That Probably Wasn’t Great

This is The Drive with Josh Graham Podcast.

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

It is WSJS, noose talk sports for the Triad. Where on Friday, we said Super Bowl 59 was going to play out one of two ways. Either the Chiefs were going to win it close, or the Eagles were going to roll in a rout.

Unfortunately, from an entertainment perspective, it was the latter. But the larger, bigger picture takeaway from this game still centers on Kansas City, and more specifically, Patrick Mahomes. If the Chiefs won last night, you know what the story would have been. Chiefs 3-peat! Patrick Mahomes, the greatest of all time! But now that they got whacked, are we not going to talk about this from a Chiefs perspective? This is a setback for Patrick Mahomes' legacy.

The fact that he lost this game and didn't play well at all in it. The gap between a 4-1 Super Bowl record and a 3-2 mark feels vast. If he won the game again, he could have been legitimately crowned the GOAT. Four Super Bowls in five tries? Six AFC Championship appearances in just seven or eight years playing it? Being the starting quarterback? That's insane. A 3-peat, which a team's never done before?

And you've done all this before turning 30 years old? You could make that argument. But with a loss, Tom Brady's seven championships seems very much far away, especially when you consider one of those seven a head-to-head win with, you guessed it, Patrick Mahomes. And the last Patriots title Tom Brady had required him to go to Kansas City and beat the Chiefs an arrowhead. But it's not just that Mahomes lost the game. It's that he's been blown out twice now. 31-9 by those Bucks, 40-22, and that's charitable just mentioning the final score because that includes two garbage-time touchdowns with two-point conversions in the final three or four minutes of this game.

And none of the scoring happened in the first half. These are the only two Super Bowl blowouts we've seen over the last decade. We hadn't seen another Super Bowl blowout since that Seattle-Denver Super Bowl in the Meadowlands. Did they try playing a Super Bowl in February in New Jersey?

That's a great idea. To use Brady as a comparison again, here were his three Super Bowl losses. Two last-minute losses to Eli Manning's Giants and a late loss to the Philadelphia Eagles. Tom Brady had Hail Mary attempts on all three of those Super Bowls, meaning he was a player two away from winning all three of those games. And when you look at the losses, particularly the Giants or the Eagles loss in 2017-2017 season, Brady threw for 500 yards in that game.

Put up more than 30 points. Patrick Mahomes shut out in the first half last night. Didn't score a touchdown until a few minutes left in the third quarter? Held in single digits in his first Super Bowl loss? That has to count for something.

Now, give credit where it's due. Philadelphia did not blitz one time last night. They got pressure with their front four. Kansas City's O-line got cooked.

That's all fair. But it does not excuse how horrendous Mahomes was when it wasn't a protection problem. That Cooper DeGene interception? That pick six? Mahomes was out of the pocket. Just made a horrific decision with the football. And he had some misses as well. And Mahomes, to his credit, isn't out here making excuses.

Not throwing anybody under the bus. Here he was after losing Super Bowl 59. Anytime you lose a Super Bowl, it's one of the worst feelings in the world. They'll stick with you the rest of your career. I mean, these will be the two losses that will motivate me to be even better for the rest of my career because you only get so few of these. And you have to capitalize on these. And they hurt probably more than the wins feel good.

He sat at a podium and answered questions for nearly 13 minutes last night. Something Cam Newton couldn't bear for more than five minutes, if you remember his Super Bowl loss. So credit to Mahomes for that. But he does not get a pass for being blown out in a Super Bowl. And he has a lot of time. Again, he hasn't turned 30. He has a lot of time to catch Tom. But this loss is so damaging. He could have gone from being crowned the GOAT today to that conversation is pushed off at least a couple of years.

At least a couple of years before you start even broaching that subject again because of the margin that they lost that game. Will Dalton, he's the executive producer of this show. Congrats on winning our coffee bet.

Thank you so much. You had the Eagles winning. I did.

We said one or two scenarios. I thought it was going to be the close game and Kansas City would win. Philadelphia ended up winning in the route. How was your Super Bowl party? You know, it went really well. Had people come stay with me all weekend long. So I was kind of playing hotel for a little bit. But the food was great. The hotel WD. Hey!

Maybe I'll go into real estate. Wings were great. Had some Buffalo dip. Eagles won. Can't complain. Steve Forbes, he will be our guest at 5.30 on today's show.

As Big Deac Energy spells out, you can comment on our YouTube chat, The Drive with Josh Graham. Wake Forest, the only team that had to make the Cowley trip and earned a sweep. Duke, Carolina Clemson, Louisville, and SMU didn't have to make the trip out west.

Yes, it was big for the Deacs. And we'll be chatting with Steve Forbes a little bit later on. Shifting to tonight's action. Even though Luka Doncic's Lakers debut is going to command most of the national attention this evening, North Carolina Clemson is the main event.

At least around here. Because regardless of what happens at Little John Coliseum, Okay! This is going to be a valuable data point moving forward. The Tigers have a chance to firmly establish themselves as a contender. They handed Duke their first ACC loss on Saturday. Carolina now comes into your gym. It's another primetime spot. ESPN.

A lot of eyeballs on you. And frankly, they deserve the respect. If you beat Duke and then North Carolina in a three-day span, and you're a team that was in the Elite Eight last year? With Ian Shefflin and Chase Hunter back?

Yeah! You should be talked about as a team to really keep an eye on and watch out for in the NCAA tournament once again. So that's the Clemson side of it. The Tar Heels have an opportunity to really solidify their resume.

