Live At The Rialto Theater

This is The Drive with Josh Graham Podcast.

Three Internet Sensations, guys! Tune into The Drive weekday afternoons, 3 to 7 on WSJS. We're on a Tuesday Drive. It is WSJS NewsTalk Sports for the Triad. We're fresh off the holiday weekend. We are live at the Rialto Theater in Raleigh, just a couple miles away from PNC Arena, where Wake Forest will be facing NC State.

At seven bells, seven o'clock in Raleigh. We'll get to that game and wild card weekend shortly, but we must start with the latest on the Carolina Panthers coaching search. Today is the day that the Panthers can begin interviewing assistant coaches for teams that are currently making playoff runs.

And according to reports, Carolina is scheduled to interview Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson starting on Friday. Same for the Washington commanders that day. And while David Tepper's approval rating isn't very high among Panther fans right now, this is another example, especially during an election year that sports can be a lot like politics. The true diehards in either party represent the minority. You have the people that have their mind made up on a candidate because they follow politics day in, day out, week in, week out, but we all know they don't represent the majority of people. What's going to decide elections is the middle, the casual, so to speak. And sports is a lot like that. A lot of people have made up their mind about David Tepper, but really you're talking about the hardcore Panther fans who might be watching us right now, emailing, tweeting, who have Panthers specific pages and all these types of things, but they don't represent the majority.

In other words, those people can be won back. And David Tepper has a golden opportunity to win a lot of people back here because there are so many proven head coaches available. It's truly unprecedented within that sport. Bill Belichick, the GOAT, was interviewed by the Atlanta Falcons last night. Such a funny tweet to see, the Atlanta Falcons have interviewed Bill Belichick.

That's something that was tweeted. Imagine showing that tweet to 2018U, 2019U five years ago with the Patriots fresh off their final Super Bowl win with Brady and Belichick together. Jim Harbaugh, who won 71% of his games with the Niners, he's interviewing with the Chargers, did that yesterday. Mike Rabel won 55% of his games. No small feat at Tennessee. He took Ryan Tannehill to an AFC championship game. That doesn't include a future Hall of Famer like Pete Carroll, who won 60% of his games.

Who knows? Mike McCarthy might become available. I get he's become a punchline in Dallas and Aaron Rodgers clowned him a bit, but he won 62% of his games as a head coach and won a Super Bowl as well.

Dick Sirianni might come free after that debacle last night in Tampa. Maybe even Mike Tomlin, our buddy Brooke Pryor, who's from the Triad. She was the one that tried to ask the question that everybody was wondering before Mike Tomlin had other ideas. Mike, you have a year left on your contract. Yeah, pretty firmly out on that conversation. Yeah, that's what it sounds like. Anytime Adele starts to play on the radio, WD's reaction is, one of your worst takes, that Adele's voice is grating.

Yes, it's terrible on your part. But Mike Tomlin is a Super Bowl winning coach. Who knows? He could come free. And then there are the coordinator candidates headlined by Ben Johnson. Carolina wanted him last year. And what has he done since then? I took the Lions back to the playoffs. The Lions won their first playoff game in 30 years.

So first home playoff win in 30 years, or first home playoff game altogether in 30 years. He's from Asheville, went to North Carolina in the mid 2000s. A perfect candidate to consider. Bobby Slowick's out there, somebody that we like a lot. And they're beginning to interview some of these coordinators this week. David Tepper, he has such a great opportunity. And in order to get one of these top candidates, I hear people say, oh, the Panthers, they have no shot at getting some of these top candidates.

Well, they do. But you have to offer things that maybe some of these top jobs, air quotes, aren't willing to offer. Like the Cowboys, they're not going to offer final say on player personnel with Jerry Jones running things, if the Cowboy job were to come free. That's not something that Dallas would do. That's not something if Nick Sirianni's let go, that the Eagles would probably be willing to relinquish. David Tepper, he might be willing to do that. The same way when the Niners were in such a bad position five, six years ago, they decided to give those powers to give that type of say to Kyle Shanahan.

And it's worked out very well. We mentioned Detroit and how they've had a lot of success under Dan Campbell. How did they get Dan Campbell? They offered him six, seven year contract. More years than other teams were probably willing to give Dan Campbell. More security than other teams were willing to give Dan Campbell. David Tepper is worth $20 billion.

One of the richest men in the world. He could drop a bag. So when you hear Ben Johnson's asking for 15 million, David Tepper can give him 15 mil. And fans shouldn't give that a second thought. That's the plus of having an owner like Tepper. Yeah, he could be over the top in terms of being hands on, but at least money doesn't matter to him. I mean, it's not like it counts against the salary cap, how much money you spend on a coach.

So you have all the warts and all the problems. Well, at least you have an owner that cares and is willing to spend money because there are a lot of other owners that shall remain nameless for the sake of this conversation that aren't willing to do that, that are known to be cheap, that aren't as aggressive, that honestly don't care as much about winning it all as much as clearly David Tepper does. It's a golden opportunity for Tepper to win support back. On X, WSJS radio, that's where you can chime in on the show. Follow us there.

