....Amen

This is The Drive with Josh Graham Podcast.

We're internet sensations, guys. Tune into The Drive weekday afternoons, 3 to 7 on WSJS. We're on a Tuesday drive.

Happy Halloween. It is WSJS News Talk Sports for the Triad, where the NFL trade deadline is less than an hour away and the biggest trade we've seen so far today, James Harden finally being moved to the Clippers. It's been that kind of day. Josh Dobbs, he's a Viking. Chase Young to the 49ers.

Yeah, that's not really moving the needle all that much. Here's what is frustrating from a Carolina Panthers perspective today. Scott Fitterer billed himself as being the in-on-every-deal guy, always on the phone, always trying to swing a deal, and yet at a time where they clearly should be sellers, he does nothing today.

He does nothing. This is just another reason why, unless the Panthers have a tremendous turnaround over the next two months, Scott Fitterer is going to be the fall guy for this season and be looking for a job in January. They don't have a first-round pick next year.

We all know that, which means we all kind of know Carolina needs to replenish some draft capital. Yet he couldn't move Jeremy Chen. Oh, but Jeremy Chen had the injury we learned about next week.

That made it pretty hard. Here's my question. Did the Panthers just find out a couple weeks ago that Chen wasn't going to be a fit in a Jiro Evero's defense, or did they have some clue in the spring or in the summer? Did they have some idea that this guy, going into the last year of his contract, who had some real value attached to him, might have struggled to fit into this defense? Because if the answer to that question is yes, then why didn't you move him during the summer?

What's the reason for that? What's the reason for not moving him sooner before he got hurt? Because now, with him not being moved, even for a sixth or a seventh, he's going to be a free agent and he's going to walk for nothing. They couldn't move Terrace Marshall, who they gave permission to seek a trade last week. They couldn't move anyone else. Now, it was unrealistic to expect them to replace a first unless they were going to move Brian Burns, which I don't think is a good idea, frankly, but they could have gotten something back. They do have more picks than you would expect next year. They just don't have a first round pick. They could have used more swings on guys and Mr. In On Every Deal couldn't swing one today. Not for Justin Houston, not for Terrace Marshall, not for Jeremy Chen, not for Dante Jackson.

For nobody. And then you look at the draft misses. You're going to be judged by how you pick in the top 10. Obviously, it's way too soon to see how well Bryce Young's going to turn out, but it's not too soon on those other top 10 picks that Scott Fitterer made.

And it's not very good. Two of his top 10s look like misses. Those are the picks you're going to be judged by. For all the flaws about Marty Hearney, he had six swings at top 10 picks over a 20-year period, and here are the guys he picked. Julius Peppers, Jordan Gross, Cam Newton, Luke Keakley, Christian McCaffrey, Derek Brown. Six for six. Scott Fitterer's top 10 picks, J.C. Horn, who he took eight overall.

Send that cash out, fam. And Iki Iquanu last year, and the tape hasn't looked very good for Iki thus far. J.C. has struggled to stay healthy, but even when that pick was made, people were wondering, myself included, why are you going corner in that spot when you have such great needs? At quarterback, take a swing on Justin Fields. If you didn't want to take a swing on Justin Fields, how about take a swing on Rashawn Slater at tackle, who looks really good with the LA Chargers. If you would have taken him, you're not taking Iki a year later.

You're not taking Iki a year later. So those two whiffs, that's what you're going to be judged by, and David Tepper's not going to be happy when you're giving Chicago, you have Mr. Concerts, a top five pick next year, because you traded yours away, obviously, in order to take Bryce Young. Then there are the signings this offseason, the Miles Sanders and Hayden Hurst contracts. They look bad. Four years, $25 million for Miles Sanders when nobody's paying running backs?

Not great. When he has two carries for zero yards this past week, and getting outplayed by Chuba Hubbard, and Raheem Blackshear, for that matter, and nearly running right into the passing lane on the most important play of the game because he ran the wrong route. Three years, $22 million for Hayden Hurst. We're almost halfway through the year. He has 14 catches.

That's it. Three years, $22 million. Those are your two big offseason signings, and they don't look any good. So you're not going to take any swings. You're not going to sell anything when you're clearly sellers on deadline day.

You're going to miss on two top 10 picks, and you're going to miss with two big signings in the offseason? Yeah. If things continue to go south, Scott Fitterer, he is firmly on the chopping block as the fall guy for this season. On X at WSJS Radio, you want to chime in on the show?

Where we're streaming video in addition to YouTube and Twitch. Will Dalton, the executive producer of this show. W.D., you watched Sixth Sense for the first time today, and be honest with me. Did you have any idea about the twist going in?

Did you have any clue? No. I mean, because you told me it was going to be a thriller, which, I mean, now that's a little closer to a horror movie than any other genre.

That was a horror movie. Pretty good. Yeah. Yeah. Enjoyed that. It walks that line.

