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You're Behaving Like The Best Friend

The Drive with Josh Graham / Josh Graham
The Truth Network Radio
December 23, 2024 6:07 pm

You're Behaving Like The Best Friend

The Drive with Josh Graham / Josh Graham

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December 23, 2024 6:07 pm

On a Monday Drive, Josh tells how national college football pundits ruined his watching experience of the College Football Playoff, this weekend, tells why the Carolina Panthers offense is poised to take off in 2025, tries to figure out what people want for Christmas in Weekly Positivity, David Glenn, of the NC Sports Network, joins the show to tell why how a team performs in the College Football Playoff should play no role in which teams get in, Josh attaches letter grades to the ACC basketball weekend that was in Grahams Grades, and Josh’s brother, Jordan, joins the show in studio to go to the movies with WD to review “The Holiday” and to reveal his NFL survivor pick for next week.


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This is The Drive with Josh Graham Podcast. We are killing it online. 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. Quick programming note, this will be our one live show of the week. We will not be live on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day or Boxing Day. Don't know if that's a thing that people even celebrate in the United States. The 27th either. Don't know if the 27th has a special holiday name attached to it. We're going to be off for it anyway.

Next live a week from today on December the 30th. So now that we've passed that info along to you, let's dig into some football. As bad as the first round games were for the college football playoff, the reaction to them was somehow worse. And let's start by dispelling what seems to be the most popular criticism we've all seen. The committee got the selections wrong because look at the results. Four of the favorites.

All four of them won and they won convincingly. That's a sign that the committee messed this thing up, fouled it up. The reality is that the opposite is true. The blowouts do not reveal a flaw in the system. It's actually the system at work.

It's the system working and here's why. It allowed for the fates of teams to finally be decided on the field. In the past, this did not happen. UCF would go unbeaten and respect would not be given to them because they were in the group of five. Even if they scheduled difficult teams out of conference, they went unbeaten.

They were not given a chance. They beat Auburn in the Peach Bowl. So they claim with their unbeaten season, we're national champs in 2017.

Why? Because we were not given a chance to play in the playoff. We won all of our games. We felt we were as good as anybody in the country.

We're going to claim a national championship. And people scoff at that. But really, it's a crime almost.

Maybe not a crime. That's a bit extreme. But it's wrong. It's fundamentally wrong that there are teams that just don't have a shot. No opportunity, no access to winning a national championship. Florida State, last year, win all their games.

Oh, but we don't think you're that good without Jordan Travis. So we're not going to give you the opportunity to show us. So everybody opts out. They get killed in the game against Georgia.

Everybody seems to move on with their lives. This system is better. Even though there were blowouts. Well, there were a ton of blowouts with the 14th playoff as well. At least we get home campuses, which distinguishes college football from the NFL, and we get to see for sure if Indiana or SMU measure up. Turns out they didn't.

And that's okay. At least we have our answer. At least it was decided on the field. If Alabama or Ole Miss or South Carolina, if either of them got in over SMU or Indiana, those two schools would wonder, well, what if? And nobody can say for sure that they would lose. Sure, it could have been a more entertaining game if Alabama or Ole Miss were in there, but it would create questions about the legitimacy of this national championship. In order for a championship to have credibility, you have to reward deserving teams. Kirk Herbstreet was on ESPN Saturday night after watching Tennessee. This is after calling Tennessee getting drubbed.

They were down 21-0 at the end of the first quarter. Said, we need to put better teams in. We focus too much on who wins games.

These are direct quotes. A nine-win team. We should put that team in if they're better than an 11-win team. And what he's saying is, let's just pick who's going to make the playoff in August. It doesn't matter who you lose to.

It doesn't matter. We think this team is more talented. This team's better. Let's just put this team in and say the regular season doesn't matter. That takes away credibility from the regular season. It takes away credibility from the actual championship itself. You have to reward the deserving teams in order for that to be credible. And it's really alarming that you will say that after watching Tennessee get smoked. How can you watch the third best SEC team, who by the way, beat the fourth best SEC team according to the rankings, head-to-head, how could you watch Tennessee get smoked and then advocate that the fourth, fifth, or sixth SEC team needed to make the playoff?

How could you do that? Kirk Herbstreet, no problem doing so. A guy that we used to think was Mr. College Football, used to think that, oh, this guy, he's an advocate for the entire sport. He just loves the sport. He was on Pat McAfee today saying, all I care about is the sport. But Wake Forest fans remember when they were ranked in the top 10 back-to-back years, and for reasons that are unclear, just decided to make jokes about Wake Forest each week, about how small they are, diminish them. When really, if you cared about the sport, you'd be celebrating something that's different, that's unique, like Wake Forest is, and being this good. So you flagged that, you filed it away, and then the way he dismissed Florida State, and then did not evenly apply that to watching Georgia in person in that second half without Carson Beckett quarterback and how bad they looked at QB.

And then now this? No, he's not Mr. College Football anymore. He's Mr. Big Brand. That's what he is.

He's Mr. I'm answering to my bosses, which is not just ESPN, it's Greg Sankey now in the SEC. He'll say he doesn't have an agenda, but your words and how they stack up versus how you treat other schools and other conferences, we notice. We notice.

Even Shannon Sharpe's going after Kirk Herbstreet today, but we're getting sidetracked. 11-1 power conference schools should always get in over three loss teams. Full stop.

Full stop. It should matter how many wins you get. And when it was the group of five, we were told to eat it, accept it.

You're not going to be treated the same way. But now we're talking about the Big Ten. Kirk Herbstreet and people saying with a straight face that you didn't do anything when you go 11-1 in the Big Ten conference, the conference that got the most playoff teams this year, the conference that has the reigning national champion. You beat that champion this year and that doesn't even count as something. 11 wins in the ACC. That should be valued more over any three loss team because not doing so would devalue the whole regular season. Games have to matter. And even though Bama fans or Ole Miss fans or South Carolina feel like they might have a better shot on the field and they could be right. That's irrelevant. You had your opportunity.

