What a Time to Be Alive (11-4-24)

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

You are on a Monday drive. It is WSJS, News Talk Sports for the Triad, where the college basketball season has arrived. And we fully intended to open today's show talking hoops. However, I can wait a few minutes because the Carolina Panthers snapped their six-game losing streak against the New Orleans Saints at Bank of America Stadium. It's a fun game to watch. There was a lot of news to come out of yesterday's game in Uptown Charlotte.

The Saints fired head coach Dennis Allen this morning. That wasn't all that surprising, especially when you read some of the things coming out of that locker room. Some of the things that were said by players. But then in the last hour, Dave Canales met with the media and he still wouldn't commit to having Bryce Young remain as the Panthers' starting quarterback. Perhaps there's some gamesmanship ahead of the Germany game with this because, going back to Andy Dalton, it would be shocking after what we saw yesterday. Because in more ways than one, Bryce delivered when it mattered most, both in the game and for his career. In a lot of ways, this was a fork-in-the-road game for Bryce Young. If he struggled against New Orleans, it could have been the end of his Panthers tenure.

That's not an exaggeration. It could have led to him being traded by tomorrow, tomorrow being the trade deadline in the NFL. Reports surfaced over the weekend that Carolina was not listening to calls.

But it's not hard to say you're not listening to calls. And then suddenly, maybe based on a bad performance against New Orleans, you suddenly are all of the sudden. That could have happened. Or if he played poorly, given the way Dave Canales has talked about Andy Dalton's job, Andy Dalton's place in the quarterback pecking order, it would have been very easy for him to go back to Andy and bench Bryce if it was another bad Bryce performance. If that were to happen, does Carolina ever go back to Bryce Young the rest of this year? And if that happens, or if that does not happen, if they don't go back to him, does he ever get back on the field? What happens in the offseason?

Probably he gets moved at that point. So it was paramount for Bryce's Carolina tenure that he play well in the game. And his fate hinged on one throw in the fourth quarter. It was third down and 10. Carolina had the ball at its own 35-yard line.

Three minutes, 14 seconds left to go. Bryce dropped the pass. There was pressure. He stepped up in the pocket. And he hit Xavier LeGette for his best throw of the day. Over the head of linebacker Demario Davis from New Orleans.

In the moment, you just felt, wow. That is why you drafted this quarterback number one overall. That is a high-level NFL throw. And two plays later, Carolina's in the end zone.

There was a DPI drawn by J.T. Sanders, Chuba Hubbard scoring from 16 yards out. And after the defense got a stop to clinch the game, believe it or not, Bryce Young had his first-ever victory formation snap.

Remember, last year Carolina won two games. And they were both on the last play of the game, Eddie Pinheiro hitting a kick. So Bryce was able to go out there with his teammates, take the snap that you most look forward to taking in a game for the first time as an NFL quarterback, take knees. And I asked Bryce about it after the game.

Here's how that sounded. Bryce, how does it feel to take a victory formation snap in the NFL? Yeah, it feels great. You definitely don't take it for granted. So yeah, it's a great feeling. Did that hit you at all that this is the first time you've gone out there and were able to take that snap? You know, in the moment of it, you don't really think about it. Like, you know, we're all just in trying to execute. So but looking back on it, yeah, it's a good thing.

Pretty cool. Bryce is showing the progress that you want to see. Some like to overreact. Even saw some of the overreaction after the Denver game last week. He's not it. He is terrible. He's not a franchise quarterback.

Maybe he never ends up being that. But the reality is, Will, this might surprise a lot of people given how much Bryce Young we've watched him in the fishbowl at Alabama for two years, him two years in Charlotte and analyzing every single snap that he has, every snap that he's taken. He's still 23 years old. He turned 23 in July of this year. So he's not even about to turn 24. These guys are so young still. Pun intended.

You can't have a birthday cake every day, like you got to wait till it's your birthday. There are eight games left in this season. And it was horrifically bad the first two games of the year.