That's where we're streaming video. In addition to YouTube and Twitch, Will Dalton, the executive producer of this show, WD and I had lunch today at the Wendover Costco on my way to Raleigh. I had my potato chips with me as I do. I bring my own bag, glazed potato chips. When I eat my Costco hot dog, he whipped them out of his jacket pocket, like pulling a gun out of a holster. Like he was just ready. I was scared that the person at the front would not let me bring in this bag of chips for some reason.

So I hid it into my jacket, like sneaking candy into a movie theater, such as the Rialto that we're at here in downtown Raleigh. And you gave me some coffee because I won my coffee bet. Yeah, that wasn't close. Good for Baker Mayfield though. The game last night, the game tonight that we're excited about, Wake Forest, NC State. Wake Forest is going to win this game tonight. And I'll tell you why. It's because they lost last week in Tallahassee.

Huh? The Deacs, they were humbled against Florida State. Wake was riding high. They were on a nine game winning streak, more success than anybody on this team was familiar with at the collegiate level. In that game, Wake, they're known for having three of the 10 best guards in the ACC right now. Hunter Salas, Boopy Miller. Who am I forgetting?

Cam Hildreth. They had 13 turnovers combined for Wake. So when you look at 20 turnovers in the game, how does that happen? Oh, three of your best players didn't have a great night. 13 turnovers, 20 as a team. They were inadequately prepared for the size of Florida State.

They'd never admit this. Maybe they took for granted the success that they were having and thought, all right, we're just going to win this game. That's a great learning tool going into tonight.

It's a similar challenge. They're back on the road and Kevin Keats, he's told us, he's modeled State style in many ways after Leonard Hamilton at Florida State. They like to play a lot of guys, State does.

They like to apply a lot of pressure. Get out on the break, turn you over, push the pace, speed you up. When we chatted with Steve Forbes yesterday, and you can find that conversation on our YouTube channel. See, we weren't completely off from Martin Luther King Day. Served the drive with Josh Graham on our YouTube page. Steve Forbes, he told us yesterday, we're going to see how much Wake Forest learned from a week ago.

You know, that's exactly what I told him last night at seven o'clock. We're going to find out how much we've learned over the last week when it comes to getting sped up. Listen, we can handle the ball.

We got three of the best guards in the league. You know, I just, we can't get sped up. We've got to play at our pace, you know, and that doesn't mean we can't play fast, but we got to play fast and play under control. That's what Wake needs to do. Play under control. Don't turn over the basketball. Don't play the way you did a week ago at Florida State.

This is a perfect spot for Wake because while they like to play like Florida State does, State does not have the personnel to give the problems, present problems the way that the Seminoles did. Florida State plays 12 guys at least 10 minutes a game. That's a lot of players playing at least 10 minutes. State has nine guys who play at least 10 minutes a game. Out of those nine or out of the 12 for Florida State, eight of them are taller than six foot five. For NC State, four. So it's, it's not nearly the same type of size that you're going to be running into. It's not the same amount of depth that you're going to be running into. Not a lot of defense I suspect is going to be played inside PNC Arena tonight, but Wake's an underdog in this game.

I know that's something Steve Forbes is probably using as well. Give me the dicks to beat NC State at PNC Arena later tonight. This is The Drive with Josh Graham. Hey Spermar, here at his theater, the Rialto Theater. It's not mine, this is Raleigh's Theater.

I knew you would take issue with me characterizing it that way. I feel like one of the reasons we wanted to come here to your theater or Raleigh's theater is to learn exactly why you decided to invest in getting a theater because I feel like we didn't have ample time to do so when it actually happened and we'll get to that in just a bit because I have this note here that's kind of crazy and I think it's something that you will appreciate related to ACC basketball. Do you know that the top four teams in the ACC basketball standings currently are the ACC Big Four? The four teams from North Carolina?

I knew it going into, I knew they were both, they were all 3-0, right? But they still have the top four spots? The top four spots, yes, because Duke had one loss. So the top four spots in the ACC basketball standings all from the state of North Carolina, that's not the nugget.

This is. If all four were able to make the NCAA tournament in the same year, the last time that happened was 19 years ago, 2005. And it's funny, when I hear people talk about the greatest eras of ACC basketball, it's usually the era you say when you were growing up. So talking to sports writers all my life, pretty much, they'd all say the 80s.

The 80s or the 70s was the gold era for it. But then when I look at in the 64 team era of the NCAA tournament, 85 on, it's only happened three times that all four teams have made the tournament in the same year. 91, 2004-2005. Back-to-back years, which has me thinking, was 2004-2005 as good as we've ever had it in terms of the quality of teams? Like think about it, Julius Hodge was upsetting UConn at NC State. Wake had Skit Prosser and Chris Paul. Duke was the number one team in the country throughout the entire season with Redick until North Carolina upended them and won the national championship in 2005.

Roy, Kay, Skip, Herb Sendek. Now I think that might be as good as it was for all four teams together collectively in the same year. What was the state of the ACC at that point? Have we added Miami and Virginia Tech or whatever?