So you'll review that later on in the show. The first college football playoff ranking will drop tonight, by the way. And unlike past years, there is real intrigue with what the top five is going to look like. We know who the five teams are going to be, Georgia, Michigan, Ohio State, Florida, Florida State, pardon me, and Washington. You know those are going to be the five, but what order are they going to be in?

Now, the easy one should be number five. That's where Washington should be. Barely survived Stanford, hashtag goACC, last weekend. And their impressive win so far this year was against Oregon at home. It was a close game, barely won it at home.

It's an impressive win. Being ranked fifth makes a lot of sense. Washington at USC, that's going to be a fun one this week, or I think that's in Washington.

Spots one through four is a classic debate of reputation versus resume. Neither Michigan nor Georgia have beaten a ranked team, have beaten a team that's legit. Meanwhile, Ohio State and Florida State each have terrific wins. Two for the Buckeyes, Penn State at home. And they also, who else did Ohio State beat? Oh, they went on the road and beat Notre Dame. And one and a half, we'll call it for Florida State, beating the crap out of LSU by three touchdowns. And then going on the road to Clemson and winning in Death Valley and overtime.

Not as great as it looked at the time, but still a good win nonetheless, better than anything that Georgia and Michigan has. Here's my guess. Let's go through five through one.

I think reputation's going to win out. Going through five through one. Number five.

Washington. Number four. Florida State. Number three. Ohio State. Number two. Michigan.

Number one. Georgia. That's what I think they're going to do. I think reputation will win out with teams that were there last year and frankly have been blowing out teams. Georgia initially was not doing that, but they're fresh off a blowout win against Florida and the world's largest cocktail party. And while I do think, while I would prefer that they reward teams that schedule better in the first playoff ranking, like Florida State, like Ohio State, reward them for playing Notre Dame in South Bend and playing against LSU in Orlando, I just don't think they're going to do that.

And I don't have a big issue with it, given the way that Georgia and Michigan have played in recent weeks. So you've got that later on tonight. It's The Drive with Josh Graham, WSJS. You guys. Hayes Permar joining us now.

Skips her plays with Hayes in just a second. I'm told it's Halloween themed, but my one directive to W.D. was, let's not do the basic thriller, werewolves in London type of thing here.

So- Box crash. Yes, all of that. I'd be interested to see what direction he takes that in. It's also the NFL trade deadline. W.D., what's the biggest trade today? Chase Young to the Niners, Josh Dobbs, former Vol. Rocky top, you'll always be.

Home sweet home. Yeah, I- Probably James Harden. That's the biggest trade.

James Harden is the biggest trade for the NFL trade deadline today. It's official, that. Woge hit me with that at like, what, like 2 a.m. or something? I swear. Yeah, I didn't even know what happened. The guy doesn't sleep.

And then he was on every hour of Sports Center this morning and had already done like a podcast. Is Woge AI? Woge might just be AI.

I think he's just- I think he's AW, actually. Hayes Permar with us here. Where do you stand on the state of North Carolina football? Because today it just feels like Groundhog Day where it's up Carolina ceiling, up. Maybe we need a new coach, sleeping giant. People yelling at each other about, oh, is NC State actually North Carolina's rival in basketball? The same stuff every year. And I don't know where things go. I usually am not the guy to say there's a ceiling on things.

However, especially as the Big Ten and the SEC have lapped the ACC in terms of the financials and how attractive Carolina is now versus five years ago, I don't know if you find a better coach than the one you have right now. All right, first I gotta start with this. I know you stream this live.

Is the screen that I'm seeing the screen that like everyone sees on this? Probably. Okay, because there's one thing about like Josh Graham doing it and I'm not knocking it. This is like what you gotta do. You gotta, like you should be doing the trendy costume, but it's like, there's nothing original.

Ken and Barbie are gonna be hot this year. But like, that's what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to do the hot things. Like you're the host guy.

But don't over here. Anytime you're like doing your actual job within a full mask, it's just like objectively hilarious. Especially like just a random day job.

Like somebody just like, you know, take it, you know. It's just, it's just unbelievable in a full Spider-Man because you can be Spider-Man. It's, he's down there just like moving the faders, like taking calls, but it's just Spider-Man. And that is just, it's funny. It's just humorous. So we have to start by recognizing that. Next up on the football.

Yes, it is. It's the same old story. It's the same old tale. We know what we're working with in football. This goes for UNC, NC State, Duke, Wake Forest, ECU to a degree, App State, although, you know, the different expectations of different levels of, I mean, what's the old phrase?

Who, the Dennis Green, that we are who we thought they were, right? It is just extremely rare. It's never happened that these teams reach 12 win seasons and play for the college football championship, right? What it breaks down to is that, you know, they're technically they're playing at the level of football where they could be in the college football playoff, but they, if you follow the sport or if you even just step back a little bit and forget that both teams have 11 players and a lot of high powered coaches, and you just step back and you realize it is a different level being played at Alabama, Michigan, Oklahoma, all these other ones. And ACC football and North Carolina and NC State football is great, but it's just not that level.