Nobody would suggest otherwise. But he showed some things against Denver, against a really good defense in a tough environment where he wasn't really well supported. And with a makeshift offensive line yesterday, he drove the team down the field. He had some high level throws. He took plenty of deep shots, which we didn't see last year, and didn't really put the ball in danger. The one interception certainly was not his fault.

Xavier LeGette should have came down with that, picked off by one of App State's finest, by the way. The David Moore throw. His receivers need to come through for him. That was a touchdown pass put right on him that wasn't reeled in. There are still eight games left this year for him to show some things.

And it's not time to completely write off Bryce Young yet. He delivered when it mattered most for his career and quite literally in the game as well. The Drive broadcast on a fleet of stations that make up WSJS. However and wherever you are listening, we greatly appreciate that.

Or watching YouTube, Twitch, X, many different ways that you can consume the show however and wherever you are choosing to do so. We greatly appreciate that. Will Dalton is the executive producer of this show. What a night it's going to be in college basketball. Our show going to be shortened to half hour for Duke basketball pregame coverage. Let's go. Five thirty pregame start.

Seven o'clock. Cooper Flag going up against the state team from his home state, the University of Maine. A school in which his brother Ace Flag has committed to play for next year. Ace Flag being close to Cooper, plays for Greensboro Day. Something I didn't realize until this weekend.

That's pretty cool. NC State going to be dropping, not one, but two banners tonight. ACC champions. Final four trip. That's well deserved. Wake Forest, best team in fifteen years that the Deacs have had.

They open up against Coppin States. Fire it up. And W.D., you're going to be in Chapel Hill tonight. I am. Chapel Hill. Going to see Carolina and Elon, the Wes Durham Bowl. Aha. Going to see that. We'll just call it the Durham Bowl.

Yeah. Because Wes went to Mighty Elon. He's going to be calling the game on the ACC Network tonight at nine o'clock.

Taylor Durham is the voice of the Elon Phoenix. And of course, Wes Durham's dad is the late great Woody Durham, so nobody better to be calling that game than Wes. Getting to that game, getting to the Tar Heels, North Carolina could use a convincing win in the opener tonight. Hubert Davis, believe it or not, hasn't really done that in prior openers.

This is his fourth, meaning he's had three season openers as North Carolina's head coach. The opponents, Loyola Maryland, Radford, and UNCW, they won by 16, 13, and 16 points respectively. You're at the Tar Heels. You're at home.

You're at the Smith Center. You're favored by more than that. In fact, tonight, North Carolina is favored by 27 and a half points against Elon.

Covering that would be the type of win that you want to see. And the reason North Carolina could use a win like that versus winning by 13 or 15 or 16 tonight, this is a dress rehearsal for Allen Fieldhouse this week. After tonight, North Carolina's next game is at the Kansas Jayhawks in what will be just the second all-time matchup between these two teams on campus.

North Carolina visited Lawrence, Kansas in the late 50s, early 60s. Kansas has never played in Chapel Hill before. That'll happen next year.

This is the first game of a home and home. Roy Williams told Andrew Carter of the News and Observer today that he does not plan to go to Allen Fieldhouse for this game. Seems like a missed opportunity for him to wear some type of Carolina gear and then a Kansas sticker, but that probably would be lost on some fans who don't have a great sense of humor.

They'll probably get mad, hard to imagine which fan base will get more mad between those two. But no Roy Williams for Kansas facing the Tar Heels later this week. Andrew Carter had a quote from Roy saying, there's no way I could go into Allen Fieldhouse and clap when the other team scores a basket.

