Light it Red

Griffin Cunningham 0:10
Welcome back to Light it Red.

We wanted to get one last recording in before Thanksgiving break. So if you need to listen to something on the on the in the car on the way to somewhere, you need to not listen to your family or something you can maybe listen to us. I think that would be a good option

Stone Boylan 0:30
I do too. See my family would listen to this when I'm in the car with them and it's going to really suck so I yeah, not excited. But whatever

Griffin Cunningham 0:39
I know that I think let's get to that'll be fun. I've done that before you have Yeah, we went to we went to Florida last year. And for Taylor Swift concert, of course. And we listened to the episode. made fun of but all good fun, right? You got where you're going for Thanksgiving,

Stone Boylan 0:55
Virginia. Going up there. I was actually just up there. We'll get into the game later. I went to go see tech or state.

Kind of like the little birthday gift thing because I'm stupid. My birthday is not in December. I thought you said December last episode. It's November 14. So that already passed. But uh, yeah, your's December. Mine's not right. And then we're just coming back down here. I have two days of school, which is stupid, but whatever. And then I go back up on Wednesday. So Right. Hopefully I don't need to listen to my voice. You know, you know, they say about Virginia. Right? What Virginia is for lovers it is yeah, you take you have a lover. I'm taking her to Virginia. Yeah, I'm bringing my lover from Carolina to Virginia. Nice. So it's like a shield. It blocks all the lovers in Virginia, word. I have a lot of stories from there. There are a lot of lovers out there. They're kind of cool. Some of them were douches, but whatever. We'll we'll get it. Yeah, for real. Okay. Am not kidding? Okay, well, we'll get we'll get into that in a bit.

Griffin Cunningham 1:54
Um we have some important things that we need to talk about today. That mainly being that our cross country team won its third national championship. Repeat!

Which is crazy, because that that level of dominance in really any sport, any any sport at all, yeah, awesome. It needs to be recognized. And then from there, you know, we have a couple of things on a couple of sports. But we really want to talk about our women's basketball team beating UConn that happened last week, but we didn't record last week. So we have an opportunity to talk about it now. And it still is relevant because it propelled NC State into the top 25. A people

Stone Boylan 2:42
Which to be honest, it probably should have been in the beginning. Like it was a little on the edge of whether they would or not. And I'm glad they won because they definitely proved that case. And now they're up in the top 10. So that's that's an awesome start for them.

Griffin Cunningham 2:58
Are they top 10 now? Yeah, last time I checked there were 10 Because they beat Rhode Island. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. Um, yeah. I don't know if you watched them at the end of last season, but I don't think they deserve to be top 25 Until that game, I think that was that was definitely like, that was crazy. Because they ended last season. Like, just not playing good basketball. So with some personnel shake up and they got some of the scrubs out of the lineup. Now they're, I think they're good. So sure.

Stone Boylan 3:27
Which I mean, it's all just prediction based anyways, right in the beginning, so yeah, and

Griffin Cunningham 3:33
we'll round out the episode with we'll talk about these. These last two road wins for football as we head into our big game, our final game of the season regular season against Carolina, which is going to be a huge huge rivalry game this week. Big ACC kinda mean we're not playing for ACC title or, like, you know, appearance in the title game, but which sucks, but it's for you know, bowl standing stuff like that. So it'll, it'll be cool. It'll be cool. It's we have some some good notes on that. And Stone actually was at the Virginia Tech game. So he'll kind of lead that one and I was at the UConn game so we

Stone Boylan 4:17
which one was more impactful?

Griffin Cunningham 4:19
Virginia Tech or UConn? Yeah.

Stone Boylan 4:20
Which one do you think beating a five and four Virginia Tech team were beating a number two ranked UConn team

Griffin Cunningham 4:26
Yeah, I can. I can walk you through the atmosphere of the UConn game. Awesome. Oh my gosh, it was it was deafening. It really was. So glad I got to be there. That's like a once in a lifetime thing I think to see. And it's credit to UConn to because it wouldn't it wouldn't be anything without you know, their. Their program. Yeah, they they built that matchup up for us. They made it exciting. So yeah, but before we get into that, let's talk about cross country first because they just won a national title. We were not there because it was out of state. I think it wasn't it was in Virginia was in Charlottesville. Oh, okay. Yeah. So you could have been there. But yeah, I chose not to. Yep. So you're kind of the worst for that human ever.

Stone Boylan 5:17
I'm sorry. I do apologize.

Griffin Cunningham 5:18
Because it I mean, it looks like it was a pretty, pretty major story like, like, obviously, they win the title. But they've won two in a row. Like, let's paint the picture. So they won two in a row. They've been good all season, cross country. It's, it's a little hard to track because they have so few meets. And so they're reserving, like certain athletes for specific meets, like one big meet. So for me, this is kind of my first year really keeping tabs on it. And I did have a hard time figuring out who's going to run in what, but I knew that like Tuohy was going to run. Yeah, yeah, for the ACC title, whatever meat and the NCAA title in the championship, and that was accurate. But apparently, she was sick. She was sick in the NCAA championship. She had something I don't know what it was. Well, tell me tell me a cold. I don't know.