I was at the Smith Center on Saturday when North Carolina held on against the Pitt Panthers. If you couple that win with a win at Little John Coliseum, Okay! That would transform their outlook metrically. It would, when you look at all the, what do we call it, mock brackets, the bracketologists, how they project things. Most of them had North Carolina on the outside looking in last week. If they beat Pitt, and they beat Clemson on the road, and you couple that with the UCLA, Dayton, and SMU wins, I think most people are going to say that's an NCAA tournament team. If they lose it, it's quite possible that their resume is going to require a home win against Duke in the finale of the regular season. Or them to go crazy in the ACC tournament in Charlotte.

So that's really what's at stake tonight. It's a giant opportunity for North Carolina to solidify their resume. The Tigers, they have a chance to really take that step forward as the second best team in this league and a contender from this conference. In terms of who wins it, it does seem like Carolina is catching Clemson at the right time.

The Tigers, they just emptied the bucket at Littlejohn. And, OK, the court was stormed. There usually is that stat after beating Duke and storming the court, how you generally do in the next game.

And it's a quick turnaround. Now, I know North Carolina has the quick turnaround, too, and just played a tight game. But this game's more meaningful for Carolina than it is Clemson, just in terms of what's at stake. And they are comfortable playing in tight games. Saturday was their tenth one-score game. Tenth game decided by one, two, or three points.

And there are six and four in those games. And some of the losses, they nearly beat really good teams. Kansas, at Kansas, they lost by just three points. And Florida, who right now is the number three team in the country, they were leading in the final seconds in Charlotte.

So they could be even better than that. The losses are against really good teams. They've beaten good teams, too. Here was Elliott Cadeau after the Carolina win against Pitt talking about how this many reps playing one-possession games helps them. Yeah, we definitely know exactly what we're looking for, exactly who we want with the ball in their hands, who we want to shoot the free throws, who we want guarding the ball when we need to stop. We kind of figured out everything, and we kind of know exactly what defense we want at the end. So I think that all those close games will be good for us in the ACC tournament and every other game going forward. They learned who they want at the free throw line, who they don't. They don't want Vin Allen Lubin at the free throw line was the takeaway. On Saturday, even though he did have a season high in points for Carolina, is playing with confidence. Give me Carolina in another tight game tonight at Littlejohn Coliseum.

Okay. So Monday's off day. It's not really off day because I have to deal with the media, ACC media, Josh Graham. But, you know, we – that probably went great.

I disagree. I thought that was great hearing that riding home from the Smith Center on Saturday. That was Steve Forbes postgame with Stan Cotton and Dinger on the Wake Forest Sports Network from Learfield. And as Steve joins us now for our weekly – Wake Weekly segment presented by First Horizon Bank, a lot like Drake and Kendrick, it sounds like we've got beef, Steve. How would you be spending your off day if you weren't talking to me? Well, Josh, you know, it just makes my day to come visit with you every Monday. So, you know, I don't really – I wouldn't know what to do if I hadn't get a chance to talk to you.

Just start talking to the walls. Who else am I going to share my TV and movie taste with? I don't know. There you go. Getting to basketball, from a resume standpoint, the Stanford win is the more impressive of the two that you earned out west. But as hard as it is to be consistent in this sport, it was astounding to see how your three senior leaders combined for 62 of the 76 points you had at Cal on Saturday. What were you most proud of collectively last week? Well, Josh, I thought we handled the trip really, really well. You know, it's a long trip but, you know, for us we only have to do it once.

Unlike Stanford and Cal coming back here four times, five times if you count the tournament. So I thought our players handled it as well as you could handle it with the travel, the practice. You're right, it was a hard game against Stanford. It was a really good win. And then, you know, on Saturday I was – like you said, I thought those three seniors played, you know, played outstanding. But we were really good defensively as a team, as a collective unit. And then having Omaha Blue in, being able to play on Saturday was big. I mean, he was plus 14 but he's also on the court for 17 possessions. We were 1.47 points per possession on offense and a stout.65 defensively. So just to have him on the court I thought was a – really, really helped our team. And we found a way to win in a gritty, tough game. When I did play-by-play and traveled with teams, the commercial trips, you'd spend so much more time together going to the airport, sitting around, the travel to and from.

And usually some of the best stories come out of that. What's the best travel story you can share from either getting to the West Coast or coming back considering all it took just to do that? Well, you know, I spent three years at Louisiana Tech. We were in the WAC. And so we had to go to Hawaii and San Jose back-to-back. So we'd go out to play Hawaii on a Thursday.

We would literally have to run to the airport after the game and take the red-eye to San Jose just to get in on Friday and then have a noon game on Saturday and then travel back on Sunday. So I've done it before and that was all commercial. And so it wasn't my first time maybe doing that. And that was my first trip to Stanford and Cal. I thought the players did a really good job of staying together. And we did some team things. We went to a movie one night. I didn't go, but the team went. And then we went to Alcatraz on Friday in between all that stuff. They had to do tutoring via Zoom because we were missing class.

So we stayed very busy, had a couple practices. But I thought they handled it really, really well. W.D., have you seen The Rock with Sean Connery and Nic Cage? Have you seen that? Well?

No. Welcome to The Rock, Alcatraz. Well, the crazy thing about Alcatraz is it sits up so high. You know, beside the fact that you'd have to get in that water to try to make it somewhere, you have to get all the way from the top to the bottom. And they showed a couple of those cells where guys had kind of like Shawshank Redemption had tunneled out through the vent and down through the pipes.

But that's just to get to the water. And those three guys that did it or four, they were never heard from again from what I've learned when I was at Alcatraz. So the one thing about Alcatraz, those cells are not very big. I'm kind of claustrophobic, so I don't think I could have survived that, especially when I went in the solitary confinement one. I was timed to leave after that.

You sound like you'd be a lot of fun in a place like that as a lover of history and all the opportunities for pranks and gags. Yeah, the players, they had a great time. You know, we had a guided audio tour as you go through it. They were great. They enjoyed it. They were excited.