You didn't take advantage of it. Alabama. Oh, but Vegas says that they would be favored if they played yada, yada, yada.

Okay. They were two touchdown favorites at Oklahoma and lost by three touchdowns. Lost to another six loss team. They know where they messed up and what they could have done to get into the field. Ole Miss lost at home to a 4-8 Kentucky team.

At home. South Carolina lost to that Ole Miss team by 24 points. 24 points at home. That doesn't compare to the one slip up Indiana hat at Ohio State.

Or with your backup quarterback, the guy who is now your backup quarterback, SMU losing at top 20 BYU in September. It just does not compare. And the reaction from the SEC. It's shameful. It's shameful. But if it was just the fans, I could dismiss it.

Okay. The SEC, SEC standing up for all your brothers in arms type of deal. We can dismiss that pretty easily. But the fact that it's folks who who have the title college football national analyst like Paul Feinbaum does. Who says this on an ESPN college football podcast with Matt Berry yesterday.

It's disturbing. Well, it obviously helped to be at home, but it would have been a lot better if we had some some real teams playing in the playoffs as opposed to a couple of frauds. The committee did a lousy job. And, you know, we as college football fans paid for it Friday night and all day Saturday.

And I know the worst loss was Tennessee, but Tennessee did something to get into the playoffs. Indiana did nothing. SMU did nothing.

Got it. Did nothing. 11-1 did nothing. Incredible. How can you claim to love this sport and diminish power conference teams going 11-1 as doing nothing? Lane Kiffin said similar things. Tweeting out during the Notre Dame, Indiana game and during the Penn State SMU game. Good job, committee.

These are real barn burners, real blockbusters. Which is wildly unprofessional. The SEC enabling him to do this. It ruined the weekend, really. When they expanded to 12, honestly, I thought, gone are the days where we're going to be talking about who didn't get in. And instead we could just talk about the football games, talk about the team, celebrate the teams that actually played well. But no, you left the fourth best SEC team out and we're going to go nuclear. And we're going to let you remember the fact that you let those teams out. Left the fourth, fifth and sixth best teams in that conference out the entire first weekend. It's shameful.

It's awful. And again, it comes down to this. Kirk Herbstreet's making this argument. Paul Feinbaum's making this argument.

Lane Kiffin's making this argument. Do you think people understand the difference between entertainment and actual worthiness of, or deservedness of being, trying to think, of deserved postseason? Like, there are some people who don't understand the difference between, like, competitiveness, like, what's fair competitively, and entertainment value. Like, we've been programmed so much in our culture with instant gratification that we believe that it's inherently worse because the results are not close. Like, since it's not a close game, it's not worthy all of the sudden.

Like, blowouts happen. This is competitive sports. This is not a podcast. This is not, well, this is a podcast. This is not, like, your Netflix show that you're turning on where it's like, oh, this isn't as entertaining. We need to fire the writers.

We need the... No. I mean, that's what it is. But that's the way you should not talk about competitive sports.

No. It's competition. No, it's competition. Put the deserving teams in there.

Let's go from there. The blowouts do not reveal a flaw in the system. They actually show the system at work. Like, no, this would be like, and Greg Sankey probably does feel this way, watching the 14, 15 and 16 seeds getting blown out in the NCAA tournament and saying, heh, if Wake Forest or A&M were in there, it'd be a lot better game. I'm sure it were. It would be. But they didn't deserve it. And that title's a legit deserve championship, a worthy title.

And the right field was selected, regardless of how loud some of these carnival barkers... Ho! Yeah. On X, WSJS Radio, if you want in, that's where we're streaming video. In addition to YouTube and Twitch, Will Dalton, he's the executive producer of this show. W.D., how many of the usual features in a given week can we get to in one show today? I mean, I think we can get to quite a few. We can make weekly positivity happen.

I mean, I watched The Holiday last night, so we're going to do At The Movies. You got that. My brother will be in studio to help us with that. That's it. Got to get to his Survivor pick for sure. We're going to have David Glenn on.

We got to cram a lot of stuff into one show. Panthers, mock-traff. That's it. We'll get to recap in the basketball weekend and Graham's grades.

That's it. But speaking of the NFL and speaking of the Panthers... They won yesterday.

Show did. Because the Carolina Panthers aren't a playoff team this year, whatever happens from here on out should be viewed through the lens of 2025. And the big picture of the franchise should be looked at. So with that in mind, after the 36-30 OT win against the Arizona Cardinals, the Panthers offense looks poised to take off next year. Because when you look at the salary structure, nine of the eleven starters are under contract on this Panthers starting offense.

Here are the exceptions. Austin Corbett, who the Panthers have been without for the last couple of months, and Tommy Trimble, who, even though he had a touchdown yesterday, might already be... The Panthers are already preparing to replace him in favor of J.T. Sanders, who they drafted in the fourth round. And you also have Xavier LeGette, Adam Thielen back at receiver, plus Jalen Coker, who you drafted. Brady Christensen, he's under contract, did a nice job at center stepping in yesterday. So you have pretty much everybody back. And Carolina has a fully formed offensive identity.

And do you want to know what that identity looks a lot like? It looks a lot like Chuba Hubbard. Carolina got a career performance from Chuba.

152 yards, 25 carries, two touchdown runs, including the winner in overtime. And you have a really good offensive line behind those two expensive guards that you invested in, Robert Hunt and Damian Lewis, that you're running behind. And they should have a healthy Jonathan Brooks behind him next year.