That might have been the first one. So I wonder if that makes it feel watered down when you were able to say four teams of an eight tier at that point, you know, there might have been a Clemson or somebody else that was in there. When you start saying over half of our conference is in the NCAA tournament and then you also need it off the backed up as it was in 2005.

It's one thing to get people in the tournament, that's one stat, but you need people there on the final weekend, right? For a long time, obviously in 2005, you know, they had the heels winning it all. It's worth noting 91, Duke won the national championship. 2004, Duke made it to the final four. So if all four teams get in this year, the first three times it's happened, the only other three times it's happened. I've had at least one in the final four and two won the national championship. Yeah, that's a good way to start. The more teams you got in, the better chances of having more teams at the end. Unless you're the Big Ten or the SEC, but I digress. Let's get to the Rialto Theater.

How did it happen? All right, so and obviously you do a great job and you're from Raleigh, so you have a history here. Your show obviously plays, well, worldwide because you're streaming and I know you got people all over the place, but local to you is more considered the Triad at Winston-Salem, right? So I happen to know in Winston right now there's a little bit of a renaissance going on, right? A cool downtown scene, restaurants, a nice big theater down there in downtown. This theater reminds me a lot actually of Aperture in downtown on Fourth Street.

I think it's a little bit bigger than this one, but there this becomes a dual-edged sword, right? People are like so excited that new stuff is coming. We've got cool new restaurants. We've got, you know, a cool apartment building that used to be an old government building or something like that. Taking, you know, an old thing and making it new.

But there is also a little bit of anxiety when some things that are considered old things or have been around a long time start to disappear, right? Like, oh, well, now that we have more people in here we might need to build buildings that don't stop at three stories. Like we kind of need eight story buildings so that people can live in the top floors and we could have businesses and parking and street stuff on the first level. This was a big conversation in 2020 when a lot of things were moved out that were older and the nostalgia of it was painful to some.

So even if people don't know the Rialto Theatre because your audience is more triad-based, I think they can appreciate the how does a city or a neighborhood go about, what's the right way to preserve the things that you want to preserve and speak to your history and make people feel like that their version of the city isn't being forgotten while also allowing for, hey, we want more people coming here. We'd rather be a city that people are coming to than a city that people are leaving. Like go ask Cleveland and Detroit, who I know are like bouncing back some, but like that's a long road when the statistics are saying people are leaving your city. The population is declining, right? So Raleigh, Winston-Salem, a lot of North Carolina cities, now they wrestle with the problem of like what do we do with all these people coming?

It's a better problem to have than people leaving, right? But ultimately the Rialto falls into one of those, you know, perfect niches of I am a person who believes we do have to grow. We need to find some buildings. Even if this is a great restaurant for 25 years, it was owned by one family and that family is ready to move on for it. Let's build something a little bit bigger and nicer where we could put a nice new restaurant and people can live there. At the same time, there are certain things, I don't know if you got a chance to stop at Char Grill in Raleigh when you came by, Reynolds Coliseum is one that I think has been perfect of like we shouldn't get rid of this, but also we're not going to be able to have a hockey team and a big basketball crowd if we stay at Reynolds Coliseum, right? So the Rialto came along at a time where, you know, post-pandemic like a lot of college coaches looked at their lives and said what exactly do I want to do with the next little chunk of my life? And because this was in a neighborhood that I grew up in and now I'm fortunate to live in this neighborhood now, kind of two different neighborhoods on opposite sides of the Rialto, I thought I could sort of help be one of the people that guided the Rialto into an era of let's preserve what we always loved about a place, but also modernize it, move it forward, have different types of things here. So long-winded answer of saying I'm not a everything needs to be torn down guy, but I'm also not a everything needs to be a museum and keep everything.

So this fit right in the middle. So let's talk about that forward-thinking piece. Like when you buy a place like this, like what most, what is the most exciting piece of it?