You keep saying they. I'm wondering if you enjoyed it. Sure, I enjoyed it. You know, I've driven over the Golden Gate Bridge a couple of times and seen it, but I've never been on it. The first time I drove across the Golden Gate Bridge, I never saw the bridge because it was so foggy.

I couldn't even tell where I was at. And so it was a clear day on Friday. It broke up today. We had an early practice at Cal at 1030, and we practiced for about an hour and a half.

And then we went back to the Hotel 8, and then we went out there to The Rock for a couple of hours, and it broke up today. They really enjoyed it. Wake Forest basketball coach Steve Forbes with us.

Wake Weekly Conversations presented by First Horizon Bank. You attentively watched both NFC conference championship games with a 101-degree fever a couple weeks back. So how much of the Super Bowl did you get to watch? After we had practice last night, I got back. It was probably midway through the second quarter.

You know, I'm going to be honest with you, I quit watching it in the fourth quarter. Did you catch the kid from Iowa having to pick six? I did. I've seen the highlight to him dunking the basketball too. Cooper DeGene.

Very good athlete, obviously. I did. I actually saw it. I was home in time to see that, and it was a great play by him. Yeah. Any thoughts on the halftime show?

Not really. I wasn't a huge fan, but it's nothing against Kendrick Lamar. I don't listen to his music, so I didn't really know any of his music.

I watched it and then went on to something else. Getting back to the topic of music, we haven't talked about this in a while. You are a big fan of putting together playlists. What is the last playlist that you put together, Steve? I haven't done one in a while, Josh.

You know, it's usually 60s, 70s type music that I listen to, or I call it Vietnam War era. But I haven't really put one together lately. I've been a little bit busy.

I need to do that, but I don't know where I would go. I have to think about it. Yeah, I was expecting Steve to say, yeah, I've got to get my California playlist for all this travel that we got so I could listen to California Dreaming. I could listen to all these different songs. I have the Mamas and the Papas on there. I enjoy their music. There's a lot of great music in Laurel Canyon Drive in that timeframe in LA.

I didn't have my Haight-Ashbury playlist out when I was out there. Steve Forbes with us here. Okay, so pushing it ahead, we have tickets that we're going to give away for Wake Forest and Florida State on tomorrow's show.

It's a Wednesday tip at the Joel. A week ago, Leonard Hamilton announced he'd be stepping down at the end of the year. When you joined this conference, it was Roy Williams, it was Coach K, it was Tony Bennett, it was Jim Larranaga, it was Mike Bray, it was Leonard Hamilton. How striking has it been seeing the way this league's roster of coaches have turned over since you took over at Wake nearly five years ago? Well, when Leonard decided to retire, I told our staff that I'm going to feel very lonely at the ACC coaches meetings because a lot of the guys I came in the league with are now not coaching anymore. You know, I think at some point when I took the job, you had to think that, you know, some of those guys were going to retire at some point, you know, because they were getting up there in age. Now, you know, Tony's was surprising, and then, you know, Mike Bray stepping away and going to the Atlanta Hawks, you know, that was probably not something I thought about when I came in the league. And so, yeah, it's been a lot, you know, and they're all pretty much Hall of Fame level coaches. And so we're seeing, you know, a big change in our league, but it was coming sooner or later. It was just a matter of time. Because of where things stand now, like when you have these ACC coaches calls, are you going to feel, how much differently do you feel in your standing to speak on things now than you felt when you came into the league and you see those guys who obviously have built more equity in this league? Yeah, you know, when I first came in the league, it was during COVID. So we had a coaches meeting every week on Zoom.

And I probably went three months. I didn't say a word. You know, I just listened. And because we had all these Hall of Fame coaches, over time, I felt more comfortable speaking, you know, especially now that I'm on the oversight committee, I have a little bit more to bring to the table as far as, you know, where college basketball is going. And so, yeah, I mean, I speak up a lot at those meetings. And, you know, obviously Brad Brownell, you know, he's the guy I look to because he's been in it the longest. You know, Kevin and Jeff have been in it longer than me and Mike one more year.

But I feel very comfortable, you know, when I feel like I need to say something, I have no problem doing that. Then you get to Saturday. It is Wake Forest at SMU. That's a meaningful game. And it's just another example of where college basketball is at today. A key player on your roster last year in Boopy Miller is now on the other side.

So how strange is that going to be? How many times off the top of your head can you remember having to coach against a guy that was on your roster a year prior? Well, you know, we did it at Syracuse in January.

Lucas Taylor was on our team a couple of years ago. So, you know, we've already done it once. You know, Boopy's having a really good year.

He's a really good player. But, you know, it won't be any different. We'll play the game and, you know, try to win. And so, you know, I don't wish any, I don't have any bad feelings towards either one of those young men. They made a decision they felt was best for them. And I'm all for that.

And so, you know, I cheer for them, except when we play them. Steve Forbes is with us here. Just because I promised it at the top of this conversation, is there any television or movies you'd like to share with the people that you've had a chance to watch the last couple weeks? Yeah, I binge watched a show on Hulu called Say Nothing.

It's about the IRA. It was really good. I finished it last night.

You know, obviously, when you're traveling out and back, you got some time, you know, to do that. So, I picked that one and watched it. I will tell you this. I was in the elevator with, I don't know his name, the star of Downton Abbey, the dad. I took a picture with him. I don't ever do that, but I had to. He was just in this show called The Agency, too.

He was the MI, I don't know, MI6 guy. So, I did see him while I was coming down the elevator in our hotel at Cal. That's such an interesting thing. I got my Orioles stuff on right now. I see so many people that in the sports context are super famous. The only time I ever asked for a picture in years doing this was Duke Carolina game last year.