That's your identity. Run the football first, and then pass it. And that leads us to Bryce Young, who is showing exactly what you wanted to see in your quarterback this year. The Carolina Panthers, for the first time since maybe 2018, are going into an offseason where they aren't looking for a different coach or a different quarterback. Every year of the Matt Rule tenure, who's going to be the quarterback? Well, it's Teddy Bridgewater now, and then it's Sam Darnold, and then here's Baker Mayfield. Respect the Panther.

Yeah. You know who your coach is. You know who your quarterback is.

That's a great place to build, especially when that coach happens to be your offensive coordinator, too. Two touchdown passes, no picks yesterday for Bryce. A rushing touchdown, a couple big runs, and he was tough as nails. Gosh, that dude takes big hits. He's like Marcus Page when you watch him. Roy Williams would always have that saying, oh, he's a tough little nut.

That's how he would react watching Bryce Young play yesterday, taking that hit on the throw to Tommy Trimble. Bryce, he is still 23 years old, turned 23 in July, so he's a young 23 and showing you a lot of promise in the second half of the season. The Panthers offense poised to take off in 2025. To give away NC State Wake Forest basketball tickets, this game right after the New Year on January the 4th, and how about this, to spread holiday cheer across the Piedmont Triad, we're going to come right out of the box with weekly positivity next.

It's the Drive with Josh Graham, WSJS. We got two pairs of tickets for Wake Forest, NC State, at the Joel, January 4. All you have to do to win them is, this holiday season, just tell us, it'd be great if we just did, tell us what you want for Christmas, as Big Jim. You've been so nice, I'm just wondering what you want, voting for Christmas.

How about that's one piece of it. You got to tell us what you want for Christmas, and tell us something good, like spreading holiday cheer, and the tickets are yours at 336-777-1600 to the first two people that call in, because it's time for weekly positivity. Oh, yeah. Which of these holiday quotes do I want to go with? W.D. 's got to review the holiday. A little bit later, I got like a laundry list of them. Legend has it when the Santa Annas blow, all bets are off.

Anything can happen. W.D. will review the holiday classic a little bit. Later on, the weekly positivity is brought to you by our friends at Biscuit King. Should we go to the phones first?

Let's do that. Let's go to Justin, who's calling from Kernersville. Hi, Justin. Hey, Josh.

Hey there. I think we should probably start with the important question to ask Justin. Since you've been so nice, I'm just wondering what you want. What do you want, Justin? Well, I would like a new car, but that's not going to happen, so some wait tickets will do.

Okay, wait tickets will do. You're going to open up presents later this week. If it's not a car that you're opening up, what do you expect to open up this week, Justin? To be honest, it's all about my kids. I have eight-year-old twins, so it's about what they're opening up. That sounds like a good dad.

Well, tell me something good on the week out, or on the way out. I'm going to tell you what. I am really impressed with Bryce since he has came back. He seems like a totally different player. I was just completely out on him, and I was like, there's no way this guy can lead a team, and I'm sold on him.

I know it's not been long, but I have been very impressed with what he's done since he came back, and I'm all for giving him all the support he needs. Did you just say, I know it's not delome? What? Oh, I thought I heard, I know it's not delome. That's what I heard. I'm like, whoa. Can't meet that standard. Jake's a friend, and he would get really red in the face, embarrassed if he heard that.

I'd be like, wait, Bryce can't be as good as Jake Delome? Justin, you have a Merry Christmas. Enjoy the basketball game, okay?

All right, thank you. Stay with us so W.D. can get your information. W.D., real quickly, tell me something good with you. Well, do I get to be asked the question? Oh, yeah. I got to get a good... You have the button. Since you've been so nice, I just wonder what you'll have wanted for Christmas.

He gets me every time. Big Jim for Mad Matt. So it is actually an interesting thing because my dad, the other night at dinner, asked me that very question. Good question. And I got to thinking, I'm like, you know what? My Yankee hat, you know I have longer hair, and I've had my Yankee hat a long time since back when I had short hair.

So it's kind of too tight for me now. And I got to thinking, I'm like, you know what? I would love a brand new Yankee hat to wear next year to annoy you with. Peter in Greensboro. Hi, Peter. What's up, Josh? Not a lot.

And by not a lot, I mean a lot. Let me ask you a very important pressing question up top. Since you've been so nice, I just wonder what you'll have wanted for Christmas. I want the Cleveland Browns to move on from Deshaun Watson. That's all I'm asking.

It's a short list. Who do you want the Browns quarterback for 2025 to be, if not Deshaun? Are you OK with running it back with Jamis Winston?

Probably not. I'm liking this Kirk Cousins idea. I think we can roll with that.

The Falcons are on the hook for most of the money. So let's bring Kirk to Cleveland. How about that? Not bad. Tell me something good with you very quickly, Peter. Well, my son's flying in from LA today. So we're going to be together for Christmas. And it's really exciting.

He's been gone for a little bit. So that's a very good thing. That is very good. Well, Merry Christmas to you. Thank you, Peter. Enjoy the basketball game. I'm trying to think.

What do I have? Oh, do I get to answer the question too? Since you've been so nice, I just wondered what you want. I want him for Christmas. Honestly, what I want for Christmas is just for baby Daniel to sleep through the night. That'd be great. Yeah, good sleep.

Yeah. He's sleeping longer and longer periods. But if we get to that point where we have the dream scenario where parents tell me, oh, yeah, like two months in, he's sleeping for 12 hours, that'd be a wonderful Christmas gift.

I don't know if that's realistic, though. Let's go to Buddy and Clemens. Do we have any more Wake Kinsey State tickets?

No, but he still wanted to come on and tell us something good. Well, Buddy, that's why you are our Buddy. We appreciate it. Buddy, first you've got to answer a question for us. Since you've been so nice, I just wondered what you want.

I want him for Christmas. Well, I have two adult children. And I asked both of them for Wake Forest basketball tickets. Hmm. Yeah.