I can't imagine, albeit it's important to you obviously, the way you just outlined it, the preservation piece, there has to be something that you circle and say this is something I can do and this really excites me. I wouldn't say I anticipated the thing that excited me. The most exciting thing to me is I like live performances. I do love movies and people who are super huge movie fans or Rialto fans would be like you better say movies first. I do love movies, but even more than cinema specific, like I love the faces of the families and the kids that were here watching, you know, parents that grew up on Home Alone showing their kids Home Alone for the first time on a big screen or just hearing kids laugh out loud, belly laugh at Marv and what's the other Home Alone crook's name? Pesci's character. Watching the two crooks like, you know, be funny like listening to kids laugh you're like oh that's the first time you've seen that prank or whatever like that is crazy you know the you feel keep the change you feel the animals the kids are cracking up like that's a cool thing but live bringing this place has a stage which makes it unique from other musical theaters we're sitting on the stage now live action is something different it's one of the reasons I love sports but the thing that has become the most exciting for me is also similar to what I'm sure a Jones Angel or a Stan Cotton would say people come up to you and you become the the gatekeeper of Wake basketball and Wake football right people probably come to Stan Cotton and talk about games that he never saw but they just want to say I'm glad you do what you do because I saw Wake baseball in 1955 when they won that game that's in the college. Weird what you're talking about with the Rialto the history that they have here I get that a lot with the station that I'm at because WSJS is the oldest station in the triad so I hear about Glenn Scott and Gene Overy the former voice of the Deeks and the history just with this station like when John Curry took the job at Wake am 600 WSJS and I'm sure you get the same so people come and they'll say oh I saw this concert there was amazing I watched Woodstock you know stream that I guess they didn't stream it then but somehow they watched Woodstock you know being broadcast from here um somebody told me that they got baptized here and I thought they meant that metaphorically like they got had their first kiss or something no they their church met here for a time before their church was built now a like super prominent church in Raleigh and it happened to be a time when he was born and got baptized I told you the other day workers will come here dropping off sheet rock for our lobby renovation and the guy will stop and be like hey man is there any way I can go in there and take a picture and I'm like yeah sure dude go in the theater he's like I remember my dad bringing me here to the kung fu shows in the 70s you know so it's like everyone has a Rialto story whether it's a concert they saw there's there's an article in Walter magazine this week one of the performers from Chatham county line he's quoted in there it's like oh yeah I had my first acid trip at the Rialto right so like some stories are more fun than than others but but everybody in Raleigh if you've been here long enough you've got a Rialto story whether it was your first date with your who then became your you know 30-year husband or being baptized seeing the kung fu show seeing a icky pop you know take the stage in the late 80s everyone's got a Rialto story that's become kind of the coolest thing or doing the drive with Josh Graham here now now we can say I remember when the Josh Graham are you good to come back in a couple of hours play skips or plays with Hayes I assumed if I didn't send you a contract but it would have been an obligation that we play skips or plays with Hayes and your former host as a producer David Glenn's going to be here in about 15 minutes well if if he can figure out the parking situation the Rialto we'll see got to figure that piece out appreciate you having us thanks for being here guys and now the moment you've all been waiting for you're on the drive with Josh Graham so for those watching on youtube on x slash twitter or on twitch we have quite the setup here at the Rialto theater in Raleigh wd it's kind of awkward now that I can see what is displayed behind me here on the screen we're on the stage here with the Rialto it's like my face is watching over my shoulder it's exactly what it's doing it's keeping an eye on you and everything else so much history in this place Permar was telling me about all the legendary musicians sometimes comedians that have graced this stage that we're lucky enough to be on right now that might be a good skips or plays with Hayes theme to potentially do something to think about you know what let's do that when we do skips or plays with Hayes later on in the program right now Graham's grades recapping wild card weekend in the nfl every week is a test for your favorite sports teams who passed the test I don't know who dropped the ball I don't know Josh Graham has the answers what time for Graham's grades A through F the very good the meh and the bad from the weekend not a lot of great from what we saw in terms of the quality of games it certainly was not a super wild card weekend but let's start with the obvious the obvious A the Detroit Lions this might just be Michigan month a week ago Michigan football won its first national championship since 97 its first outright national title since the late 1940s yesterday I saw that Michigan basketball beat Ohio State and the bigger story was that the fab five had reunited the beef is squashed between Chris Weber and Jalen Rose and now the Detroit Lions are winning a playoff game and won a playoff game since 91 they hadn't had a home playoff game in 30 years and since the daoist cowboys lost they're gonna get another one first time in team history they will be hosting multiple playoff games in the same year the Detroit Lions hosting the Tampa Bay Buccaneers this coming Sunday I think that's the early game on Sunday but the Lions they're the A that was the best game and the best scene to see from over the weekend B the Houston Texans I know because of the I know because of how often we've talked about CJ Stroud we can kind of lose sight of the big picture a little bit but don't forget this team is on its fourth coach in four years and now they're winning a playoff game and CJ Stroud was great of course but this is again the question I have to the people who say oh clearly the panthers messed up and taking Bryce over CJ Stroud look at the highlight of that game wow what a play CJ Stroud man right look how much time he had and that's no small thing when you're facing the Browns that have this tremendous front Myles Garrett couldn't get to CJ Stroud like he wasn't getting hit at all and when you throw it down field your tight end is separating down field what's that like and then the other tight end is going for 75 yard touchdowns yards after catch when the panthers receivers get yards after catch it's