Got it. Hubert Davis, he scheduled the road exhibition game at Memphis with this road game in mind. Let's go through the process of what our road game itinerary looks like and so we're ready right out of the gate. So guarantee you he's taking this game very seriously tonight in hopes that his team is ready. It's a good dress rehearsal for Kansas on Friday night and the starting five should get extended run as a result of this. Hubert, he's become known for tighter rotations and he needs to make sure that those guys are ready for Friday. Here was Hubert when asked about the rotations he's going into tonight wanting to see. You know, going into the game, you have rotations, especially in the first half that you definitely want to see, but you know, the game is the game and that dictates in terms of rotations and styles and strategies and so there is a level of preparation in regards to the game and who's playing, what type of lineups that I like to see out there, but also let the game dictate itself. Expect the starters, all of them experienced players to get a lot of run tonight.

RJ Davis, Elliot Cadeau, Seth Trimble, Cade Tyson, Jalen Washington. No Pax and Wojcik type situation tonight for the Heels? Well no, because the Pax and Wojcik would be Seth Trimble and Seth Trimble's proven he's not Pax and Wojcik. Fair enough. It's live action, Will. Yes it is. Live action.

It's live action, Tracy. The game is the game. Remember that.

Fire it up. The game is the game. Why?

Because Hubert Davis says so. Do you know how many guests we have on today's show? Zero. None.

There's just too much going on that we don't have time for anybody to break into it. Just a lot for us to do and we're very excited about it. Get into college football from over the weekend. It was another good weekend locally. How about it? And we'll hand out grades for what we saw in Graham's Grades next.

I'm sorry I'm a little winded. A lot of talk. This is The Drive with Josh Graham. What a time to be alive in the state of North Carolina. Charlotte FC. PK Shootout win on Friday. Our state's college football teams, FBS. 3-1 on Saturday.

The Carolina Panthers snapped their six game losing streak on Sunday and on Monday. Lo and behold, college basketball season in the hashtag HoopState has arrived. But focusing on the college football. Last week, 4-2 the six FBS teams in North Carolina. 3-1 on Saturday. There's a lot for us to assess in North Carolina college football.

And we might even rope in South Carolina as well. That we get to in Graham's Grades right now. Every week is a test for your favorite sports teams. Is this a test? 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-B-C-D-F. What was your college GPA?

It was probably mid twos. That's disappointing. It's not great.

But I own it. I remember after three years I was at a 3-2-5. And I upset my mother when I told her my final year I'm less interested in the GPA and academic side of it.

I'm more interested in starting my career. She's like, no, you need the academic side of it and whatnot. And I did what I wanted to do instead. And it still all worked out and I got a 3.4 GPA. I ended up with a 3-4.

There you go. So I ended up doing better even though I willfully told myself I was going to deprioritize academics. Then again I went to East Carolina so that a 3-4 is pretty much like doing so with training wheels on.

Let's get to the good first. The NC State Wolfpack. Did you see how many points NC State scored on Saturday? A lot. Did you see the number? I don't remember the number. It was high.

I know that. Let's guess the number. Was it like 59 or something?

That's exactly right. You did see the number. Yeah. Have you been primed? Is this like the movie Focus where it's like pick a number, pick a player, pick a number and you were primed with 59? You saw the score and just didn't remember it but your brain somehow consumed it. It's impressive what you just did there.

59! That's the most that NC State's ever scored against an ACC opponent. And how about this? With back to back wins against Cal and Stanford oddly enough. The Pack quietly over 500 at 5-4 going into their matchup with Duke this weekend at Carter Finley Stadium, watch out for the Wolfies. B The App State Mountaineers. It wasn't pretty but App held onto a home win and they were home underdogs against Old Dominion.

Here's another example Will. Everybody gonna write off Sean Clark or write off the Mountaineers just like they did last year and then maybe App State goes on a bit of a run. They've won back to back games now. App State back at 500 and their defense starting to make plays. Statistically on paper through the first month of the season, first month and a half almost, they had one of the five worst defenses in all of college football, talking about 130 teams.

They didn't allow their opponents to hit 30 the last couple of games doing a nice job. They needed plays at the end of that game and they got them in order to beat the Monarchs. The Monarchs were fresh off a huge win against Southern the week before.

App State a B win. The North Carolina Tar Heels. Mack finally got his alma mater.