David Rubenstein is the new Orioles owner who is a big Duke alum and fundraiser. I remember Coach K was trying to talk to me. I blew past Coach K to talk to David Rubenstein and get a picture. That's the only time that I ever wanted. How often does Steve Forbes ask for pictures with people?

Not much. I regret that some, but obviously when I started out there was no camera phones. So, I don't have a lot of pictures like that meeting some really interesting people. Full disclosure, I told him how much I admired him in the elevator. Then they walked out to the outside and I didn't get a picture. Then I was standing in the lobby like, you know what, I'm going to go get a picture with this guy. I walked out and he was great. He was dressed to the nines. He had a big time suit. You could see it. But he was great. I don't like bothering people like that.

It was just something I felt like I wanted to do. While I'm encouraging people to go out to the Joel Wednesday night to watch Wake Forest play Florida State, let me encourage people on Valentine's Day to go watch Wake Baseball open things up against LIU out at the couch. Steve, remind people how mean of a two-seam fastball you once had once upon a time. Well, not this level. Not the level of these pitchers nowadays. These guys are all throwing over a hundred. I was a right-hander through two-seam fastball. My fastball rode in on right-handers, rode away from left-handers. But if I touched 88, I was lucky.

And so I don't have the gas that these guys have. But I could throw pretty well back in the 1980s, different times. But I'll never forget that experience. And I was on a team that finished 47-3 in the regular season, got third in the NAI World Series. And it's something I'm on a text thread with all my teammates to this day. And it's something that I'll always cherish. I gave up a grand slam to Tim Salmon in the World Series.

He played at Grand Canyon at those days. And I vultured the win, tied it up, settled down, got the win in relief. So he hit it so hard I didn't even look at it. I just looked at the blue and said, give me another ball. Steve Forbes, enjoy the rest of your off day. Thanks for doing this. Appreciate it. Instead of just talking, why don't you listen?

That's why you have people call in. Listen for a minute. Ah, welcome back to the Happy Circle. The Drive with Josh Grab. Not going to grip walk today. Don't want that now that we do video on this show. The Kendrick Lamar halftime show. Let's talk about it. Because this is easily the most interesting thing from last night. The football game wasn't all that interesting. So predictably, the internet just became people yelling about the halftime show.

Now, the criticism of the halftime show needs to be taken with a large grain of salt. Usually. See, we're the longest running local sports talk show in the world.

Usually. See, we're the longest running local sports talk show in the history of this market. We've been on the air since summer of 2018. Before that, I did an afternoon drive show in eastern North Carolina and WD. Every year, the day after the Super Bowl, I found myself sitting in this chair trying to defend the halftime show.

Because people's expectations for this damned show is crazy through the roof. So in terms of halftime shows that were universally liked by the internet, as if that's a real place, it's one show. It's the 50 Cent, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg halftime show. That's the only one I remember being universally well liked. I remember sitting here defending Maroon 5's with Big Boy and, what was that, Travis Scott.

I remember Justin Timberlake's in Minneapolis. I loved the Weeknd's halftime show. People hated that. The other one I didn't like very much was Rihanna. The only ones I didn't like were Rihanna. Didn't think that was very good. The Coldplay one, even though I'm a huge Coldplay fan because I thought Beyonce and Bruno Mars hijacked it. Wasn't a big fan of that.

Those are the only ones I didn't love all that much. Last night, the Kendrick Lamar halftime show, and if you have thoughts on it, 336-777-1600 if you want in. The Kendrick Lamar halftime show was not bad because Kendrick accomplished, achieved what he set out to do. For those who didn't understand what was happening, it was one giant Drake diss track. Probably the greatest moment in the history of diss songs, what we saw last night. The greatest moment in rap disses with respect to Nas and Ether in the 90's. Like this is the biggest stage.

You're talking 120 million people watching. And all the things that he did, in case you didn't catch it. He played Not Like Us even though, as he referenced earlier in the show, he was being sued by Drake for defamation. Essentially calling him a pedophile in the song. Drake's people it seems trying to threaten him not to play the song on the world's biggest stage. He played it anyway. He had Drake's ex-girlfriends, Serena Williams and SZA on the shows.

Serena Williams crypt walking during it. SZA co-billed on the show. He played Euphoria which was an earlier rap diss before Not Like Us dropped.

Actually I gotta make sure I get my chronology right there. But that was another Drake diss song Euphoria that played during it. He was wearing a necklace that was an A minor. And on top of that, there were all these video game symbols throughout the show. Leading to the very end where the crowd said game over as a message to Drake. You could view this halftime show as being a clear message to one person. A show for an audience of one, not 120 million. And the audience was for a guy watching in Australia named Aubrey.

That's the guy that he was designating it towards. At worst, this would be the criticism that I'd be willing to hear for this. At worst, you can say that the show was miscast. You can say that. That doesn't mean it wasn't good.

Like those who are saying that's just not good. Okay, you're telling me you don't like Kendrick Lamar. You don't like rap.

Okay, that's fine. Maybe the show just wasn't for you. But in terms of being miscast, it reminds me of when Adele reportedly turned down the halftime show. Because could you imagine Adele's music, how that would fit at halftime? Probably not a great fit for the show. And you could say this might not be a great fit because Kendrick hasn't collected by himself enough hits to carry a show like this.

It's not the genre that's the problem. Eminem, Dre, and Snoop Dogg again, most universal appeal of a show. But he seemed aware of all of this as well. Like for those who are saying, well, Kendrick just didn't have an understanding for his audience.

No, he got it. That's the whole point for having Samuel L. Jackson there. Like Samuel L. Jackson was literally put in the show as an avatar for the audience. Like when he opened up on the Buick Grand National and performing unreleased music, that's the way he opened the show. Samuel L. Jackson's response in the show is to say, whoa, whoa, whoa, it's too ghetto.