That sounds pretty good, doesn't it? W.D. W.D., I know we don't have any more of those tickets left. We don't. But other than Duke and Carolina, where I think we have tickets earmarked already, let Buddy pick out another home game.

We'll pencil him in. To get some tickets somewhere else, just as long as you tell us something good, spreading some holiday cheer for us. Tell us something good. Well, my holiday cheer is a week from today is my last day of employment. I'm getting ready for retirement. What did you do for work?

I worked for a local health care company. Okay. Okay.

Well, congratulations on retirement coming up. I thought at first you were going to say, I'm not at liberty to discuss. FBI work, like your what's-his-face. What was the name of the dad in Meet the Parents? I know it's De Niro. Oh. You remember the guy's name? I guess it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.

Frank something? Yeah. Buddy, appreciate you listening, man. We'll figure it out.

We'll figure out something for you. There you go. That's because I'm in the Christmas mood. And weekly positivity. These bowl games.

Oh, I just saw this on my screen. Kirk Herbstreet saying, I don't have any agenda. I just love college football. That's what I care about. Okay.

Mm-hmm. So we're just going to forget about what happened to Florida State and how you reacted and how you made fun of Wake Forest when they were in the top ten. Just going to mock them. Hey, something historic's happening. Haha, your school is small and weird.

Essentially what he's saying. We need to fix bowl games because we got two more blowouts today. Coastal Carolina did not deserve to play in the Myrtle Beach Bowl today at home. Lost 44 to 15.

Your attention, please, is your turn. This is The Drive with Josh Graham. We had to get David Glenn in here. We only have one live show this week.

Couldn't deprive the people from Jimmy Buffett and D.G. So we hear what the national reaction to the first round of the college football playoff has been. Let's focus specifically on the ACC, though. SMU and Clemson get knocked out. The ACC football season is over as a result. How would you grade the ACC this football season? Well, the ACC didn't finish strongly. We can't debate that, but I've never been a big fan of revisiting whether somebody deserved an invitation because of the result of a game.

Crazy. For example, this has happened on my show over the years. I will vote for somebody for the ACC Player of the Year or ACC Coach of the Year. And then maybe that player or that coach doesn't do well at the ACC tournament. And somebody will say, see? See? I told you it shouldn't have been that person.

That is not only a bad way to approach life. It's truly insane. Either the person or the team deserved it based on the evidence you had at the time to either cast your ballot, Player of the Year, Coach of the Year, or cast your vote on a selection committee. Does the team, has what the team done to now put them into the college football playoff? The idea of going back because somebody loses or loses by a lot is ridiculous. Whatever those seven at-large best resumes were deserved by definition to get in based on what had happened to that point. Something that is in the future is not a part of your resume at the time your ballot is due. I hope people can just remember that logically. Although we've gotten in a weird place in this country so I'm not all that confident that people can even comprehend that very basic premise when it comes to these things. Was that directed at Kirk Herbstree, Lane Kiffin, or Paul Feinbaum, or all of the above?

Paul! My comment is toward Americans generally who have become more aggressively ignorant in more ways than I can count. It is not a sports-specific comment. It is a very alarming thing to me as an attorney, as a sports fan, as an American, as someone who understands how stuff works in this world. You'd have to go comment by comment for me to know how much I disagree with Feinbaum, or Herbstree, or anybody else. Yes, Herbstree's exact comment was after, he was on SportsCenter after Tennessee and Ohio State, and said, if you're a 9-win team and you're better than an 11-win team, that team should be in there.

This is an exact quote. We put too much stock in wins and losses. Is what he is saying. So why not just pick the teams in August? Let's just fire it up. That team's better than this team.

Let's just fire it up. Like, DJ, the part that bothers me is, because all of them have said this, Lane Kiffin, Feinbaum, Herbstree. The saying is that Indiana and SMU did nothing.

That's what they say, did nothing. And I remember this conversation when it came to 2017 UCF. And they said, you did nothing by going unbeaten in your conference. And we were all told to accept that.

OK, that's a group of five league. I never thought we'd arrive at the day that going 11-1 in a power conference, the ACC and the Big Ten, which, by the way, has the most playoff teams, and won the title last year, that that would be viewed, regardless of how unbalanced your schedule was, as doing nothing. I think to believe that and to say that, at the root of it is disdain for the sport at the root.

If you're supposed to celebrate the sport nationally and talk about it nationally, to say that about Indiana or SMU, it's counterintuitive to what the sport is supposed to be about. Well, and here's my thing. I don't have as much of a problem with those who view things philosophically differently than I do, right? Maybe one voter values what are your best wins more. One voter or committee member values, well, how many losses and how bad were those losses?

What bothers me is those who claim to have a philosophy and then refuse to apply it to everybody equally. In other words, for starters, I don't care what any league has done historically. We are not casting ballots about history. We are casting ballots based on a 12 or 13 game body of evidence, period. Doesn't matter what that school did one year ago, five years ago, 10 years ago. Doesn't matter what that coach's reputation is.

Does not matter, period. We have 12 or 13 games to evaluate these teams on. And again, if you value big wins more, great.

If you place more weight on how many losses and the details of those losses, fine. Just be consistent because the bottom line here is they're trying to apply something to SMU or even Miami that didn't make the playoff. Obviously, Clemson got in as a conference championship, a conference champion, rather. But remember this. The Penn State Nittany Lions had a win over 9-3 Illinois.

That doesn't sound like a heavyweight to me, right? When Penn State played Ohio State, what happened? Penn State lost. When Penn State had its biggest challenge, Penn State lost. Penn State couldn't come up big in the Big Ten title game. Two best opponents, Nittany Lions, did not win. Could not get over the top against the likes of Oregon and Ohio State.