Wake Forest is great, it's not at that level. So these teams, their best seasons in history are nine and 10 and sometimes 11 win seasons and those don't happen very often. So even when they are six and oh, to start thinking what would a 12 win season look like is just not very often. It's like once every 10 years, things align where the conditions are possible for an 11 or 12 win season. And even when those conditions exist, you've got to think of it in terms of like a 10 or lower percent chance, even in that year that only comes around once every 10 years. So you're really talking about a 1% chance that in North Carolina and NC State or something like that truly does. Everything falls in place, the luck, the injuries, the scheduling, which can include maybe the scheduling of beating somebody that becomes good later, all that stuff.

It just doesn't happen very often. And you can't be that disappointed with seven, eight and nine win seasons. And you should never get your hopes that high for a 12 or 13 win season if you're playing that many games until it comes along. Until you're at the college football playoff, don't ever think about the college football playoff, North Carolina football fans.

Okay, to cheer up those Carolina football fans after that. We play skips or plays with Hayes. Hayes-Permar is somewhat of a Renaissance man. An expert in the finer things, but he hangs his hat on music. Loves his God, he's no friend of Satan. He was like oh six, getting busy with his sticks, been watching Big Mike, a little tranky trip.

I just need a Zion and someone he can dunk on. Today Hayes will decide if this music is smash or trash, blows or blows. It's time for skips or plays with Hayes. It's Halloween themed. Permar, what were you saying while talking over the bed? I was saying, did I talk too much? Did I talk too long?

Oh, you never talk too much, except when you do, but I don't know if that was one of those instances. We had to talk about the costumes. We had to hit the cast. Oh, we absolutely did. It was necessary.

My feelings are hurt that you said that a Spider-Man outfit was better than the Ken outfit. It's funnier, it's funnier. What's the first Halloween theme song you have for Hayes? We are gonna go with Zombie by the Cranberries. Get in your head, get in your head, zombie, zombie, zombie. That's a play. Good pull. I wouldn't say Cranberries best song, but definitely a great Cranberries song. And a good Halloween song.

It's obviously zombie, but it even has like sort of a spooky, eerie, fall feel to it. So yeah, that's a huge play. Well done. Hayes Permore. Dreams. That's the other Cranberries song that comes off the top of my head. Linger. Oh, Linger's excellent. That's a great one.

What's next? Psycho Killer by the Talking Heads. Dave Lawson's band. That's right.

How you doing, Carolyn? The only, my only note on this one is you could have gone with the version off the album Stop Making Sense, the live recording, which was also the first movie played back at the Rialto Theater in Raleigh. And it's kind of cool because it kicks off the whole concert. And it just, it's him walking out. And he's got the, I mean, nowadays people make the loop like themselves. Like, you know, somebody comes out and makes a beat. It's the 80s, so he comes out, he has a boombox, and it's got the beat on it. And then he's just playing guitar with it. So it's basically like an acoustic version.

But still awesome enough song and fitting enough of the category that it's a play. I like this. Hayes Permore. WD doing a great job.

I don't want to jinx it. What's the last one? Those are legit banger songs.

Those are good songs. Well, sticking with the theme of Trick or Treat, Candy Shop, 50 Cent. ["CANDY SHOP"] Can't get me stopped. He won the costume, the office costume contest. And he's going through those sticks and plays and plays. That's a play, 100%. Gotta love it. Very seductive.

Hayes Permore. 50 Cent talking about Candy Shop. I guess that is applicable here on Halloween. Oh, I need to ask you this before we let you go. College basketball season tips off next week. What? What?

Next Monday. So we have four movies, basketball movies, that WD hasn't seen before, that we've narrowed it down to here. Like They Can't Jump.

Already made them see that. These are the four. Teen Wolf, Blue Chips, He Got Game, Love and Basketball.

The right answer is probably Love and Basketball. My answer is He Got Game. You've got Lavelle Moten making a very brief cameo.

That's what he's telling me. And some other North Carolina roots high school connected players in there. And it was just so cool at the time seeing Ray Allen and Travis Best and a couple other actual ball players being there. And the Aaron Copeland music, the scene where they're playing outdoors. And it's Aaron Copeland's rodeo.

It's just awesome. And then the college scene shot at Elon. Yes, Denzel, like John Turturro randomly good in it as a college basketball coach. Rick Fox randomly in it as like the older college basketball player recruiting him. Just so many good uses of characters. There's something, I don't know why it stopped short of being just like, wow, what an amazing movie.

But it's a darn good movie. Hey, Spermar, you're a darn good guest. Oh, that deserves a play as well, I think. Really do appreciate the time. We'll talk to you next week.