Got him. Boy how bad is FSU. People say that the Panthers are like an endless abyss. By the way, in addition to being dead on about Panther Saints, I'm pretty sure I was dead on about the Washington game being the absolute rock bottom for the Panthers. Remember I was being mocked for that?

There is no bottom in all these things. Well no, when you start actually getting dudes back, that's probably, and you start playing lighter competition, that's going to ascend upward. I was right about that too, I'll let the record show. North Carolina, FSU's awful. Omarion Hampton is not. Omarion Hampton had himself a day. For some reason I don't have his stat line in front of me, see if you can pull that up for me really quickly, just so the people who weren't following this game so closely understand how good Omarion Hampton was. It's about as good as we thought he would be going good to the year, that type of game. North Carolina 35, Florida State 11, Mack 0-11 his first 11 tries against the Seminoles beating Florida State handedly. And doing so in tally too, but then again, it's hard to say it's better than a C when Florida State's in the current shape that they're in. Had 172 yards, 4 touchdowns. And that's just the rushing part.

Not bad. Because he also had some yak on receiving yards too. D. Duke Blue Devils, WD, Scott Van Pelt does a segment called Bad Beats on Mondays, after college football.

He does. I got a feeling Duke's going to be on that list tonight because that might have been at least among high major games that people pay attention to, that might've been the worst betting beat of the year. Like Duke in the second half of this game was leading by 11, leading by double digits. Did you just punch the microphone again?

Yeah, I totally hit it with my elbow. 28-17, Duke was leading Miami in this game. Duke was a 20.5 point underdog, which means essentially they were up 31.5 points in terms of betting circles. They ended up losing by 22.

Just think about how gross it is. You're up 11 in the second half and you lose by more than three touchdowns. You were getting three touchdowns. When Duke was up 11, Pat Fordy, who's one of the smartest college writers out there, was spiking the football saying, my bet of the week, lock of the week was Duke plus 20.5.

This was easy money. But what Pat Fordy forgot is something that we talked about, and it was the reason why we didn't bet this game on Thursday, Miami, they're going to play 60. They signed up for 60 and they're going to play and they're going to run it up if they can.

That's what they do. And Duke learned that very well, but it's hard to say that's an F when Miami's just doing what Miami does. Clemson, woof.

Not only did the Tigers lose at home at night in Death Valley, not only was it against an unranked team, they lost by double digits as double digit favorites in this game. And Dabo's math. See, I can relate to struggling with math, again, East Carolina degree. But Dabo getting lit up by Bob Washouzen, big game Bob, calling the game like, I don't understand why he's kicking an extra point here. I don't understand why he's kicking this extra point here. Especially, especially when Dabo, Clemson had multiple kicks blocked and it didn't make sense operationally. It didn't make sense of the math. It was not a good night to be a Clemson Tiger.

So there's your ref. The drive brought to you by our friends at Tar Heel Basement Systems. It really does feel like fall time now. Felt that when I was going on my walk with Willow the dog this morning and we all know the hustle of, you know, getting the house prepared for fall. But when you're spending more time indoors, you might notice some things that you don't during the summer.

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There's a reason they are the trusted local experts. So I do say go Tar Heel. We have Duke tonight on the air, which means we do not have Monday Night Football. The Chiefs, they're the only unbeaten team in the NFL. They're the best team in the NFL. There's not going to be any drama related to them tonight, is there? They're hosting Tampa, it's an Arrowhead.

Tampa's without Chris Godwin and Mike Evans. That's tough. Yeah. Chris Baker. Yeah.

I would agree with all of that. So this is probably going to be a low scoring game, you might think. Looking at some of the odds, Kansas City's more than the touchdown favorite.

Favorite by eight and a half points tonight. That is our Monday night game. Do either the Hurricanes or the Hornets play tonight? I don't think we have, oh yes, the Hornets are facing Anthony Edwards and the Minnesota Timberwolves tonight.