Don't you understand what the people want? As if to say hits. And what did he play after that? He played DNA and Humble, his two biggest hits. And then it transitioned to SZA and he had some big hits as well. Like again, the entire point of Samuel L. Jackson was to be an avatar for the audience. In the end, Kendrick delivered what you should expect from a Kendrick Lamar show.

Listen back to what we said about it last week. He's big on choreography. He's big on art. He's one of those guys that cares more about the art than the response to the art.

And he accomplished exactly what he wanted to. A bleep you to Drake. Ultimate moment in terms of being a diss track. Like the greatest diss ever.

All the imagery with patriotism was in there as well. If you watch back, this is what I encourage people to do if you hated the halftime show. And I said this to Will who didn't hate it, but said he didn't thought it hit all that much. Rewatch it. Because when I rewatched it a second, a third time, there were so many things I caught that I did not watch the first time that clearly Kendrick put a lot of thought and detail into. So I'm not going to be the guy that goes as far as to say that it wasn't good, it was bad. No, Kendrick achieved what he set out to do. At worst, he was miscast.

But nah, I liked it and it's a memorable halftime show. 336-777-1600 if you want in. Let's go to Beth who's in Greensboro. Beth, what do you have for me? Hello Josh Graham, how are you?

And hello Will Dalton. We're doing okay. Good.

Yeah, we're doing good. So as far as, I wasn't even sure which song that was because I don't know his music. I didn't know which song was this.

I'll give you a hint. It's the one where he said, say Drake, I hear you like I'm young. The one where he's calling up a pedophile. It's the one where he's staring right into the camera addressing Drake. It's that one. But I, you can't under, anyway as an older person, I guess I didn't get it, I don't know.

That's it. And that's fine. Because of the lawsuit, he didn't say the pedophile word in the song.

He did not. By the way, that's a great observation on your part, Beth. Thank you. That sounds to me like Kendrick did get together with his legal team and say, alright, how far can we go? We do play the song and clearly somebody said, okay, you can play the song. Just leave that lyric out. But it's completely fine to have the entire Superdome singing A minor. Well, I don't know the words. I don't know the lyrics.

Only for my older daughters that are in their 20s. But yeah, because of the lawsuit, he couldn't say that. The choreography was great though. It did look cool. I love how they made the American flag. I mean, they were badass as a dancer. I've grown up since a dancer of six years old.

And I respect that dancing that they did. And Samuel L. Jackson, they played him as Uncle Sam. He's Uncle Sam.

Samuel L., Uncle Sam. I love it. I thought that was so clever.

But otherwise, as an older person, I'm a badass. But I just don't know Kendrick Lamar's music. Okay. I rec it. Thank you so much for the call. I was worried when we opened up the phones that people would just be like, yeah, that sucked.

I didn't understand any of the words that they were saying. I appreciate the self-awareness. I do.

Well, and you know, Big Deke Energy here is saying the same thing that I said earlier, which was one of my complaints. He didn't play like Swimming Pools, Mad City. He played Mad City the last Super Bowl performance he did.

Yeah. He was a part of that, strangely enough. It's strange hearing people say, oh, I love that M&M 50 Cent Dr. Dre Super Bowl. Kendrick was part of that halftime show. He was.

I thought he was great in that. But as you pointed out to me, it wasn't about those songs last night. No. It's not what it was about.

No. And I think you broke it down just as well as anybody could in terms of the symbolism and everything. And I've come around. I was underwhelmed. I didn't hate it. I was just underwhelmed because I didn't have the right expectations going into it. Now, I didn't say it was my favorite.

No. I'm not going as far to say that. But it was something. For people to say it's bad just speaks to the expectation that we have for these shows.

That's just absurd in a given year. Speaking of beefs, we've got issues with Steve Forbes. We've got problems. I don't know if it rises to Kendrick Drake level issues because Steve is joining the show at 5.30. But I'm riding home from the Smith Center on Saturday. I'm listening to the end of the Wake Forest Cow Game. Game ends.

Wake wins by 10 points. And Steve Forbes is sitting down with our guy, Stan Cotton, in the Dinger post-game radio interview. And this is what I hear from Steve Forbes when talking about his team's travel back home. So, Monday's off day. It's not really off day because I have to deal with the media, ACC Media and Josh Graham. But, you know, that probably wasn't great.

No it wasn't, Steve. Man, he came at you. Got a deal with Josh Graham. You gonna make a diss track? You gonna do that?

I'm just fine. Gonna drop by Steve Forbes diss track. Maybe later on in the program.

We'll figure it out in the program. A quick news note. Steve, while he was dealing with the ACC Media earlier today, broke a little bit of news. Said they had some issues getting back from California. Apparently their flight, because they had to wait until yesterday morning rather than after the game because they were flying commercial, got delayed. And, thus, they called on Super Deacon donor, Mitt Shah, to charter a flight, his private plane, back to Winston. But it couldn't carry their entire party. So eight players and four coaches were on this flight back to campus while the rest of the team didn't get back in until about 4.30 this morning.

Good grief. And since the rules that the NCAA has says that a travel day can't count as your off day, in order to have today as an off day they had to do a lot of their preliminary stuff for Florida State on Wednesday when they got back home. So, they got back from LA on that flight, or pardon me, from San Jose and they went through a walkthrough, they watched some film already before having today as a complete day off. It was an impressive win for the Deacs. Shout out to the Deacon seniors, Efton Reed, Hunter Salas, Cam Hildriff. They combined for 62 of Wake's 76 points in the game.