Talk to you guys. Christmas music tomorrow. Oh, my gosh. Maybe next week we can do Christmas music. But that might be too late, according to WD. Coming up, the maddest you'll ever hear Dabo Swinney plus a million dollar line that he had from earlier today. Keep it here on the drive. You're on the drive with Josh Graham.

I had some idiot go Old Testament on me and he got an Old Testament response. Million dollar line from Dabo Swinney today. Tyler from Spartansburg, I believe, was the one Spartanburg that called into Dabo's show yesterday.

And the question took about a minute and a half to get out. And the caller during that minute and a half said that Dabo had become arrogant after winning the title in the 2018 season. He cited Proverbs, citing scripture to Dabo Swinney.

That's bold. And capped it by asking how he could justify being paid $11.5 million a year and sport a 4 and 4 record. And this was a highlight of what Dabo responded with amidst a five minute answer. To answer your question, I started as the lowest paid coach in this freaking business. And I'm where I am because I've worked my ass off every single day. And I ain't going to let some smart ass kid get on this phone and create this stuff.

So if you've got a problem with it, I don't care. I work for the board of trustees, the president, and the AD. And if they're tired of me leading this program, all they got to do is let me know.

I'll go somewhere else. We've won two national championships. Clemson went 35 years probably since before you were born. Your whole freaking life. And we've won two in seven years.

And we earned it. But you know, I'm not going to sit here and let you call. I don't give a crap how much money I make. You ain't going to talk to me like I'm 12 years old.

You'll be freaking kidding me. Amen. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. That's the most Clemson radio thing ever. The host clearly sitting there for five minutes wondering how he's going to transition out of that. What does he say?

And you have that second long pause, or that two second pause and he comes up with. Amen. That'll be my reaction. That would have been my reaction if the Carolina Panthers made a trade right before the trade deadline. Amen. This might be the last year of the Clemson call-in show.

It's still amazing. Some places do this. Allow for people to call into the show and ask these questions without it being completely planted.

Most places fish out questions now, rather than having people call in live. That was a troll. Shout out to Dabo for still doing it.

There are people writing off Dabo Swinney. That would be a mistake. I'm talking about the Paul Finebombs of the world.

Paul! Problems. They're fixable.

That's the best news. If you asked me who has a better shot at taking the next step into contending, Mac Brown at North Carolina, James Franklin at Penn State, Dabo Swinney at Clemson, I'm taking Dabo out of those three. Because I simply believe that given the conferences that they're in and given the states of those other two schools, it's not realistic to expect them regardless of what those coaches do to be something that they haven't been either ever or in a very long time. The problems are fixable at Clemson.

We know you can win at Clemson. And the one positive about them being so obviously mediocre this year, being 4 and 4 versus being 7 and 1, it's obvious that something needs to change. That Dabo needs to change his ways a little bit. It's been stripped bare. And something that won't get nearly enough attention because of the salaciousness of the call last night and the million dollar line of Dabo saying, I gave him an Old Testament answer to an Old Testament question, went an Old Testament on him.

Is this answer here where he's talking about the problem? We're in the midst of an amazing journey in college football history. And I'm not going to let one season, when I know exactly what the issues are, and a bunch of great kids and great coaches, I'm not going to let one season damper that. I'm going to fight for this program, all right?

And hopefully, we can get back to some appreciation around here. It's freaking hard to win. Yeah. I know what the problems are. It's an important thing that he said there.

Got to go into the portal, which he refused to do in the past, but now he's going to. They have the resources at Clemson that other places don't have. Florida State, you wonder the reason why they're so good right now? Yeah, some of it is recruiting by Mike Norvell, but it's more transfer portal adding, with Keon Coleman and Jordan Travis even, if you want to count that.

You got to do that if you're Dabo, and he now knows it. And being in the ACC, that really helps. This isn't being talked about enough, but I bet you it'll be talked about at this time next year. Who does Clemson have to climb over next year to get back where they want to go? Florida State, that's it. Anybody else they have to climb over?

No. Nobody knows who the second best team in the ACC is. Juxtapose that with all the movement we're going to see next offseason. You think it's going to get easier for Texas and Oklahoma joining the SEC? You think it's going to get easier for USC, who's laboring a bit, and UCLA, and Oregon, and Washington joining the Big Ten? Good luck with that.

That sounds like a slog. Clemson doesn't have to deal with that. And access just became easier, because the playoff is expanding to 12. Writing off Dabo Sweeney, some are doing it. Not a winning proposition. That would be a mistake.

That was a troll. WD, game four of the World Series is tonight. Texas would be such a deserving champ, because last night was a microcosm of the Texas Rangers season, the way they beat the Diamondbacks. Number one, it was on the road, down 9 and 0 in the playoffs. That is a record to start a postseason consecutive road wins in a postseason. And Max Scherzer went down with back tightness in the first few innings, and they still didn't miss a beat.