And then what are their best wins? You're going to tell me that a 7-5 Minnesota team that Carolina beat on the Gophers' home field, you're going to tell me that's a great win for the Nittany Lions? I'm telling you, you can look at Penn State's whole resume. After a win over 9-3 Illinois, and I believe that game was at Penn State.

So you got a home win over a 9-3 team. Whatever you think Penn State's second best win is, it ain't all that great. And its best win is, again, home against Illinois. Oh, by the way, the Texas Longhorns.

You know what they have on their resume? When they played Georgia, they lost twice. Their best win is Texas A&M.

That's a nice win, 8-4 the Aggies. Their second best win is either a 7-5 Michigan team or a 7-5 Florida team, or what, a 6-6 Oklahoma team? Please, apply the same measuring stick to the lack of great wins by Penn State and Texas and stop giving the Nittany Lions and the Longhorns some kind of an imaginary credit because they've been in the national headlines more often in Kirk Herbstreet's life than SMU has been in those national headlines or somebody else.

Whatever a philosophy you adopt, more power to you. But for crying out loud, apply it evenly and stop giving teams credit for brand names and something they did last year, five years ago or 50 years ago. You can apply that to Notre Dame as well. Their best win was Texas A&M, and they lost to NIU at home, no doubt the worst loss of any playoff team.

DG, one basketball note on the way out. How solid do you think North Carolina is feeling right now given the two non-conference wins now? They beat UCLA over the weekend at MSG, and you look at the rest of the ACC, they should probably have an inflated ACC record, you would think. Yeah, UNC now has two really, really, really good wins, the Dayton win and the UCLA win. And out of 18 ACC basketball programs, there are only about four that have a lot to be proud of in the non-conference schedule.

Duke, obviously, Pitt and Clemson have some. The Tar Heels, after that, everybody else is going to be wishing they had wins like Dayton and UCLA. Tar Heels' front court problems are not going to go away. They just don't have great personnel in the post, and that's a challenge, and it's going to lead to some inconsistency. Tar Heel fans should prepare to lose some ACC games you wouldn't expect to lose, but that team's talented enough offensively and so good in the backcourt that they can still be one of the best teams, top teams in the ACC standings. If you're near the top of the ACC in conference play and you have those two non-conference wins, you're not going to be sweating it out on selection Sunday.

It's just up to them to be one of those best teams in the ACC because given what they've done and what talent they have, as long as they are that top three or four team in the conference, they're going to be comfortably in while about a half a dozen ACC teams are biting their fingernails and wishing they had a couple of these non-conference victories. I got about a minute left, DG. It's Christmas. You used to give me the full rundown on your Christmas movie, like power rankings of sorts. What was at the top of those?

And obviously, you have the divisions, too. Oh, man. In terms of classics, I love A Christmas Story and Little Ralphie, right? I mean, The Leg Lamp and Frasile and The Whole Nine Yards. I mean, you can't get enough of that. There's a scene at the end of Bill Murray's version of Scrooge that just touches my heart, man.

I used to play it every year on the air. I just play that spirit of Christmas speech when he found the light and just saw the better side of himself. I'm not the most sentimental guy, but that one gets me.

So those are a couple examples that come to mind. But I love the cartoon classics as well, man. I'll take all Christmas all the time here in the month of December. DG, Merry Christmas to you. Thank you for making the time today and we'll talk to you sometime, I'm sure, next week. Great to be with you, Merry and Happy and all the rest of you and your listeners. See you guys.

I think all the levels are set. Showtime. Now?

Right now. You're on The Drive with Josh Graham. After watching Carolina completely dissolve as a favorite against the Cowboys, we're on the Panthers against Arizona. To the Hubbard with a move, a spin, and to the goal line and Hubbard's in with a Carolina touchdown.

The vibes, even though the record isn't so great, pretty good. Young, he gets a good block. There's a flag down around the five as he goes in for a touchdown. This is their most winnable game remaining out of the last three.

They're going to capitalize on that. Oh, he hammered as he completed the pass. Back to treble for a first down. Carolina 24, Arizona 23. To the Hubbard, dancing into the end zone and a Panthers victory with a touchdown at overtime. When you're wrong the first time, double down.

West Coast to East Coast, 1 o'clock. Tends to get you. Kyler Murray, the sound of him bristling at the weather forecast in Charlotte.

Why are you shaking your head? Nah, Kyler didn't sound like he was going to enjoy that very much. They looked miserable on that sideline, but to their credit, 20 to 3 down. They came back and tied up the game at the horn. I didn't see the kick. I was in the tunnel and somebody said, hey, I think he made it. How long was that? 58 yards? 58 yards?

Can someone turn a screen on? Because we're just standing there in the tunnel waiting for this thing to end. Oh, this is behind. It's happening 20, 30 yards away from us, not even. And we have no idea what's happening.

Nope. Trying to figure it out. But shout out to the Panthers for winning that game. Now getting to college basketball.

Attaching letter grades to what we saw in the ACC. And there's some good. There's some bad. There's some meh from what we saw.

There's a lot of bad, actually. It's time for Graham's Grades. 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. Gosh, Graham has the answers.

What? Time for Graham's Grades. A, B, C, D, F. We start with the good from what we saw over the weekend. We start with A, the North Carolina to our heels. Not only was beating UCLA good for them and big for them, it was enormous for the ACC.

Because you don't have one of your brand schools at 500 at Christmas. And you have a team that probably is one of the four that you feel pretty good about going into being an NCAA tournament team. As of now, you know you got Duke.

And then you get the Clemson Tigers. They're probably going to be fine. Tested, Elite Eight appearance. A lot of guys back.

They're going to be respected. Decent wins. Tested themselves out of conference. Pittsburgh I think is really good. They've been banged up and they still won big games without some of their key guys. Jalen Lowe, he's for real. And they have a few guys that are legit studs for this pit basketball team.