Again, they host Florida State Wednesday night at Joel Coliseum. Steve Forbes, our guest at 5.30. Coming up, the final mark on our football season of Best Bets, including the national figure of money spent for the big game yesterday. Keep it here on the drive.

We'll be right back. When you contact American Wood Reface, your kitchen can look beautiful and the lowest price first is a guarantee. And, now this is big, free in-home consultation. Get your kitchen right in less than a week.

Can you believe it? Located in Kernersville, American Wood Reface. Crispy, delicious and local perfection starts with Bossy Beulah's. For Triad native Jim Noble and the owner of another local favorite, Rooster's, that means local, all-natural chicken raised right here in the Carolinas. And a local recipe passed down from his great Aunt Beulah who taught him how to fry chicken. When you're ready for the freshest and best chicken sandwich, wings, hand-cut breaded Bossy Bites and fries in town, go see your neighbors and friends at Bossy Beulah's.

1500 West First Street in Winston-Salem or visit them online at bossybeulahs.com to place your catering order. What if, instead of choosing between a big bank or a small bank, you could choose one bank that's the best of both? That's First Horizon. With big bank reliability and small bank resolve, you get 160 years of financial strength and stability and an enduring commitment to personal service. When the best of big meets the best of small, you get it all. To help you on the road to your horizon. First Horizon Bank.

Visit firsthorizon.com slash get it all. In a world that moves a million miles a second, Haagen-Dazs invites you to slow down and savor every delicious bite. Take it one almond at a time with the Haagen-Dazs Vanilla Milk Chocolate Almond Bar. Madagascar vanilla, rich milk chocolate and toasted California almonds make this unmatched icon legendary. Whatever Dazs you savor, a snack bar or your favorite flavor, say goodbye to the fast life and hello to savoring the finest ingredients in the richest and creamiest ice cream.

That's Dazs, available at retailers nationwide. Oh no, stomach issues again? Stomach issues?

Who are you? You're pancreas. I could be the real reason for your diarrhea, gas bloating, stomach pain or loose oily stools. I thought it was my stomach.

People often do. But any of these symptoms could mean having a condition called Exocrine Pancreatic Insufficiency or EPI. With EPI, the pancreas doesn't release enough enzymes to break down food. But EPI is manageable.

Use the symptom checker on identifyepi.com and speak with your doctor. That's identifyepi.com. Sponsored by AbbVie.

You're on the drive with Josh Grail, WSJS. Saw this figure, $1.9 billion with a B. Bet on last night's Super Bowl. The first Super Bowl you could legally bet on in the state of North Carolina. So, let's dig into what exactly happened, how we fared on this show specifically in today's 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. We'll take it. 3-2 in the five bets we handed out officially for Super Bowl 59. That puts us, Will, at 85-71-1 for the season.

Send me that cash out, fam. I think that's the best year we've had. It's either the best or the second best. We've only had one losing season in seven football seasons handing out picks. A great start to sports betting being legal. In the state of North Carolina, 85-71-1. I hope many of you hashtag trust the process. Let's get to the wins.

They all happened in the first quarter or before the first quarter ended. Tails never fails, Will. Tails never fails. So, we had tails on the coin toss. Dallas got her over 18 and a half yards longest reception. Send me that cash out, fam. And Jalen Hurts anytime touchdown. All happened before the end of the first quarter. So, before we even got into the second frame, we already were guaranteed a winning record with our bets for Super Bowl 59.

Send me that cash out, fam. Then W.D. and I both got hosed on our big bets. W.D.

said he was going to do a parlay. Eagles win with Saquon Barkley to score a touchdown. The Eagles did the winning part. Saquon didn't score a touchdown. It's shades of Walter Payton in the Bears' Super Bowl win over New England, that 85 team. They scored a million against New England, and somehow Walter Payton didn't get into the end zone. Refrigerator Perry did. Sweetness didn't score a touchdown.

So, if you were to tell me, Will, we could go back in a time machine, and here's the information that you have. Final score, Eagles 40, Chiefs 22. I'm probably thinking Saquon scored two touchdowns at least, maybe three.

No question. With that game. No touchdowns and you scored 40? Just staggering.

And then I had an awful beat. So the big bet for me was a tease on where you can move the point spread or the total six points in whatever direction you please. So to be safe, I did Eagles plus seven and a half with the under moving up from 48 and a half to 54 and a half. And with three and a half minutes to go in the game, it's 40 to six. And I'm thinking, score. Let's just not have two touchdowns the rest of the way here. Let's not do that. And then you get the touchdown with the two-point conversion and we're right at the number of 54.

Okay. Chiefs get the ball back and they bring Kenny Pickett in and I'm thinking, oh, I'm a little bit stressed now. And then they douse Nick Sirianni before the two-minute warning. It's fourth and six. I'm like, are they going to punt the ball here? Oh, they're going for it. Oh, they're at midfield.

They don't get it. In the next play, the Chiefs throw a bomb to, I think it was Xavier Worthy, for a touchdown, and I'm thinking, oh, my gosh, that's just a horrific beat for yours truly. That was a tough one and the other loss we had.

Patrick Mahomes had an eight-yard rush but did not have a rush that exceeded 13 yards. So three and two on the game. Looking at tonight's W.D., two basketball games that a lot of people were going to have interest on. Clemson, North Carolina, the Tar Heels, they are five-and-a-half-point underdogs. I say, gimme. Send me that cash out, family. Gimme those five-and-a-half points.

Thank you very much. And you have Baylor at Houston tonight in college basketball. That should be pretty good. Jeremy Roach, Norchad O'Mear going to one of the best teams in America facing Kelvin Sampson's Houston Cougars that are ranked sixth in the country. But then in the NBA tonight, you have Luka Doncic's debut with the L.A. Lakers.