That's what they've been all year. Scherzer going down with an injury, losing John Gray, losing Jacob deGrom. You lose guys that would just cripple most teams in baseball, and you just still figure out a way. And Seager, another amazing play in the eighth inning to get out of a jam with that double play, where he fielded one that was hit 114 miles an hour up the middle.

Texas would be a deserving champ. Doesn't mean it's a very interesting World Series. Oh, that game one that was so exciting, the least watched World Series game on record. Only TV nerds care about that. No, but it's an indicator of how little people care.

I'm not saying it isn't. But baseball people care. Fewer and fewer baseball people care.

That's what I'm saying. Yeah, baseball people can love it, but is it going to move the needle? No, that's a problem for baseball. You might not care, but baseball does care.

They do care about those numbers. And the fact that game one was so awesome and it was the least watched World Series game on record tells you exactly what point I made as soon as the matchup was set, that this one's one of the worst World Series matchups in terms of what moves the needle that baseball's had in a long time. I don't know if it's purely a horror movie. I still put it into the classic thriller box. The WD watched Sixth Sense for the first time this morning. I think we're cool getting to spoilers when it comes to this movie, since it's close to 25 years old now.

It came out in 1999. So I'll add that disclaimer up front if you haven't, for whatever reason, seen The Sixth Sense. Anyway, it's time for At the Movies with the WD. Unless you're talking about Star Wars. Movies aren't exactly Will's thing.

But that's about to change because Josh can't stand it anymore. This is At the Movies with Will Dalton. What you liked, what you didn't like, best quote, and then we'll have you try to guess the Rotten Tomatoes score within five points. What did you like about this movie?

The jump scares were really good. Well, for starters, you told me it was gonna be a thriller, not a horror movie. I think it was.

I guess. I mean, it definitely seemed very horrorish to me. I've said it was on the line all along. I thought you were trying to trick me again. No, I'm not trying to trick you whatsoever.

No. I just didn't want you to learn about the twist because this was the first time I rewatched the movie since the first time I saw it. And this movie is all about the twist and the two scenes that really drive that home. It's the magic scene where he does a magic trick for Haley Joel Osment's character and Haley Joel Osment sees right through it saying, oh yeah, it's right in front of you, this thing here. And essentially that's what the movie is. The entire movie is, hey, Bruce Willis got shot.

You forgot about it because here he is hanging out with this kid. We told you this kid only sees dead people. And it's the guy that, or not only sees dead people, but sees dead people and they don't know they're dead when he talks to them. And the kid's the only person talking back to Bruce Willis.

All the signs are there. There's the magic trick at the end with the reveal. That's what the movie is.

It is good. And I always enjoy scary movies or thrillers that do kind of have the wool over your eyes the whole movie. And then at the end you realize, wow, this has been in front of me the whole time. Also, the scene in the car, wherever she finally believes in, that was also really good. It was a good scene, and the way that they presented it was you thought that was going to be the climax of, hey, they finally were able to figure things out. Tony Collette and Haley Joel Osment's character, that's all good.

You have closure with that. And then the final thing happens. And what was funny in doing a little bit of research on this movie, the scene where he says, I see dead people, hah!

They immediately do like a shot right at Bruce Willis closely zooming in on his face after he says that line. They've debated whether to keep that in the movie because the director felt like it made it so obvious at that point that he was in fact dead, but they decided to keep it in the movie, which leads to what you didn't like about the movie, or at least what I didn't like. I'm envious of you because you didn't consume enough culture to know the twist going in. I never had that moment where I was able to watch the movie without having known the twist. And see, I knew that someone spoiled it for me, whether it was the Lonely Island song where I can't say the title of that song on the radio right now, thanks FCC. Whether it was that or something else, it was spoiled for me before I had seen it. I knew that Bruce Willis was dead before I even watched it.

So I didn't have the chance to experience what you did today, where you have the, whoa, the big reveal for you. I just felt bad for Haley Joel Osment's character. Like he, I mean, that kid went through it.

I mean, can you imagine having a childhood traumatizing like that, where you can see ghosts and everything gets cold when you can't imagine that? But at least he got, no, I can't imagine that. He also got like the star role in his play. That was cool.

Cool. He got to, you know, be King Arthur and rip Excalibur out. He did, but he still saw ghosts.

That's right. And he probably still does see ghosts. And now he can maybe use it to his advantage. Maybe a sequel, is that what we're saying here? The seventh sense, is that what we're going to do? Too many years have passed, I think.

And given the current state of Bruce Willis, I don't think that's going to happen. Yeah, that's true. You don't know what I'm talking about. I do know what you're talking about. You do? Yes. What am I talking about? He's got dementia.

Yeah, it's tough. What's the best quote? No, dinner's not ready. Oh, I think in terms of cultural impact, it's I see dead people. People say that all the time. I see dead people. Yeah. Stuttering Stanley, stuttering Stanley.

Grandma says hi. Yeah. There is one involving cheese that I don't think I could say. Keep moving, cheese. Oh, yeah. I know. I know. I thought Tommy Thomasino sucked big time.