So you got those three. And then the North Carolina to our heels with two solid wins. Probably going to do very well in conference play considering how bad the league looks so far. And again, the brand name does not hurt. It does not hurt.

It helps. Just as long as you win some of these showcase games. And MSG during the CBS Sports Classic facing a top 20 team certainly qualifies as one of those spotlight wins.

B. The SMU Mustangs. W.D. They were at Boston College on Saturday. They won by 26. SMU won at Boston College by 26 points. They dropped to 103 in regulation. Don't sleep on them now.

W.D. We thought that Wake Forest was going to be the team flying under radars. Turns out they might have been a bit overhyped. We thought maybe it could be NC State. They didn't do anything out of conference. It now appears your sleeper, just like in football, your sleeper in ACC basketball this year. The SMU Mustangs. They are 10-2, Will Dalton. 2-0 in the ACC. And both those games were double digit wins. Double digit ACC wins. And they played some decent teams. Beat LSU. Beat Washington State. Beat Butler.

So they're not just playing scrubs and they're winning games. And an all-ACC name to consider. He was the ACC Player of the Week a week ago. And on Saturday, Matt Cross had 20 for the ponies. SMU a B. C. You look at them and their net ranking now.

They're 33 or 35 in that range now. So they're starting to gain some respect from a metric standpoint. C. We'll go with Duke. In a game that was on WSJS this weekend, Duke went to Atlanta to play Georgia Tech.

Sure, it's Georgia Tech. Damon Stoudemire's team not very good. But getting off to slow starts has been a problem for Duke so far this year. And around the holidays, and everybody's saying you're going to win, you can go on the road and slip up or at least get off to a slow start. Duke did not do that. They finally started well against a high major team and they did so on the road. So yeah, it's hard to be too impressed with a top-five team taking care of its business in Atlanta. That's why it's a C. But how about this from your freshman trio, the three starting freshmen, Conconipple, Cooper Flag, happy 18th birthday to Cooper, by the way. Turned 18 on Saturday.

And come on, Malawatch? Those three combined for 46 of the team's 82 points. And the Devils won by 26. D. This is where Wake Forest belongs. It's not necessarily the way they lost, but it kind of is. It's another missed opportunity for them. They were at Littlejohn Coliseum at Clemson.

Okay. And last year, 2-9 on the road, 0-3 to start this season in true road games. All three of those losses, Texas A&M, Xavier, and now Clemson, by double digits. So they're not coming close to winning these games and they're only guaranteed a couple more Quad 1 games. You want to know what those Quad 1 games are? The two times you play Duke.

Because you look elsewhere, where is it going to come from? You'd say Pitt, but is it a guarantee that Pittsburgh is going to be top 30 in the net when they only visit your gym and they don't host you? Same can be said about North Carolina.

Right now, they're not top 30 in the net. So if they went to Winston-Salem tomorrow, it wouldn't be a Quad 1 game because they're not ranked in the top 30. And Wake Forest does not go to Winston-Salem. Or to Chapel Hill. So they get Duke twice. And right now, it's not an overstatement to say, absolutely positively, Duke needs to beat Duke in one of those two games at least, bar none. F. Couldn't just put one team here. It's got to be two. Miami and Virginia Tech. Dear goodness. W.D., I want you to look up the records for two teams because I honestly don't know it.

Mount St. Mary's and St. Joseph's. Are you aware of St. Joe's mascot, by the way? I'm not. So they have an eagle who the entire game will flap its arms like this. Like, not any quicker than this. It'll just flap its arms like this. It doesn't stop?

It does not stop. Well, that's a little weird. It's a marvel how shredded this mascot has to be underneath the suit when the entire game, the St. Joe's mascot just flaps its arms. So Mount St. Mary's is 8-4. Yep. And then St. Joe's is also 8-4. Okay, so they were both 7-4 going into the weekend. Yeah. Miami lost in overtime to Mount St. Mary's. Virginia Tech lost by 20. To St. Joe's. Yeah. I'm embarrassed on behalf of Jim Laronega and Mike Young.

It's terrible. We were told that these coaches are really good. We were. And I believe they were really good coaches. I still believe they're good coaches.

What the heck, man? What standard are we supposed to hold you to? Jim Laronega, you were in the final four two years ago. The year before that, Mike Young, you won the ACC. Losing by 20 to St. Joe's and losing it overtime to Mount St. Mary's, just awful.

That's been Graham's Grades for the day. Two orders of business we need to take care of before we get to take it to the house. My brother from Orlando, and how do you know he's from Orlando? He's wearing an Orlando Magic t-shirt, is in our studio.

The two orders of business, Jordan, we need to take care of. We need to get your movie expertise before we get to football. At the movies with the W.D., you on your flight were asked to watch The Holiday, which W.D. had not seen before. He watched for the first time last night. You had far less notice than he had to watch this, yet you still watched it before he did.

He had a full week's notice. Procrastination, the name of the game for him. So we'll do that, and then we'll get to your picks as well.

Because not only do you have your Survivor Pool pick for tonight, you have your pick already ready to go, locked in, knowing that we're not going to be on the rest of the week. But welcome to our studio, by the way. Thanks, Josh. It's freezing here, oh my gosh.

It's like 30 degrees, I was not expecting it to be this cold. I can see that. I need to go buy some Long John's or something. Go to the Long John's store. He looks like the Panthers' O-line coach yesterday.

He was wearing a short-sleeved t-shirt in 20-degree weather. Okay, let's get to the holiday at the movies with the W.D. Unless you're talking about Star Wars. Obi-Wan has taught you well. Movies aren't exactly Will's thing. I don't get it.

You want cups of swine? But that's about to change because Josh can't stand it anymore. This is At the Movies with Will Dalton. What you liked, yeah. What you didn't like. Best quote, Rotten Tomatoes score. Those are the four categories that we dive into.