It's finally happening. Will Dalton, we're going to see Luka tonight. It's at 1030 and I'm looking at some of the Luka totals. Luka over under 27-and-a-half points. Luka Doncic over under seven-and-a-half rebounds. Luka Doncic over under seven-and-a-half assists. Luka Doncic over under three. Make it four over under three-and-a-half threes. That's what we're looking at tonight. If I had to look at any one of those seriously, I'd probably do over on points over 27-and-a-half or over on the assists. I think he'll probably be very much involved in the offense if it's over seven-and-a-half assists or over 27-and-a-half points for Luka tonight. There you go. I might get on some of that Luka action. I'm just telling you.

I could probably do it. Yeah. Give you a reason to stay up later tonight. That's right. And that's been Best Bets.

Again, 85-71-1. Nobody cares. Do you know what people do care about, though? Mrs. Haynes' Moravian cookies. That's a serious deal now when you get the tin of cookies from Mrs. Haynes. And why am I talking about Mrs. Haynes this particular week? Fellas.

Fellas. It's Valentine's Day on Friday. Valentine's Day. And a chance to get Mrs. Haynes heart-shaped Moravian cookies. So if you're looking for something that would be a nice accenting touch for the special person in your life, Mrs. Haynes' Moravian cookies heart-shaped.

Get them now before Valentine's Day on Friday. Speaking of the NBA, have you followed the Anthony Davis debacle? Yeah. Not surprised. So for those who don't know, the trade happens nine days ago.

Nine times. And yet, we have not seen Luka in a Laker uniform yet. Obviously. And we didn't see AD until Saturday at home for the Mavs. And this is after a couple of TNT games with Dallas were AD-less. He doesn't play till Saturday.

And guess what? In his debut, terrific. In 31 minutes, he had 26 points, 16 rebounds, and seven assists. But then he got hurt. Yep. You can't make this up.

There's the punchline. Anthony Davis got hurt. After returning from injury, he is out indefinitely. The NBA just can't get out of its own way. Now, it's hard to blame the NBA for guys getting hurt, but man, we're going to move all of the college basketball programming on Saturday? LeBron didn't even play in that Laker-Pacer game. LeBron didn't even play in it. But no, we're going to have that at four, rather than Florida and Auburn, which turned out to be a route. Didn't stop Auburn from still being ranked number one in the country.

We can get to that a little bit later. Moved Dick Vitale's return in the Duke game to 6.30, and they didn't even get to that game until about ten minutes into the first half because the NBA game was running long, because of course it was. Just brutal.

Just brutal. Hard to get excited about the NBA. Oh, Giannis, he's now injured as well. All I'll say is, welcome to the Anthony Davis experience, Mavericks fans.

Welcome. Coming from super Laker fan, W.D. I'm not a Laker fan.

Then why would you say something like welcome to the experience as if you're part of the experience? Well, because we follow these things, and we see what the Anthony Davis experience is. Laker fans follow that. Well, if you follow basketball, you know Anthony Davis is injury-prone. If you follow the Lakers very closely, you know that. Well, they're the Lakers.

Why wouldn't you take a look at it? Anyway. NBA basketball. Fired up. Josh Graham loves to talk sports. He also loves the way his new jeans highlight his man curves. Ooh, hot.

Oh, yeah, that's hot. You're on the drive with Josh Graham. Graham's grades, usually we recap a weekend of ACC basketball. We're making a special exception this time, though, where instead of recapping hoops, we're going to recap what we saw. In Super Bowl 59, a lot of different ways to hit it, so let's do that right now in 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. Josh Graham has the answers. What?

What? Time for Graham's Grades. Pretty simple. A, B, C, D, F. Did you have a good grade point average when you were in school? I was kind of a C student. Cs get degrees, brother.

Yeah. Azure College GPA. Like mid twos. It wasn't great. I was 3-2 or 3-4. Can't quite remember at East Carolina.

I don't think that surprises anybody in our audience. Let's get to the good from what we saw first. A, the Philadelphia Eagles defense. I wish, even though Jaywin Hertz was deserving, that they gave the MVP to Cooper DeGene on his birthday.

I wish they did that. He had the pick six. Somebody from that defense deserved to be recognized. Because the best stat from the game is that Philadelphia did not blitz one time on any of Patrick Mahomes 42 pass attempts. That is just the sixth time in Super Bowl history that a defense did not blitz since they were tracking this. And in all six instances, the team that did not blitz ended up winning the game.

When you can just get pressure with four, it changes the entire complexion of things. Philadelphia's defense ran rough shot and they've now created a template for how to beat Patrick Mahomes. Tampa Bay did the same thing with their front in that Super Bowl win. So if you want to figure out a way to beat these all-time quarterbacks, the Giants did so with Michael Strahan and Justin Tuck and Osiyu Umenyura. The Bucks and Eagles have beaten Mahomes badly by bolstering that front as well.

That's where you need to do it. B. The pregame music performances. For all the talk about Kendrick Lamar's halftime show, we need to give some love to Jon Batiste's national anthem, which went over by a second in some places when he sang the final line three times. They crushed me.

But there are other places I saw that it went under as well, so don't think there's anything nefarious in that happening. But the best, I love America the Beautiful. You add, this is what's great about America.

You want to distill what's awesome about America is the differences that we have and how you can come together to create something beautiful. And I knew who Trombone Shorty was because Trombone Shorty plays during Scott Van Pelt's Bet segment on ESPN when he's handing out winners. That's how a lot of people know who Trombone Shorty is and playing some horns, New Orleans, okay, you got the flavor.