Speaking of Tommy Thomasino, he had a line that I really enjoyed from this. Hey, freak. How'd you like the arm around your shoulder bit? Just made it up. Went with it. That's what great actors do.

It's called improv. It's good stuff. What's your Rotten Tomatoes score for $0.0699? I'm going to say this guy to $0.83.

$90. And that's been At the Movies with the WD. Let me see where the poll's at for your movie next week. Team Wolf, Blue Chips, he got game love and basketball. Blue Chips has 53% of the vote right now.

I need to go vote. He got game right behind it. Doesn't seem like it's going to be love and basketball or Team Wolf's weak. You know who's weak it isn't? Louisville. They're going to do it again, aren't they? They're going to skew the net and ruin the net for the entire ACC, just like they did last year. Kenny Payne winning four games.

And who did they play? Kentucky Wesleyan? It's two straight years that you've lost to a D2 team in an exhibition.

And Kenny Payne, post-game, has comments where he's saying, we're not talented enough to just win games. I'm like, if you're not talented enough to beat D2 Kentucky Wesleyan, who's picked eighth in their conference in D2, there's some problems. There's some problems with Louisville. Not good.

Not good at all. And hopefully, the ACC does well enough with the out-of-conference that they can overcome having a team that is horrifically bad in it yet again that you have to play. You have to play, Louisville.

You have no choice. They're in your league. And it looks like they're going to be really bad again and then making a change at the head coaching position and finding somebody else. If only they didn't fire Rick Pitino five years ago. They stayed pat. And didn't fire him in favor of going the Chris Mack route and now the Kenny Payne route. Brutal. Just brutal.

Not just for Louisville, but for the entire ACC. You are on the drive with Josh Brail, WSJS. Everyone on sponge cake.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. It's Monday. We have a number of ACC matters to get to with David Glenn. David Glenn Show you can find on YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts. And of course, the North Carolina Sports Network doing a lot of great stuff written and on podcasts, et cetera. And one of the things we need to talk about, DG, is the release of the ACC schedules between 24 and 30 that they put out for football.

They have all the grids for each season. And the thing that immediately jumped out to me, interesting that the most public opponent to expansion is the one team that does not play SMU, Stanford, or Cal next year in North Carolina. And the other two that voted against expansion, FSU and Clemson, do not travel there in year one either. And all three don't make return trips to the furthest possible point in 2030. This isn't all just a coincidence, right?

No, I don't think it is. I mean, the ACC is at a strange time. You've had Clemson and Florida State in different ways making noise about wanting to leave a while ago. Heck, they wanted to leave at one point about 10 years ago. And that one blew over, of course, when Maryland left for the Big Ten and there was another TV money crisis.

So it's a league that's still intact, but it's a league that's fragile in some ways. And they're doing their best at the league headquarters now in Charlotte to try to keep everybody happy. And as you know, Josh, because you've lived it, we live in a world where Oklahoma and Oklahoma State have played each other since 1904. And after they play each other this coming Saturday, that's going to be it for quite a while because the Sooners are headed to the SEC.

Why do I bring that up? Well, one of the things the ACC is weighing right now is keeping different constituents happy. But another thing it is weighing is which rivalries to protect. And as you saw in that wonderful grid, there are still schools that will play each other every single year. And there are schools that are going to very rarely play each other, even though they're in the same conference.

So it's hard to make everybody happy when you throw all of those things into the pot. But no, I don't think it's mere coincidence that the newcomers turned out to be scheduled the way they were. What was your biggest takeaway transitioning to basketball from ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips speaking about the new world of the ACC from a hoops perspective?

Well, I was a little bit surprised that he jumped right to not everyone will be invited to the ACC Men's Basketball Association. Yeah. You and I were sitting together for part of the day. I forget if that was part of it. Oh, yeah, I'll ask the question. OK, that's right.

Yeah, so I probably tugged your sleeve or something because, man, I've been at this for a long time. And some things are considered sacred, right? And I know there are other ACC sports where not everybody is invited to the postseason. I do understand that. But in a 70-year-old league where the crown jewel of the league is its ACC Men's Basketball Tournament, there's no doubt about it. That is number one. Remember, the post postseason is all controlled by the NCAA. So the league's crown jewel is that event.

And for 70 years, everybody's been invited no matter how good or bad you were during the regular season. Now, I'm not philosophically against what he said. In fact, I mean, you grow to this number.

You have to make some difficult decisions. But man, we're at a time of massive change, Josh. The league has already decided to basically send bonus checks based on how well you do in football and men's basketball. That's brand new and unprecedented in 70-plus years. There are other things that they're discussing. And now that would be a pretty massive shift. But I think at this point, Jim Phillips' plan for the ACC Tournament will pass, and it's just one more massive change that everybody's just going to have to digest.