for 20 yards not 75 and they fumble it into the end zone so it's not nearly the same thing even though people try to pretend like it is but good for the Texans who played tremendously on both sides of the ball and I felt good for that city to experience and winning in a way that they're not accustomed to C really a tie here for C the Kansas City Chiefs or the Buffalo Bills both won at home in bad weather situations the Bills game got postponed to yesterday afternoon and neither were really in doubt but neither were games that I felt we learned a lot about the team winning the game Pittsburgh had opportunities to really mix it up in that game especially even in the second half and the Chiefs the weather was just so cold Miami couldn't really test them in the ways that they normally would have in feather better conditions I will say leave Taylor Swift alone people getting mad at like a swag surfing situation that happened she had that sweet jacket if you want to talk about who really won the weekend it's Kyle Juszczyk's wife who yeah did yeah did these custom outfits for Patrick Mahomes his wife Brittany Mahomes Taylor Swift with the Travis Kelsey like jersey on the outside apparently she did one for Taylor Lautner as well who's a Super Lions fan did one with like an Aiden Hutchinson I could see you buying one of those winter coats like what player would you do it for Cam Newton get a Cam Newton oh it'd be so fresh there you go uh leave Taylor alone the peacock stuff that's certainly still being talked about Buffalo fans kind of got screwed hey you got to dig out snow from your seat how much did I pay for this seat where I have to be a snowplow essentially just to watch this football game and how much is beer what I mean ridiculous $20 an hour to scoop out that stadium for fans the NFL I think has more that they could pay for those d more that they can afford okay the Philadelphia Eagles at d the only reason it's not enough is because if you've been paying attention for the last month and a half this is what the Eagles have been and it's why if Nick Sirianni were to get fired it'd be understandable because that's coaching when guys aren't showing effort how do I know they're not showing effort missed tackles when you miss tackles at the rate they were missing them that's that's an effort thing and maybe just maybe Nick Sirianni was a lot like Frank Reich and that things fell apart for Frank right when he lost his best coordinator Sirianni and now when Nick Sirianni lost Shane Steichen and Shane Steichen's winning you know 9-10 games with the Colts in his first year maybe that was the reason Philly was as dominant as they were they also lost their defensive coordinator to the Cardinals as well I'd understand it either way with the Eagles decision it's a difficult one to make especially with this type of hiring cycle and these types of candidates that are available F just waiting for that building the suspense the Dallas Cowboys we all knew who it was we all know no surprise on this you got drilled by a seven seed you were at home at least Philly was on the road and you were facing a team that had a quarterback making his playoff debut and the thing that was so frustrating about watching the Cowboys in that spot they they weren't they were giving up big plays but then they could never stop the bleeding right when you look at the halftime score I don't think Green Bay kicked a field goal the entire game if they did it was super late but Green Bay wasn't kicking field goals it was only touchdowns and then the pick six is not good it's just all bad so they are the F for this week it's been Graham's Grades now back to the drive with josh graham it certainly doesn't feel like margaritaville outside but that doesn't mean we can't play a little jimmy buffett and welcome david glenn to the show since we're at the rialto theater in downtown raleigh dg margaritaville is a state of mind true more than anything else hey you're talking to a guy who grew up in philadelphia and fell in love with palm trees and sand and sea and surf and jimmy buffett so i get that state of mind thing trust me last week we were doing a watch party for the national championship with many of our listeners that came out to vj's brew house in winston and one of them there's this quartet of listeners that call themselves the graham crackers that will call the show every now and then and we appreciate them and one of them said every time you have david glenn on i make sure to listen to the segment twice because there are things there are nuggets i need to extract from the show i need to extract from what dg said that i probably missed the first time well please thank that graham cracker oh they're listening right now that is much appreciated it never gets old to hear stuff like that so let's get into acc basketball you have this up nc sports network dot com and acc mid-season check-in we're about at that point i don't want to do a specific temperature in terms of how concerning things might be right now but i'll ask you generally what's your level of concern when two weeks ago people were freaking out joe lanardi projecting the mountain west getting more teams than uh the acc when it was only four teams that the acc was receiving and then last week last friday he said right now i only see three teams that should be getting in when the last two the accs received five it's a concern because we've seen this song and her you know song and dance before and what's going on is obviously carolina has a great resume and duke has a great resume and those upgrade the image of the acc but now that we're into all conference play that middle of the pack that needs quad one wins and needs quality victims to polish their resume obviously if you play duke home or away that would do it if you win if you play carolina home or away that would do it if you win but the pickins are slim when it comes to opportunities to upgrade your resume otherwise now that the acc is out of non-conference opponents and only duke and carolina are on that top tier now i think clemson and wake forest are good teams that i believe if you ask me to project i think both are going to make the ncaa tournament but to your point with wake since we're here at the rialto in raleigh and a couple miles away wake's going to play at nc state nc state's a team that could make the tournament but there's no way that that's going to be a quad one win which you hear a lot about your it's going to require teams like wake and clemson to win road games such as tonight that wake forest has because undoubtedly you would think that would be a quad one win when it shakes out at the end of the year yeah you not only have to beat teams like state in this case for wake you got to hope that state plays well enough the rest of the year that it stays a quad one win steve forbes will remind you 2022 quad one win is you have to be top 75 in the net virginia was 76 a quad one win means you have to be top 30 in the net they beat they beat north carolina at home that year by 23 points north carolina was 31st in the net hey look at it this way uh virginia has a