Every week we give W.D. a new movie. So, I'm interested. Did you guys, had you seen the holiday before, Jordan? Um, I remember the trailer. I don't know if I actually saw the movie. Oh, fantastic. So we have two people who had never seen the movie before.

I have. And this is a movie that is very important to women. They love the holiday. Did you, W.D.? I did like the holiday. Now, you're going to find that I had more things that I did not like about it than what I did. Jordan hated this movie. Did you hate it? I thought the writing was pretty trite. It is pretty bad. It is...

It was... Yeah, best for women. Somebody ruined, you know how somebody can point something out to you? Like a blemish on somebody and then that's the only thing you can see? Somebody did that when we said we were doing this movie last week. Said, count the number of times that Cameron Diaz says the word great. And apparently that's like the only adjective she has.

Just like, oh, look at this Christmas tree. What do you think? It's great. Did you count?

We're having a great day. I did not count. Also, count how many times she says the word Scorsese and she says it one too many times. I don't need a Scorsese red.

I need a Christmas red. So, okay, we're not just going to trash the thing, okay? No, we're not going to do that. We're going to talk about the things we liked about it.

First, we're going to start positive. Jordan, what did you like about the holiday? Okay, you know, when I watched the holiday and I was watching it on a plane on my phone, people looking at me weird and saying, why is he watching this mid-2000s rom-com by himself on a plane?

It's a Christmas movie. I mean, what I liked about it, I like Jack Black. I like the cast. And I think, I honestly think if I had a top tier, top three, like most like strapping, like gentlemen, attractive men. Jude Law, like in this time period, like the talented Mr. Ripley time period, I don't know how you surpassed Jude Law.

I mean, I was saying this before the show, like if Jude Law, the scene where he is introduced to Cameron Diaz in the cabin. Hammered. Self-admittedly hammered at the pub. I'm coming over. I usually crash here. My sister, oh, this charming single woman alone.

Can I crash here anyway? Yeah, that's not going to work for anybody but Jude Law. Yeah, if it was Jack Black, I don't think that works either. But you actually hit exactly what I wrote down. It was Jude Law, whose character's name is Graham, by the way.

That's right. Just throw that out there. In the last 25 years, here's my hot take for this movie, because ChatGPT apparently says that I'm known for hot takes. In the last 25 years, Jude Law might be the most handsome man in all of film.

I don't disagree with that. Talented Mr. Ripley, I mean, it is a nitpick why he's so tan when he lives in England and it's snow. Aside from that, Talented Mr. Ripley and in this movie, it's a very nice, sweet twist that he's got two kids and he's super sweet. Somehow he's still attractive when he's doing Mr. Napkinhead and he has the glasses on.

Yeah, that was an interesting move. So, it's Jude Law and it's the houses that are the runner-up, because those are just fantastic Nancy Meyers houses. I would say Paul Newman. Last 25 years. It's like Jude Law and Paul Newman.

Last 25 years, I'm limiting the scope. I'm not saying all time for movies, but because, yes, Paul Newman is certainly a handsome man. What did you like, Will Dalton? Well, expanding on the cast. Actually, you know what, let me start with the main thing I liked about this movie? The trailer scenes. Like the trailer scenes, James Franco and the shooter film or whatever, whenever she would be just having a trailer in her head about her life. I bet you Forgetting Sarah Marshall stole from that, where they did the outlandish Alec Baldwin, Kristen Bell scenes, where it's like, Ooh, it's gonna be hard for her to enter the pageant without a face. But the cast was... You remember the name of that show, by the way?

If we're getting Sarah Marshall, it was... I forgot. It was crime scene colon the scene of the crime. That's it.

That's it. The scene of the crime. But I wanted to mention the trailer piece first. Sarah Marshall from scene of the crime? Yeah. Because expanding on the cast, you also had like... John Krasinski and Kathryn Hahn were right there. Correct. Didn't see them the rest of the movie. You didn't, but that's okay. Like it was just a little cameo and then James Franco being in it and you know.

Yeah, those trailers are pretty meta for the time. Like, whoa, this is actually in her mind. Wow. Breaking.

All right, this might be robust. What didn't we like? Now we get cooking.

What didn't we like? I think you got to go riding first off. I mean, I showed... I was going over the script with Josh this morning just to show how bad it was. Oh, God. And it's like if you were to take a riding class in Hollywood or at UCLA, this is like first year riding material. It's like Jew law.

It's when Jack Black comes and meets Kate Winslet for the first time. Oh, you got something in your eye. Oh, it's a Santa Ana's win. That means anything can happen. When the Santa Ana's blow, all bets are off. Anything can happen.

It's just laughable. Other than the houses, like the house exchanges, my problem with this, kind of going back to the writing, is their storylines are very poorly connected. It seems like we're watching two different movies.

It does. Where it's like I'm actually very interested in Kate Winslet's movie, and I'm interested in Cam Diaz's movie. It almost seems like this could have been like a Netflix series, and then you could like hit on their angles like episode by episode rather than splicing it together. Also, Kate Winslet's never falling for Jack Black ever. And that's one of the things that I had a problem with. That was actually the first thing I had a problem with with this movie. She'd have no problems making friends in L.A. She looks like Kate Winslet. And they tried to make her more unattractive than what she is. One Piece Swimsuit.

That generally is a way that you go about that. So, yeah, it just seems like separate movies. Also, Cam Diaz, her character is way too toxic for Jude Law's character.

Way too toxic. But then again, Jude Law is the type of guy who's getting hammered and trying to crash on her sister's couch. That's a fair point. His sister's couch. What is the best quote from this movie? You look like a barbie. It does help that the kids are British.

It does help. Yeah. I can't believe you had sex with a woman staying in my house. Still me. I have a cow and I sow.