How concerned? Last night, Louisville lost to some D2 school in Kentucky. Kentucky Wesleyan, I think it was. Second straight year, they lose to a D2 opponent at an exhibition. It's just infuriating to listen to Kenny Payne postgame say, and I'm paraphrasing here, but this is essentially what he said, that we're not good enough, we're not talented enough to just show up and beat teams. Well, I hope you're talented enough to just show up and beat D2 teams at home. And not just D2 teams, D2 teams that are picked to finish eighth in their league at home.

How concerned should the rest of the ACC be about what a really bad Louisville could do to skew the net? That is a factor. I get it. You're also weighing. It is not bad that you have one more opponent that you don't have to worry about having a difficult time beating. But we do live in a metrics and analytics world, so that is a concern. Because remember, even though it is not Micah Shrewsbury's fault, Notre Dame is going to be really bad this year.

Oh, yeah. I don't recognize a player on their roster. And with all due respect, he's a good coach, just so everybody knows. He did very good things at Penn State. He just has inherited one of the worst rosters that I've seen in a long time. And I don't mean they won't eventually be good, but he has a lot of freshmen. And we're living in a transfer-driven world where everybody's loading up on these veterans to go with their talented youngsters. And you just can't do it the way Notre Dame's trying to do it. Another of the worst rosters I've ever seen was Louisville last year. So we expected that.

We picked them 15th last year. For Kenny Payne, and you and I make a living in part by using our voices and doing our best to choose the right words. We can all say things or they come out in unintended ways. I think what Kenny Payne was trying to say was we need to be gritty. We need to be tough. We're not yet so talented like Denny Crum's Louisville national title teams or Rick Pitino's Louisville national title team. We're not that talented that we can overlook the grit, the toughness, the competitive edge.

I think that was what he was trying to say. But he's been around the block. I mean, this is not like a 25-year-old first-time head coach, man. You've got to be better at your communication skills when you're the CEO of a major college basketball program, especially one like Louisville, where it's kind of like Miami football. Miami Hurricanes fans remember the five national championships. And they look at everything through that lens, even if they've struggled relatively since they joined the ACC. Louisville basketball fans are that way. They see themselves as a multi-time national champion because they are.

That would be poorly received as a comment in almost any program and any fan base. But at Louisville, I mean, that is as tone deaf as it gets for a guy who's been around the block a few times. David Glenn's with us here. David Glenn Show on social media, North Carolina NC Sports Network, you can find his stuff.

And also the David Glenn Show podcast, you can find on YouTube. It's very good stuff, especially the stuff from ACC tip off last week. I'm very interested in your thought on what's going on with North Carolina because over the years, you and I haven't been around here for a long time. You hear people say, North Carolina is this sleeping giant that you just need to unlock and turn into a national championship contender. And then you also hear on the other end of the ledger, there's a ceiling that you can hit at North Carolina. And Mack Brown might have hit it in the 90s, and he might have hit it here with the level of recruiting, the level of quarterback that he's brought into campus. Where do you land on sleeping giant North Carolina versus North Carolina hitting a ceiling?

Just so everybody knows, the sleeping giant phrase is not entirely mythology. The legendary Florida State coach Bobby Bowden, I'm sure he didn't only say it in an interview with me, but he used that exact phrase to describe that exact football program. And I mean in the early 1990s when Florida State joined the ACC. And Mack Brown had not quite yet ramped them up into what they became by the end of that first 10-year tenure that he had, culminating in that 1997 team that was 11 and 1 and destroyed everybody on their schedule except for Florida State's top five team that visited Keenan Stadium one night.

I was there, and it's as loud as I've ever heard Keenan Stadium. So I understand where Bobby Bowden's and others' observations come from. It's a large public university with a famous Nike swoosh and an incredible multi-sport reputation. Not only the legend of Dean Smith in men's basketball and Michael Jordan, but Mia Hamm in women's soccer and lacrosse and so many other things. It's typically one of the better all sports athletic departments in the entire country.

So that's where sleeping giant comes from, right? The ceiling comes from the fact that it's really hard to compete for and win national championships when you're in a sport that is not the most important of the big two on your own campus. Recruits know that, right? Now, Mac Brown did a great job of recruiting despite that image back in the 90s, and he came darn close. I would argue it was the best Carolina football team in history. Some of the old timers get mad at that because Dick Crum and Bill Dooley won ACC titles, and Mac Brown did not. Heels haven't won an ACC football title since 1980.

So the ceiling talk is real, and the facts back it up, right? If you haven't won even a conference title, I forget your exact age, Josh, but you have not been around for a conference title. 1980 is a long time ago. I wasn't even covering the ACC in 1980.