win over the florida gators right and wake forest has a win over the florida gators that those two victories over a solid but unspectacular florida team could later become something more significant or they could sag into insignificance remember was it last year that carolina beat ohio state and michigan which in the moment seemed like good victories but ohio state and michigan both fell apart and neither turned out to be as high quality of victory as you thought when it happened so it's a moving target there's no doubt about it and it's these teams are going to have to play better um you know clemson just had a three-game acc losing streak yeah the tigers have to bounce back from that and because wake has only what one quad one game to this point and they lost that one uh there's work to do and and i don't think this is going to be a vintage year remember less than a decade ago the acc was getting seven ncaa tournament bids twice they got nine ncaa tournament bids talking about relatively recent history as you said last two years five bids and five bids this certainly feels more like a five bid type season and that is a drop off from most of what we saw last decade could wake forest i want to give credit to brett vreelander because i think he wrote this with wake playing at florida state last week could wake be the reverse of florida state football in the sense of florida state was not for guys they did not have jordan travis not having him and that's why they didn't make the playoff in wake's case they played at georgia they played utah in charleston and they did all that without eftin reed in the lineup they've only lost one basketball game with eftin reed and that was last week at florida state how does the committee take that into account because certainly the numbers don't have you ever been on a mock selection committee i had it's a very valuable experience you wrap your brain around this stuff as well as anybody in the industry so i think you've probably done these machinations but i asked this question of actual committee members over the years and by the way the person who runs the committee now is north carolina director of athletics bubba cunningham he is the chair of the college football or college basketball selection committee the long story short of the answers that i've gotten over the years to essentially the eftin reed the third question at wake forest is yes of course the committee is allowed and it's actually in the criteria that you're allowed to consider just like it's in the college football playoff criteria you're allowed to consider the missing player whether he was injured before or he's injured now and florida state got the wrong end to that stick obviously in football yes you're allowed to consider that the deeks have been a better team with a better record significantly better with eftin reed the third when i asked the follow-up question how does it work in the room and my own experience on probably a dozen mock selection committees over the last 30 years backs this up there are so many things to consider that the committee does not have a great track record of placing a lot of weight on that factor they should and if it comes down josh to four teams for two spots and they have very similar resumes i think at that very late stage and they're really peeling the onion at that point the eftin reed the deeks were a lot better with eftin reed than without them at that point it comes into play but i'm telling you the first 98 of those selection committee's duties they happen really without missing players coming into the conversation i know that's not wake what wake fans or maybe steve forbes went a year but that's the way it's worked in reality and that's not great news for the deeks they can try to pump that message but it's more important to just keep winning basketball games who needs tonight more wake or nc state i say wake because i believe the deeks have a more realistic road to the ncaa tournament in other words they both desperately need it of course i don't know if state has the horses to be a march madness team i was there when the tar heels really took the week back behind the woodshed about a week ago i mean i the final score was whatever but the tar heels dominated that game the tar heels absolutely enveloped the wolfpack offense and took them out of their game i know kevin keith said the pack missed some open shots and he's right about that but it wasn't all the pack missing shots it was in part the tar heels imposing their defensive will state needs somebody to get hot from three-point land whether it's against wake or over the longer haul to become an nc uh an ncaa tournament candidate right now they're not even really close to the radar you know dj horn is a good three-point shooter casey morsell has been at times in his career but not so far this year jaden taylor so so from three-point land the big guy dj burns not a three-point shooter the pack simply does not have enough dynamic offensive players on this year's roster for them to beat quality opponents when shooting poorly or in a mediocre manner and that's why i say it's an even bigger game for the deeks because i think they can get there in the end hitting on the super wild card weekend we just saw that was very unsuper to say the least rather than asking you what the best thing you saw was what was the low point when five of the five and a half of the six games were boring i say five and a half because the first half produced 38 points between lions rams and then neither team scored a touchdown in the second half you had the 23 million watching on peacock but the games on peacock dolphins and chiefs your eagles loss that's a bummer for you the cowboys they get blown out at home many of these games are uncompetitive so rather than asking what the best thing you saw in the nfl weekend was what was the worst well this is not an objective answer this is a very personal answer the worst thing was not only watching the eagles lose which i knew was possible because of how they played down the stretch of the regular season but there were players on that team that flat out gave up that's the part where people talk about nick seriani potentially being fired and i don't mean every player i watched that game pretty closely and there were dudes on defense sticking their face in the fan even after it was a double digit game it's it's never all 11 or all right but when you miss tackles the way they miss that's a sign of at that level when people talk about effort not being there you're not missing tackles when you're an nfl team that you're removed from the super bowl unless your head's not exactly where it needs to be and that's on coaching it's one thing to go out the nfl is incredibly competitive it's in it's hard to just keep making the playoffs the way nick seriani has every year as the eagles head coach so there's no embarrassment inherently in losing a playoff game especially on the road it is embarrassing to lose without class without dignity without 22 plus dudes emptying the effort bucket and personally as a huge fan of jason kelsey one of my favorite