How's that for hard to relate to? Coming out of the mouth from Jude Law. That's why they pay me the big bucks.

Yeah. I'm not going to fall in love with you. I promise. Probably the best line of the movie came from the old guy. In the movies, we have leading ladies and we have the best friend. You, I can tell, are a leading lady.

But for some reason, you're behaving like the best friend. I liked it. Just didn't want to feel like writing it down. What about the line James Franco has in the trailer? Why do you have two guns? Because I need them. That's great.

Or Jude Law, which became a gif that's popular on Twitter in response to Cam Diaz soliciting him on the couch. Is that a trick question? All right. Rotten Tomatoes score. Audience score. Can you get within five?

Zero to 100. Jordan, what is your guess for the Rotten Tomatoes score for the holiday? So this is the aggregate with the critics or just the audience?

Nope. Audience. Just the audience. The audience is going to like it more than the critics. I'm going to give it. It's going to be a guilty pleasure.

Women are going to love it. I'll give it a 65. W.D. I'll go 68. I think he's in the right ballpark.

80. Wow. That's impressive. And that's been At The Movies with the W.D.

and with Jordan Graham. The Drive, brought to you in part by our friends at the local YMCA. Join the Y today. Pay no joining fee now through January 31st. All new members get three one-on-one appointments with a UFIT wellness coach.

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No joining fee required. Okay. Now to the other order of business that we have.

Jordan is in the final two of his survivor pool. $1600 hanging in the balance, Will Dalton, which we dive into right now in Best Bets. I'm not a betting duck.

Care to make it interesting? You know you do. You're on. Call me in on this. You're Best Bets.

But my money's on the other team. This is Josh's Best Bets. You were gonna say? Oh, I was waiting for the survivor.

There it is. By the way, speaking of Seinfeld, that's the contest where some of the sound there is. Happy Festivus to those who celebrate. A Festivus for the rest of us. Jordan doesn't strike me as somebody who's watched Seinfeld.

Was that some... Oh, I thought it was like a Greek celebration or something. Oh, no. It's... I'll just let it sit.

Okay. Let's recap how our picks did over the weekend before we get to the survivor pool. We had... W.D., how is this possible? We've gone through 17 weeks of doing this with college football week zero and week one.

So I guess 18 weeks of doing this. And this is the first push that we've had the entire year. Seattle plus three against the Vikings. You gave me the half point, which was key in me winning a bet.

That was a push. Seattle lost the game by three. The two underdogs that I took flopped. Took Tennessee and Clemson. They both got blown out. And the two other underdogs we had in the NFL hit. The Panthers winning outright.

The commanders needed some drama there. Figured it out. So on the season, Will, we are 65-58-1. Jordan is locked in with Stacey. Survivor pool. You both have the Packers tonight.

Yeah, I'm 16-0. Jordan, if it gets... If you both lose tonight, if the Packers lose as two touchdown favorites, then you probably split the $1600 pot. But the Packers are two touchdown favorites.

They are. Jordan's telling me he already has his pick locked in for next week. He's ready here on Monday. I've been ready since about week ten of the season. For this pick.

For this pick. And I've singled out week 17. That's this week. For the longest time, I said this is going to be Stacey's toughest week. Week 17. And week 18 is not a slouch. But week 17, that's going to determine the season, I think. So, yeah. I showed you last night some of the matchups next week.

Doesn't look good for her. This week, it's a wash. But, yeah. So go Packers tonight.

You can listen to the game on WSJS. The Packers are probably going to take care of their business. For sure. And the Packers, yeah, they're two touchdown favorites.

So it's really not much to think about. Next week, who is your pick that you're going with? You feel confident enough that you've been scouting out for about six weeks now. Who are you taking this coming Sunday? Yeah. I think Stacey made a mistake with picking this team a little bit earlier. And they actually almost lost that game. But I'm looking at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers playing at home. Against who?

Against this team from Charlotte. There it is. Yeah. They're a cat. They're a dark cat.

A cat that's also found in Florida, by the way. I always think the Hurricanes and the Panthers should change their team names. Yeah.

Make it happen. But here's the problem. See, you said that they – that Stacey picked Tampa before and had issues. The game she had issues with was the first time the Panthers played the Bucs. It was an overtime win for Tampa Bay. So that doesn't give you pause at all that Carolina – pause. The Carolina won yesterday. Tampa lost in Sunday Night Football. And Carolina pushed Tampa to overtime the last time out?

Yeah. I – you know, I don't like betting – funny that I keep making jokes about it. I don't like voting – betting against the Carolina Panthers, honestly. Especially at this point of the season. They got a new quarterback. They're – you know, they got some stuff to play for. It's not like the Giants or – but the thing is, they're not a good team. Wow. And Tampa Bay is a good team. W.D. got offended by that.

Ooh, you were coiled. The thing is, I have to go with Tampa Bay and Atlanta in the weakest division in the NFL. Tampa playing at home and losing last night I think makes them even more of a favorite going into next week. So Tampa can't lose two games straight and they're not going to do it against the Carolina Panthers.

All right. You heard it there from Jordan, and usually when he picks a team, the team wins by double digits. And that's my gut feeling. You can take that to the bank. I just might. It is an eight-point spread for Carolina and Tampa right now. Makes me kind of want to take that – take Tampa right now, but I'm not going to do it. Instead, I'm just going to focus all my energies on the East Carolina Pirates plus five against NC State on Saturday in the Military Bowl in Annapolis. Go, Pirates.

Okay, that has been Best Bets for today. It's good to have you in studio. We covered a lot of ground, I think. Yeah, it's been fun. All right, we've got Take It to the House to do. Appreciate you guys being in here.
Whisper: medium.en / 2024-12-23 20:33:33 / 2024-12-23 20:58:41 / 25

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