So whatever the dynamics that are in play, it's not just a Mac Brown thing, right? I mean, it was a Carl Torbus thing and a John Bunting thing and a Larry Fedora thing, and there have been these occasional blips. The reason that I don't say never is because we live in a world where TCU just played for the national championship in the sport of football. But I will say that they got crushed, but it's hard to say never say never. It limits the possibility of somebody like UConn, who was a meaningless men's basketball program for a while and then good but couldn't get over the top for a while, and now they have more recent national championships than just about anybody. So that's why I say never say never, but man, I'll be surprised if the Tar Heels win a national title in my lifetime, and it's going to be an uphill battle for them to win an ACC title too. Yeah, I just wonder, since Mac's taken the job in 2018, has it gotten harder for North Carolina? I don't think the job is as appealing as it was five years ago, as crazy as that might sound.

And it's a lot to do with the fact that, A, the ACC and the Big Ten are running laps around the ACC financially, and it might be harder to land a coach. I hear the dog agreeing. Oliver clearly misses Josh and wants to say hello. Sorry about that. No, Ollie's with me, I think.

You too, WD, or Spider-Man, sorry. It has gotten harder financially, right? Carolina is not on the wealth scale. Carolina used to be a wealthier athletic department back when I started covering things relative to the rest of the world than the Tar Heels are right now, where they're kind of middle of the pack. They don't spend the way most of those Big Ten and SEC schools spend. It's also partly a recruiting thing, right? We don't know how many people are going to show up to see the Tar Heels play Campbell, even though the Heels have spent most of the season in the top 25, started 6 and 0, have exciting players like Drake May and Tez Walker and Elmarion Hampton and Cayman Rucker and so many others.

That's a product worth seeing. And I'll tell you, Josh, back in 1997, after Carolina lost that game to Bobby Bowden in Florida State, it was deemed the biggest regular season ACC football game ever. They were both in the top five. They were both undefeated.

And it was mid-November. It was a late regular season undefeated versus undefeated game. So the Tar Heels lose a pretty competitive game. A couple of weeks later, lowly Duke, not good at the time, is visiting Chapel Hill. And it's not a good crowd. And Mac Brown is thinking, I just gave this school one of the best football seasons they've ever had.

I'm sending like a dozen of these dudes into the NFL. And because they know the Heels are going to beat Duke, they don't show up in Phil Keenan Stadium in a late November game to close. That bothered Mac Brown. Now, he was leaving for Texas either way.

I don't want to give people the wrong impression there. The Longhorns gave him a better chance to win a national championship. He knew that deep in his heart.

And sure enough, he won one in 2005, right? Something you couldn't do at Carolina. It has gotten harder. The dynamics are tricky for any football coach at UNC.

Again, I never say never. Who knows? I mean, Clemson's down right now. Will Florida State come back to the pack?

How tough is your neighborhood? Is there some point where Florida State Endo Clemson leave the ACC? Well, then if Carolina's still in the ACC, maybe they could compete again for an ACC football title.

But you're circling all the issues that are complicating Mac's job right now. And it's going to be interesting to see how he reacts if there's a small crowd against Campbell because he's already been pretty bold with his public statements about not seeing the consistent fan support that any team hoping to compete for big things needs to see because recruits are watching that stuff. And if anybody who starts to paint you as a basketball school has more ammunition, if you can't fill your stadium six or seven times a year. Yeah, and I was at the Syracuse game when they were ranked 13th, 14th in the country, and the entire blue zone was empty.

So it's something that we've been seeing for a while. But I got to close with this. Which basketball movie should WD watch for the first time next week out of these four, in-wolf, blue chips, he-got-game, loving basketball? I got to go blue chips. I'm not going to fight anybody over that one.

But the ugly underbelly of college basketball is real. Nick Nolte. It's Nick Nolte, right? Plays a really good Bob Knight type character. I don't want to give too much away, obviously.

No tracks in it. There are some tractors that miraculously find their way to the families of recruits. And I think it's really symbolic. As much as I love college sports, that's a really good symbolic movie on how sometimes the sausage can be made.

I try not to paint with a broad brush. I don't think all schools do it that way. But that's one that I would want Will to see as part of his upbringing there at the Josh Graham Show. Tell Ollie the dog that we can do a dog date with Willow the dog one of these times. We need to make that happen. That's a deal. I might have to tranquilize him on the way to the date.

But we'll make it happen. Hey, I just realized maybe there might be trick-or-treaters coming by. And I'm wondering, is the dog too early for that?

It's 5'30, 5'50. It's right around that time. Yeah. It is?

Well, it depends on their age, I guess. It's a lot of weight for it to get a little darker to add to just the spookiness of it all. But you might be right. Maybe my front porch is loaded with kids right now.

And I always wonder what the heck's going on. Get some candy. Are you handing out big bars at least? What are we handing out? I like Twix. I like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.

Maria does not allow the 100% sugar type stuff. And she rules the roost around here, man. So whatever she says, I defer.

But yeah, I kind of got some of my own tastes in there, hoping that the kids of today at least have something in common with the old guy. No doubt. DG, it's good to see you. Thanks for doing this. Always great to see you all. Take care.