eagles ever seeing the tears in his eyes and watching it end that way for him as a beaten up physically guy that maybe people have learned more about him personally from the documentaries of the podcast of the kelsey brothers brother might be he's an easy to support guy whether you're an eagles fan or not and he had tears in his eyes a because i think he knew that it was the end of his career and i think he's going to end up being one of the five best centers in nfl history when he ends up in the hall of fame there's only i think four in there already um but to go out that way by that many points when you know not all your teammates are doing what you've done for over a decade as an eagle that was painful to watch so case permar back with us full disclosure he never left why because we're in his digs we're in the rialto theater in raleigh off of glenwood avenue getting set for wake forest nnc state tonight we're not even off of glenwood avenue we are on glenwood avenue that's right we're on highway 70 glenwood avenue so really do appreciate you having us you'll stick around for take it to the house in just a bit but we've got to since we've got you to play skips or plays with hayes but before we do that okay the carolina panthers are looking for their next head coach hayes you're not on the daily sports media grind anymore right but you are still emotionally attached in some way to this football team is there a higher whether it's characteristics that you're looking for as a coach or a person outright that you would look at on a bill cowher i want bill cowher he's a pittsburgh guy he's got north carolina ties temper's gonna be he thinks he could dig for me on this thing and bring him back out of like no everybody thought he was retired 20 years ago i want bill cowher i want i want temper to go and be like bill cowher i want you to kick i was like well i don't coach anymore and coward and uh temper to be like what if we pay you 500 million dollars and cower be like fine and it would still be terrible that that'd be tough because i'd be rooting for cower to be good bill cower that's who i want that's the name you're gonna hear that and think oh i hear none of my podcasts say bill cower none of the links i read say bill cower this guy's a bum this guy's crazy but do you know how old bill cower is i don't love it uh a lot younger than bill belicheck and everybody's like oh you know i even hear some people talking about pete carroll he's 72 73 bill cowher's 66 uh cower was the original uh north carolina hired mac brown at 67 or 68 you want me to think bill cower at 66 not five years also he'd be almost kind of like that mac brown of like hey bill we're not getting you to get us to a super bowl but like right now things are bad and we need somebody that's super likable both like fans like them and football dudes are like them he needs to at least have somebody that's probably in touch with you know the modern analytics and data we're using cower seems more like like fourth and one no no no no we're we're on the 35 of the other team let's play it safe and putting here and it's like oh we don't do that anymore bill the other the other pittsburgh coach the guy who followed him maybe might be available just throwing that out there i would look i take time on the heartbeat but i i still don't think that's happening i think i don't think it is either i'm just he has to at least have a losing season and not make the playoffs before you start getting rid of him but no i want bill cower i think i haven't the panthers am i correct me if i'm wrong on this haven't they been trying to do the like super transparent here's our list of everybody we're talking to the panthers i don't like that and then the falcons you might have saw last night kind of took from it saying we interviewed bill belicheck which is such a funny it's such a funny idea the falcons interviewing bill belicheck and i like to picture an interview that we're all on and it's like um yeah bill um give me an example of a time you overcame adversity i was gonna say do the opposite like all right hypothetical you're down you're down more than three scores in the super bowl what do you do to turn it around you have a scenario for this uh bill belicheck interviewed you falcons that's correct but like was was harbaugh on the list of people we were interviewing so like what i mean i don't think we're i don't think the panthers are getting harbaugh i i don't honestly think they'll get bill cower i don't think they'll get belicheck but like when you put your list out there a it exposes you to what if every one of those people say no and like you you end up going with something that's not on the list we call that a mark godfried right um or just there's so many bad scenarios of saying like all right we're interviewing these nine people that it's like uh none of them ended up being your coach what went wrong but they will get one of those eight people to say yes i'm sticking with dan quinn's on that list defense gave up 40 to the group to the packers bill cower it'll feel a little bit like frank reich but he won super bowls again the pittsburgh connection north carolina connection i don't even know if bill cower is his family still in north carolina they were for a long time haze permars doing sports radio in 2012 bill cow that's what i said bill cower was the original john gruden was hit for a while then urban mire of like the like this guy was so big and is perceived as such a winner is that like every single job that comes open in the next 10 years we're just gonna say his name for what about gruden what about college or pro college as long as it was like a tennessee or a notre dame level like what about gruden what about gruden cower was on that list and he just waited long enough that he fell off the list i'm putting him back on the list what about cower let's go get him wd says he has a rialto theater themed skips or plays with haze let's go haze permar is somewhat of a renaissance man an expert in the finer things but he hangs his hat on music loves his god and he's the friend of satan he was like oh six getting busy with the sticks been watching big mike and little trick and trip i just need a zion and someone he can dunk on today haze will decide if this music is smash or trash blows or blows it's time for skips or plays with haze r.i.p smash mouth you are now one of the smash mouth never played the rialto stage but you are now joining an elite group of people who have played here at the rialto josh graham i mean if we tell this is played i'm so glad that i can be out of the unless i hope we can return sometime wd what's the theme this week it is rialto theme so it's going to be people who have performed at the rialto we thought that would be very fitting yeah permar has been telling us about this list for a while now now we get to share with the audience some people on that list for people who might not be aware especially in the triad of the rialto theater and its history yeah so what's the first one so the first one is alison krauss and we're going to go with when you say nothing at all there's