I'm sure W.D. is going to be locked in. No, he has another game at nine o'clock that he's going to be busy watching. And I got to watch Rocky Ford tonight. Fire it up.

Your procrastination, it never ceases to amaze. Listen, it's going to get watched, that's all that matters. Hey, I'm going to wait until Monday night when I'm going to a basketball game. It starts at nine o'clock on Monday night that you've known about for weeks.

It'll get watched. Oh, the Carolina Hurricanes are not playing because they won their sixth straight game yesterday, beating the Washington Capitals who had a bit of a win streak going. Carolina, tell you what, they waggin' Carolina, the Canes, it's game two of a four game home stand for Carolina, they have Philadelphia tomorrow, and then they have one more home game after that. Penguins.

Look at you. Yeah. Following the Canes closely, so shout out to the Hornets, well, not really much of a shout out to them, they lost back to back to the Celtics over the weekend, but certainly a shout out to the Canes who continue to be red hot in a wagon. After losing in Charlotte, the Saints are salty and the Saints are making headlines.

And that's next on The Drive. If you're wondering why the New Orleans Saints fired Dennis Allen today, maybe it's the fact that he used two of his second half timeouts in the first eight minutes of the third quarter, which is usually a sign of unpreparedness and not so great coaching. Maybe it's just this stat. Bill Barnwell, a VSPN posting, the Saints outgained the Carolina Panthers by more than 150 yards. They ran for more than 150 yards. They also won the turnover battle. Over the last 20 years, teams with that formula had a combined record of 275-0. After Saints Panthers Sunday, that mark is now 275-1.

Not great. The Saints, they were super salty in Charlotte. Dennis Allen, who entered the season on the hot seat because he didn't do a lot of winning last year, he wasn't a good head coach with the Raiders a long time back, replacing Sean Payton was going to be big shoes to fill no matter what, he's now lost seven straight.

And that's it. A far cry from the first two games where they blasted the Panthers and Cowboys by a combined margin of 91-29, players, they have been quietly doubting him and sometimes not so quietly doubting him. W.D., wasn't there a D lineman out there saying that he should be placed at quarterback?

Yeah, he was tweeting it out after the game, stuff like that. Just not great. Sounded like he had lost the locker room. Alvin Kamara said this when talking about confidence of guys in that room.

I don't know. I feel like dudes is confident. I mean, it's a lot of guys that played a lot of football in here. You just talked about Tyron Tyron, I think he a confident dude.

I think the Mario Kim, me, Derek, and then even some of the younger dudes, I think Chris and even Tipton. We got guys that are confident, defensive, Brazil, we got Grando, we got Pete, I can keep going. We got guys.

I'm naming guys. I think there's confidence there. But there might not be confidence in something else.

What might that something else be? Hmm. We got confidence in all these players. We might not have confidence somewhere else.

Hmm. Then you get to Cameron Jordan. He was steaming after the game. Most guys walk off the field and walk into the locker room. Not Cam Jordan. Cam Jordan bypasses the locker room, starts walking as if he's going to walk out of the exit ramp out of the stadium in full uniform.

Derek Carr tracks him down, calms him down. Cam Jordan hates the Panthers. Has always hated the Panthers. When Cam Newton was there, there was a rivalry. Every time the Saints beat the Panthers, I'd go into the Saints locker room to talk to Cam about the other Cam. They both came out of the same draft class, Cam Jordan and Cam Newton. And there was a time where Cam Newton was mailed like a broom by Cam Jordan when the Saints swept them, beat them twice in the regular season and once in the playoffs in the 2017 season. And then when the Panthers got him back, he sent him a bottle of wine.

There's some bad blood there. Cam Jordan then got the Twitter fingers going and he posted on his X page, we just lost to the Panthers. I love y'all New Orleans, truly had higher expectations and the best hope for us.