Lauren Daigle is a gospel singer, sings Christian music, and one of the biggest Christian music singers there is. Never on in any world would I picture those two performing together. But they did, and it was tremendous. America the Beautiful, one of the best renditions I've ever heard of America the Beautiful for the Super Bowl. And the way they opened the broadcast with Lady Gaga performing at the heart of Bourbon Street in honor of those who lost their lives on New Year's Day and Tom Brady's wearing the L.A. Fire Department shirt. I thought the pregame music performances, they entered the broadcast with the Southern University band that's out there and got a lot of soul music.

It's just fantastic. I thought the music performances were great across the board. C. Super Bowl commercials. People ask me this, what did you think of the commercials? They weren't bad, but they weren't great either.

There were a lot of good. What was your favorite one? Probably the one with Shane Gillis. So Shane was with Post Malone. It's a Bud Light commercial. And then you got Peyton Manning showing up.

And it ends with Shane Gillis yelling about his HOA. That's pretty good. That's funny. There were a lot of good.

Nothing really great. I think about the When Harry Met Sally reunion with Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan, where she's recreating the scene in the deli and it's because she had Hellmans. And then you get Sydney Sweeney saying, I'll have what she's having.

That's pretty good. I really liked Catherine O'Hara and William Defoe, the Mick Ultra commercial, where they're hustling people in pickleball. I enjoyed that a great deal.

The McConaughey football conspiracy, that's been like a season-long thing. I like that one. Where you got Kevin Bacon repeating the same line twice. Everybody loves bacon.

It's pretty good. A lot of cameos in that particular commercial. Omaha Steaks. Omaha Steaks. What should we name them, Bill? What should we name them?

What should we name them? Like I said, there were a lot that I liked. If you want like Ernest, Harrison Ford's two-minute commercial, the Jeep commercial. That was a fan. That was pretty good. I didn't like Seal as a seal.

You didn't? I don't like that one at all. I think that one missed the mark. There was a weird one where I think the argument was that women could play football as well as men. That was weird. I forget what that was. There was a Nike one that was saying, women can't win to win anyway.

I'm like, okay, that's what we're doing here, I guess. So some fell short. Some didn't meet the mark.

I thought there were a lot of really good commercials. I really did. Was there anything else that I had written down? Let me see.

Unless you could think of anything else. No, we pretty much hit it. Oh, Bill Belichick and his girlfriend appearing in the Affleck-Duncan commercial. Yeah, very early on that one. That one was one that stood out as well. David Beckham meeting his brother, Dave Beckham, played by Matt Damon. That was a Stella commercial. So yeah, a lot of good, no great. D. That was a very comprehensive recap of the Super Bowl commercials.

I'm impressed with myself. It was a rough night for the officiating conspiracy theorists. I love how they shifted. Many of those same people were like, oh, it got so bad that they had to then call flags on Kansas City so that way they completely covered up their conspiracy to make it seem like they already got what they wanted. They just needed the Chiefs in the game. They didn't need the Chiefs. It got stupid. Because the first drive they called the OPI that took back that catch by A.J.

Brown. I didn't think it was the right call. Tom Brady didn't. But clearly, like Mike Pereira said, I can see it because it was contact to the face. And it looked like in real time that he grabbed the dude's face mask. It was pretty close. So again, I didn't love the call, but it wasn't horrific.

Oh, here we go again. The Chiefs getting all the calls. And then there's a third down that Dallas Goddard got an interference call that I didn't think was a call. There were several against the Chiefs that didn't look great. So a rough night for the officiating conspiracy folks. F. This could only be one thing. Fox's scoreboard graphic.

Dude, what was that? We got to do something different. With no logos? No logos. Just P.H.I.

and K.C. Like, it's 1995. Like, what was the thinking?

But it's big letter. Let's go simple. Let's just go simple.

Sometimes simple is good. That wasn't one of them. No, it's still it was simple yet. It still took up way too much space.

It was the worst score bug graphic that I've ever seen. Ever. That might sound like a stretch, but I don't think it is, actually. I don't think so.

No. The NBA tonight. The Charwood Hornets.

They're at the Brooklyn Nets. LaMelo Ball. He is in the news again. Passed over for the All-Star game a third time. Many thought that he should have been an All-Star starter. And then he wasn't. And then the coaches picked the reserves and then he was picked over. OK. You're not an All-Star again.

Great. And then Giannis gets hurt. And they need an injury replacement for Giannis. So they give Trae Young a call rather than LaMelo Ball. Which is unfortunate because, again, LaMelo returns to the lineup against the Spurs. It's a great game. LaMelo drives, kicks it out the bridges in the corner, hits that big shot. He's an incredible player.

Deserves more love than what he gets, sadly. And then you get Luka Doncic's NBA day...not NBA... Lakers debut tonight in Los Angeles against the awful Jazz. ESPN didn't get its 4 o'clock Saturday window, which would have done a monster rating. So instead, hey, let's stay up and watch the Lakers play a terrible Jazz team on ESPN. Let's stay up to 10-30. Let's do that. Fire it up. Fire it up. Where's Gruden? Fire.

Let's get him in here. Fire. There's a clip that I just retweeted on my social media feed on X where Gruden, he never was able to do one of those quarterback camps with Bryce Young. So we got the closest thing to it where John Gruden, this is what makes him great, man.

Fire. He loves coaching so much. He loves football so much.

So the things that get him mad are a lot different than the things that could potentially get you mad. And the crux of the entire clip is... This is my best Gruden impression. Bear with me.

Bryce, I'll tell you what, man. You take a shotgun snap with your right foot back every single time and it drives me freaking crazy, man. Drives me crazy. You just touch your toes and show me your flexibility. That really is it. I'm not exaggerating all that much. Where he's like grabbing his hair and it drives me completely mad. That's like you're throwing a bomb. That your foot is back when you catch your shotgun snap. And then it's him and Bryce just going back and forth and it's really good stuff.