a faction of the audience of a certain age that hear this and immediately just think nodding hill is that the song that it's on there's like three or four spots in nodding hill where this is like when you say nothing this would be a decent karaoke song it's a little bit slow but uh but not that yeah alison krauss 19 years old when she played at the rialto before she sort of like took off now she's a country folk bluegrass whatever genre you want to play there's still time she gets together with robert land i think she's yeah she's still big she's she's done a lot of cool things in her career she headlined the bluegrass festival here this is an absolute play a little mandolin there her i believe that got the guy um believe he's in her band i don't know if it's this song but like that's how he sort of got big was he was alison krauss's mandolin or whatever player so uh this is a huge play nodding hill about three or four needle drops in that movie this song so when people think of that movie julia roberts hugh grant that's what comes to mind i'm sure wd has seen nodding hill a hundred percent no totally i've not yeah well there you go yeah uh what's next uh next is bonnie ray and for her we're gonna go something to talk about so this one has to be 50 years old grapes 50 get out of here it's like 30 years old this was early 90s 50 you went 70s this sounds like a 70s song this is no oh you're right like 91 91 30 33 this was also in another rom-com movie i feel like this was a big song um also what what uh this is a huge play by the way how am i gonna not play somebody play at the realtor right there's a good chance we go three for three on this but i believe didn't we have a video on this show that became a meme of i can't make you love me yeah that's that's bonnie raid as well um and she is a great songwriter but she also i'm not sure she's one of those who's like happy to collaborate with a songwriter and give them credit there's people who've made money writing bonnie raid songs and this may be one of those but great song it's a play i'm assuming this is bonnie rates biggest commercial success that's a song this song this album but yeah she was big and i think she came through the realtor maybe just before this uh this took off the aisles were yeah i i i guess maybe when i hear the song i just pictured that would be like a perfect fit like i'm one of those like drive-along comedy comedies like if you're watching midnight run just feels like that's a song that you can there might even be a movie called something to talk about that used the song something to talk about i don't know that that's a very 90s thing too or 80s thing where like a rom-com like have a song that is the name of who's the guy who something to talk about 1995 film there's that patrick dempsie with julia roberts what did i tell you something to talk about is that tim robbins no it's dennis quaid dennis quaid patrick dempsie like had that movie where he's riding the lawnmower in the 80s it's called can't buy me love and guess what's the featured song in that movie can't buy me love yeah that was a big thing back in the day okay what's the last song the last one is a rock and roll hall of famer we're going with eg pop here the passenger this is a huge play also bringing it full circle uh because i know david glenn was on the show earlier today when i produced david glenn's show this this is a great bump song by the way it's got a it's got like a 30 second instrumental before there's any singing and even when there is singing it's like i am a passenger and like music is still but like it starts off with a long intro great song great intro great bump music that's play pays per mark you've seen almost famous haven't you well absolutely okay has wd seen almost famous yet well oh it's such a class we gotta make that happen one of the best scenes there is when uh i'm writing that down for for wd phillips seymour hoffman almost famous is on the left goes in and it's talking to the person on the radio and he's like totally takes over the interview and he's like takes off the records he's playing it's like it's like no no no give me this eg pop that's anytime i hear eg pop that's what i think that is such a great movie don't you think it's a little early for that like no not for me like i'm phillips seymour hoffman just owning a role everything about that movie almost famous i'd venture to say last 30 years there are not five movies better than that it's not it it has everything great actors great characters it's funny it's poignant feels real enough because you know there's like it's got that base of reality in there yep yep i've got unc ties billy crudup what's what's the actress's name uh kate hudson's adder it's incredible peak yep uh before we take it to the house music the drive again telling you that there's a zero dollar joining fee uh between now and january 31st for all northwest ncs ymcas there's like 12 different locations that this qualifies for go to get signed up for the dub uh for the ymca now ymca nwnc.com you can click and join any one of the 12 local branches by signing up again zero dollar joining fee between now and january 31st because we know and they know you have that new year's resolution if you're a resolutions person hey i'm gonna get in better shape here's the part where you prove it ymca get signed up at the northwest nca i'm a big one huge website in fact if it's still the same mission probably play pickup ball with pj harrison and greensboro uh not in greensboro but i i have played pickup ball with devante graham at the ymca local um and and some other and former ballers all the time you play play up there is that true at the rally ymca that you played devante graham or is that a joke because we both went to the same no he plays no he plays pickup i mean i bet he still plays pickup there in the summer he's played there all the time i've been in a game with him uh i believe the ymca motto if i if the last time i was familiar with it was to put christian principles into practice through programs that build health the body mind and spirit for all you hear that it's a great mission principle somebody people get caught up because it's the young men's christians association and there was good branding ymca they didn't want to drop it right so they're very clear about the for all at the end and i like this if you're a christian that's great that's a wonderful thing right they do a good job of saying that's our principles were built on christianity right but they say to put christian principles into practice not to put christianity into practice right the christian principles of treating others the way you want to be treated being a good neighbor like those are all christian principles that you don't have to be a practicing christian to say that's a good way to live your life and fortunately when religions are doing their best most of them have those same principles yeah i'm trying to think of uh like triad hoopers you might run into who knows maybe josh howard is gonna pop up you can play pickup does john isner ever gonna play pickup now that he's retired maybe