Y'all deserve it. Again, we just lost to the Panthers. The Panthers have a great social media account. They saw that post by Cam Jordan and responded with this. Here was the Panthers responding to Cam Jordan's tweet on social media. Carolina Panthers with sharp teeth and claws, we growl to win this game. We call perfect ball.

Cam Jordan didn't care to respond to that. The legend. I think that became a viral thing during the 15-1 Panthers season. Great.

Excellent stuff. JC Horn had a response to Cam Jordan as well. Don't we got the same record or am I trippin', man watch out, hashtag dubs. JC, our guy.

Send me that cash out, family. And it was so bad for the Saints. You even got Michael Thomas, former players, going off on social media. This is uncommon.

You don't really see stuff like this happening very often. I'll just read a few of the tweets. This is as Chris Alaves lied out on the field hurt by Xavier Woods. Derek Carr, for you, I've been told y'all bleep sad.

Dude, scary and panic just throw the ball. Get him to bleep out of here. He's so ass. That year his buddy went first team all pro in 22. He needed 180 targets just to catch 100 passes. He is bleep on my granny. Derek tried to lie and say I was jealous of them making Alaves wide receiver one.

Whole time he can't get him a decent ball. He needed his bleep whooped. They fired all them coaches trying to cover up his flaws. He's still doing the same bleep. There was a lot more beyond that. Stuff that I don't care to read on air. And this is the same Michael Thomas that literally didn't play for like two years for whatever the different reasons were.

Some stuff happening behind the scenes it sounds like. Yeah. Derek Carr, how's this for history? First quarterback to lose to 31 different NFL teams. Boy, Saints are down bad right now.

Just everything. The only team that he has not lost to is Vegas. It's the only team he has not lost to. Do they play Vegas this year? Let's find out because Vegas is having a tough one today too.

Yes they are. Firing that entire offensive staff. That's it. I don't know if Antonio Pierce is going to be around much longer. I know that the Panthers played the Raiders this year. I believe. December 29th in New Orleans.

The second to last week. Derek Carr, the prophecy needs to be fulfilled. Lose to all 32 teams in the NFL. The reverse Tom Brady.

Lose to every single team. See if he can make that happen. Make sure you're subscribed to the podcast if you aren't already. That's where our Instant Graham reaction from Bank of America Stadium is from yesterday. Again search The Drive With Josh Graham on YouTube. Not the podcast, YouTube. You can find that Instant Graham.

The podcast is the same place, The Drive With Josh Graham, but it's on Apple Podcasts, iTunes, Spotify, Anchor, wherever you get your pods. The best hour of what we do available to you. College basketball tonight. Wake Forest. There are no more excuses for the Deacs. You're not going to get any excuses out of me for Wake Forest.

Not for Steve Forbes. Not for the Demon Deacon Basketball Program. This is the most talented Wake team in more than 15 years. The last team that was this talented in Winston-Salem was that 2009 team that was at one time ranked number one in the country with Alpha Rukimino, Jeff Teague, those guys. You bring back an all ACC player in Hunter Salas. You bring back Cam Hildreth and Efton Reed.

You do pretty well in the portal. You have a coach that's legit. This is the time that not only do you win, but you get into the NCAA tournament comfortably. The first four is not going to count in my mind.

Let's set the parameters now. This is the year Wake Forest not only gets into the tournament, but gets in comfortably. They're not on the bubble. The last time Wake made the NCAA tournament technically was the John Collins season in 2016, but they lost in the first four. The last time they appeared in a round of 64 game was 2010, 15 years.

This coming March, 15 years. That's what we're talking about for Wake Basketball. And it starts tonight with Coppin State. There should be a strong crowd. Some folks at Wake Forest were covering this over the weekend, that they're implementing a lottery system for students for the Duke and Carolina games in January. If you want to ensure that you have a ticket for those games, you need to go to some of the non-conference games in November and December.

That's a great positive step. With the team being good, great. Implement that so people do show up, that people are there, that the environment mirrors what we saw during tie-dye nation in the 2000s. Because there is that real vibe that's been there all offseason long, and there's more belief because of what NC State was able to do, that, hey, why not Wake? Why can't that be us? They beat Clemson too. Why can't that be us in the Elite Eight?

