in his first game, it didn't really seem like he was given the best shot out there.

What do you think? No, and again, I'm not just trying to... and you talk about me being positive. I'm not trying to turn this into something that was not. It was a fairly bad loss. They lose by two touchdowns in the opener after an off-season full of hope and promise and all that cool stuff.

The thing I'm trying to point out to people today is all that hope and promise stuff still exists. I mean, this was always going to be a bit of a project if you just look at the numbers. Carolina Panthers were eight and 20 all the time in Atlanta. Frank Reich was 0-4-1 and openers as head coach of the Colts. Even in his best year when he had Andrew Luck, they started 1-5, finished 10-6. Between that and number one pick, quarterbacks very seldom succeed in their first start. I mean, the last one to win was David Carr in 2002.

Peyton Manning threw three picks in his first game. It's almost like, how'd you think this was going to go? It was sort of set up to be this kind of game. And I think all those things you mentioned combined, I think to me, the big number that jumps off the page is at 3.8 yards per pass attempt. That's kind of the indicator of what you're trying to do intent-wise offensively. They took a couple deep shots. He overthrew Mingo down the sidelines on what could have been a huge gain, but they just didn't have those explosive plays. And as long as you don't have explosive plays, safeties are going to be able to suck up near the line of scrimmage. They're going to concentrate on your run game. And they still ran pretty well if you look at the numbers, but I think by and large until they get a little more vertical element in that passing game, it's going to be like that for a minute.

And people are going to get in the box. They're going to take away Miles Sanders a little bit and Chuba Hubbard, who also ran well up for him. I mean, I think again, you look at about what, 150 yards as a team rushing.

So they were able to do some good stuff, but until Bryce is able to get something downfield, it's going to be like this for a second. And that's the part where the 2011 comps fall apart, where you have a first year coach, you have a first year quarterback. We saw that before with Ron Rivera and Cam Newton. He had Steve Smith to throw the ball to though.

And Jordan Gross was there at left tackle. We'll see about Iki Iquanu and some of these other guys, but it's a little bit different of a circumstance when you look at surrounding casts. You've probably seen those comps quite a bit. Is Cam in 2011 a good data point comparison to look at week to week with Bryce? Well, I think from the standpoint of watch the progress, I mean, obviously he's a completely different kind of player.

Cam's running ability kind of turned him into that unicorn that, okay, you can have success here doing a lot of different things, even if you're not brewing for 420 yards in your first couple of games. I don't know. The physique seems kind of similar. Yeah, absolutely.

They're absolutely. Yeah, I think, you know, I've got some breaking news. Bryce has grown six inches and gained 50 pounds since yesterday. I saw him in the locker room just a little bit ago.

It's a huge story coming soon. Put that on the bottom. Put that on the bottom. Scroll. Darren Gant says that Bryce Young has grown six inches and 50 pounds. He's a mountain of a man now. He is. He.

Yeah. But I mean, I just think from the progression standpoint, I mean, what do you expect this guy to learn? And Frank said it last week, you know, there's going to be, you know, you're teaching Bryce this stuff a little bit at a time in hopes of a cumulative effect by the end of the season. So, you know, this was the first little bite of this particular apple. And once he gets that down and adds two bites next week, all of a sudden you'll be through a whole fruit stand before the end of the year. I don't know.

I've tortured this food metaphor as far as I possibly can. Yeah. You have broken news on the show.

I mean, that's the most important thing, as you can see on the ESPN scroll at the bottom of the screen, that Bryce Young, he's grown six inches and 50 pounds. Did you have any issues finding the App State North Carolina game in Atlanta Saturday? No, I watched the entire game right here on this telephone.

Yeah. It's not a satisfying way to consume my football product and nor was it a satisfying end. I mean, I'm just frustrated. I mean, they, you know, those guys will never schedule us again. I think it's been some fantastic football. We went to Keenan, what, four years ago and were there, you know, what out? Come to Boone, 63, 61, 40 in the fourth quarter. And then this, I mean, double overtime.

My God. That's not good for college football, though. It's not good that you have great games between in-state teams that pack out stadiums. It's not good. Well, I mean, it's not good until we re-imagine the entire sport and, you know, if we really get in a situation where the true powers of college football, whether it's 10 years from now, 20 years from now, separate and do their own premier league thing, guess how many North Carolina schools are going to be in that? I have an answer for you, zero, not any. So then we'll go back to the old school Southern Conference where it's Carolina, Wake, Duke, NC State, Appalachian, you know, the whole nine yards.

We'll invite your pirates. But you're hitting on the point that's most important. It's like if someone says, hey, it's not good that you play app state. I then ask the question, is it good that North Carolina plays Wake for us? It's good that they play really any other state like, oh, man, but this isn't going to help our national ranking. Do you think a win against Wake's going to do that? Do you think a win against Duke's going to do that? What's the Boston College victory going to do for you?

Nothing. It's just and I have no idea if Boston College is any good at college football this year or not. I just don't. Oh, I don't know that they are. That was just a guess on my part. Sorry, Luke. Very good.

Yes. But yeah, I mean, it's just I think it's cool for everybody around. I like what, you know, Appalachians done in the last 10 years of, hey, take these non conference games.

And when I was in school, we used to play non conference games at Hawaii and Wyoming and weird places like that. It's good for no one, because even if we wanted to go, we're not getting there. We can all drive to Georgia. We can drive to Clemson. We can drive to the Chapel Hill where, you know, I guess, Ficklin Field one of these days. But, you know, it's I think it's good.

It's good action. Sean Clark, you'll join us later in the show. We'll talk about what happened over the weekend and look ahead to my Pirates Facing app this weekend.

That is OK, we got to figure out what the bet's going to be. I'm willing to wear an app state hat in the press box a week from tonight for Monday Night Football if the Mountaineers win. But I don't know if Darren Gant will stoop his professionalism to that level with a pirate hat if things were to go south. What if I go full Brad Hamilton and wear the complete pirate suit on a delivery? It's the uniform. You've got to take pride in it, Brad. And there's your 30 year old, maybe 40 year old pop culture reference. W.D. 's so confused right now.

Yeah, it just went in one ear and out the other. I can't help you on this one. Maybe again, I'm down if you give me a mason jar full of something, if the pirates win and if App State wins, I'll find a barbecue spot in Charlotte that has Eastern style barbecue.

I know a few people that run barbecue joints that have Eastern style and I'll plow your face with that. As they say over here in the business side of the operation, we'll talk about this offline. We'll take this offline and come up with a solution so we don't bore our listeners.

Listen, if you want to really mess with W.D., I thought about this earlier and you may see some version of this on panthers.com in the days to come. You want another fast time reference? Brian Burns in the first quarter was Charles Jefferson. Somebody messed with his car and Burns was all over the place. So yeah, that's a double fast times at Ridgemont High reference day for this show. I think your ratings just went through the floor. You're welcome. Hayden Hurst looks kind of like Spicoli a bit and threw the ball into the stands after catching Bryce Young's first career touchdown. Something Spicoli probably would have done. Yeah.

Probably. Darren Gantt, thanks for doing this. See you next Monday night.

Happy to help. See you all soon. Where are we going? I guess we're going somewhere. Where are we going, Darren?

Real quick. I don't know. We'll find something. Like I said, we'll talk about this offline. We'll figure it out.

Offline. There we go. There's a lot going on here, man. Give me a break. Let's give him a break. We're going to give Darren Gantt a break. That's the man right there.