Why can't we be that type of team? It's going to be a fun week. You got Wake tonight facing Coppin State, A&T Thursday night in Winston-Salem, and then Sunday in Greensboro at the place previously called Greensboro Coliseum, you got Michigan, Dusty May's team visiting Greensboro to face the Deacs. It all starts tonight, no excuses. The road to the NCAA tournament comfortably begins tonight for Steve Forbes' group. We were in the Panthers' victorious locker room yesterday.

Here's the thing, locker room visits are a lot more fun when the team you're talking to won the football game. That hasn't happened in a while in Charlotte, so you'll hear some of the things that the guys had to say next on The Drive. All right, let's go.

Oh, I'm so excited. And three, two, one, go. Back to The Drive with Josh Graham. R.I.P. to the great Quincy Jones, who we lost earlier today. Probably the greatest music producer ever. Jimmy Iovine might be in that conversation. It's a short list. Quincy Jones is on the list.

Perhaps we'll play some more Quincy Jones throughout today's show because his life certainly warrants that. We went into the Carolina Panthers locker room yesterday, and it was a victory locker room. W.D., in addition to what he does for us at WSJS, he grabs sound from the victorious locker room for AP Radio, which means this is the first time this year that you've been in the Panthers locker room. I was so excited. I didn't know what to do with my hands. This is interesting. Before we walked in, Dave Canales was fired up to be around his guys.

Here's what Happy Dave had to say to his group. Can you win the game in the first quarter? Can you win the game in the second quarter? Can you win the game in the third quarter? Can you win the game in the fourth quarter? Okay, we've got a couple guys, okay, Charles Harris had a half a sack, Clowney had a half a sack, we've got to go two times here, Chuba Hover had one touchdown, Chuba Hover had another touchdown.

Okay, that's us, finish. Yes, it's a fun game to watch. You really enjoy that Jimmy Johnson clip.

I do. It was a fun game to watch. It's your way of dunking on Jimmy Johnson. Here's what Panther fans have to look forward to when David Tepper is your owner.

It's a fun game to watch. Bryce Young, he led the game-winning touchdown drive. The Saints, they had very few answers for J.T.

Sanders. Big plays for the Panther fourth round pick, had that hurdle, Drew DPI on the touchdown drive, the play before Chuba Hubbard scored a touchdown. J.T., well, he didn't bring this up himself. I reminded him that. You saw some of Bryce Young's end of game abilities when you were at Texas two years ago. Bryce Young led one of those game-winning drives against the Longhorns in Austin, and I asked J.T. if that gave him any flashbacks. Here's what J.T.

said. I don't know what type of caliber player Bryce is, what type of man he is, and he's a great leader for us, and it's nothing new to him, you know what I'm saying? I know he has some utmost confidence in himself, and he just goes out there and plays his game. How much better does it feel to be on the receiving end of some of those balls on a drive like that? Oh, it feels good. You know what I'm saying? Just trying to make a play for my team and then ultimately executing that play and putting our team in a great position.

Yeah. Xavier Lequette, he left briefly with a hand injury. He still upset, it sounded like. He was still upset about having that ball picked off. Big ball, fourth quarter, and it gets ripped away by Shamar John Charles, a name that should sound familiar because he's a former App State player. That was actually Shamar John Charles' first interception of his career, by the way. And Xavier Lequette would not blame the injured hand that had him leave the game briefly for it. Did your hand affect the interception for you?

No, I wouldn't put it on that, man. It was just a freakish play. I'm still trying to figure out how he was able to make that play. Are you going to think about that tonight? Oh yeah, man, I'm still thinking about it after the win, man, because I've got to make plays like this. How is your hand? It's hurting, man, but I'm the art. Bruce, do you think? It's a little so, but I'm good with it.

It's a little so. I got the big ball. He had a day yesterday. Yeah, he did. This rookie class, man.

It's coming along. Because it's Lequette, it's Coker, shout out to the Cokeheads. What did Willie P want to call him now? Coca-Coker?

Boo! I don't know, I kind of like that dude, but, I mean, listen, Cokeheads is what it's at. Jaylen Coker. Yep.

Sanders. Jonathan Brooks is probably going to debut this week in Germany. Trevon Wallace, he's made some plays. I think I like the first four picks in the draft, and you got Jaylen Coker, too.

This is one of the better drafts that the Panthers had in quite some time based on some of the early. I don't feel pressure. Yeah.

Dan Morgan does not. Were you offended at all that Xavier Lequette was decked out in Dodger gear from like head to toe? I got to say, it made me feel some type of way.

It really did. Because it was great looking gear. It bothered me that I asked him, like, hey, man, what's up with the Dodger gear? He's like, oh, it was just fashion.

That's what he said. I'm like, wait a minute. Dodger. The Dodger hat. Dodger jacket. Dodger t-shirt underneath. Yeah. Usually it's like, oh, this matches my jacket or this. I get that. His South Carolina teammate JC Horn had a Yankee cap on.

Also said that was due to fashion. South Carolina, one of the bigger wins in college football this weekend, beat a top 10 A&M team convincingly. And JC Horn said that he made sure to make a point to an A&M player in the Panthers locker room. Did you see what happened? That was a big time win.

Damani Richardson. I was, I was talking to John to him all night cause you know, he was A&M top 10 this and that. I'm like, hey, get scary and Willy B at night. I'm telling you, they better be ready.

And they wasn't ready. As somebody who's been to Willy B at night, I can, I can attest that Willy B can be a scary place at night. Williams-Brice Stadium.

It gets pretty hot. College basketball tonight, man. Show is going to be shortened because of Duke basketball, 5.30 pregame start, seven o'clock tip, Cooper flag, all that, WD is going to be in Chapel Hill. The highlight of tonight's basketball slate, it's not Gonzaga Baylor. It's not Ohio State going to Texas. It's not Mizzou facing Memphis. Around here, the highlight tonight is going to be NC State dropping not one, but two banners at Lenovo Center, an ACC championship banner, their first ACC title in 37 years, a final four banner, their first final four in 41 years.

They can dine off that for all of this season. The goal should be to get back to the NCAA tournament. That would be three straight years that they made the tournament after Kevin Keats perhaps had the worst season in modern NC State basketball history. Let's hope they can beat USC Upstate tonight because last week, I think it was against Lees McRae that got very tight, very close, came down to the end. State ended up winning.

Let's hope they can win a little bit more comfortably tonight. You can chime in on our YouTube chat as David is here saying, basketball or golf talk, time to change the channel, buddy. What is it? TV? Change channel? Here's the thing. I understand with a growing show and we are the longest running sports talk show in the history of the tribe. There might be people that just discovered us during football season, right? We're talking so much about football.

We get it. We are located in Winston-Salem, America in the Piedmont Triad of North Carolina. We are in a state that is proudly known as the hashtag Hoop State, where you got two top 10 teams, another team that should be ranked in the top 25 and the ACC champs all within our state's borders. Buddy, cousin, we're going to be talking a lot about college basketball on this year's program.

Business is a booming. We do that year round, but now that the season has started, get on the train and if you're not cool with that being the vibe or the train, maybe it is best you get off and go somewhere that does not talk about college basketball. The golf part's random.

We do like college. We do like golf. We haven't talked to golf in months. When's the last time we talked about golf? Sedgefield? Yeah. Well, I mean, yeah. U.S. Open? I don't know.

Wyndham. Okay. But that tells me that person's been around for a while. Yeah. If he remembers the golf coverage of things that we're doing here. So yeah, college basketball, it's going to be factored in. Nathaniel writes in here, Hoops, exclamation point, exclamation point. I attest that. I second that message.