Stone Boylan 6:23
But she had something. And it was our best runner. Probably ever, and we still ended up winning the whole entire thing, right.

Griffin Cunningham 6:32
Well, last year, she actually won the individual championship for the women. She finished first. And she beat out. Parker Valbe from Florida. So she ValB. It was kind of like a rematch like it was like Lightning Lightning McQueen versus like, who's the Who's the other

Stone Boylan 6:55
Dude I can't remember it either. It's the green guy, right? Is it a mustache? It's not dynaco?

Griffin Cunningham 7:02
Is he the antagonist of cars? Yeah, I'm pretty sure is it? Really I feel like cars is more of a redemption story of, I guess, Lightning McQueen? who maybe isn't? Well, then you use the reference. Yeah, maybe it's like the analogy like Ricky Bobby versus whoever Sacha Baron Cohen plays in Talladega Nights, you know,

Dude I have no clue.

You don't know Talladega Nights. I mean, I've heard of it. Do you? But you don't watch NASCAR.

Stone Boylan 7:31
I'm a little. I'm not the greatest NASCAR enthusiast. Yeah, in the world.

Griffin Cunningham 7:39
So you should watch Talladega Nights. It's funny. Okay. Will Ferrell movie.

Stone Boylan 7:43
Oh my god. I

love Will Ferrell. Yeah. Okay. Haven't seen Oh,

watch it then. Oh, no, no, she's talking about so bad movie names. No. Yes. Yes. No, no shot. Yeah. Ricky Bobby is have not seen the full movie. But I know exactly what your talking about

Yeah. Well, anyhow, sorry, back to

I'm really bad with really bad names of movies and shows.

Griffin Cunningham 8:02
It was it was a I don't know if they know each other personally. But that would be like a cool little movie video or something. If they if they like were actually like, bitter enemies. And they like had to read each other. But that would be that would suck for us. Because Parker Valbe one that won the whole thing. So

Stone Boylan 8:21
But it's okay, because we won the team thing. And she didn't. Ironically, like we've said she didn't necessarily dominate the whole game. It was seemingly or the whole race was seemingly up and down the game. I say game the whole race,

Griffin Cunningham 8:32
right? Yeah, what I'm seeing is that she kind of jumped around a little bit like she fell back to 11th, like three kilometers through, and then got all the way back up to fifth. So she finished fifth. But she probably would have finished higher than that if she hadn't been under the weather. So that left the door open for that Florida runner to claim the first spot. But in terms of the team, this is a team sport. And we have a lot of great athletes on this cross country team. And NC State edged out Northern Arizona by one point. Now, I will say I have no clue how the point system works

Stone Boylan 9:15
where it's got to be on placing I assume, you know, I It's my guess. That's a good guess you get points for placement and obviously whoever has better placements wins, but there may be some sort of multiplier maybe or some sort of, like, you know, higher for getting like in the top five or 10 maybe compared to like in the 20s I don't know. But you know, all that matters is that we ended up barely squeezing it out

Griffin Cunningham 9:41
Yeah, it was it was a one point win. So sounds like a pretty close margin to me. I'm really, I wish I knew someone's gonna have to someone's gonna have to let us know. Yeah, but it was 124 to 123. So Tuohy was our best finisher but then Amaris I guess I don't even Tyynismaa, I think maybe have you pronounce that a great. She She finished behind Tuohy in 25th place. So that helped the team because a lot of I mean, if you if you comb through the the results, a lot of them are from different schools in the top 20. So that's that's why the team took on the title and Kelsey Chimel finished third last year, she didn't run in this one due to injury. So I think that just goes to show how resilient the team is and how dynamic and how many options they have. As far as runners go,

Stone Boylan 10:43
yeah so for sure, I mean not being able to; still winning when your top player is not feeling well, when your top three players didn't even run, like and still winning at all. That's I think that shows that even after this year, we're probably still going to end up having some sort of dominance, even if you know Tuohy in present. Yep, seems like it's pretty good. Yeah. Let's see, I same for our volleyball team. We in the last episode, we're obviously hoping we had like around four games left before the tournament started. And we're like, hey, maybe we could go three in one. Ideally, we were kind of up and down five and five. And our last 10 Something we brought up last episode. And we did exactly that. We won four in a row versus Boston College, we got our revenge, and we beat Virginia Tech, Clemson and Syracuse all wins. It is the first 20 win season under the coach and that is since 2017. So definitely the best season in recent years. We've obviously brought up a lot of stuff with volleyball, and the players on the team and how the team is doing. I think this is awesome that they finished, you know, with this great start, and hopefully the momentum can carry on to the ACC Tournament that's coming up soon.

Griffin Cunningham 11:58
Yeah. The I think the bracket gets announced for that right after. I mean, the season wraps up on Wednesday against Virginia on the road. And then I think it's just a bracket of 64. Like I don't I don't know, oh, do they not have conference tournaments? There might there might be but when I talked to their assistant coach, he was more focused on the tournament bracket. So maybe their places solidified and maybe the ACC Yeah, it will they have one more matchup left

Stone Boylan 12:30
like, obviously the ACC. Like, I assume it won't. I don't think it'll change

Griffin Cunningham 12:34
it shouldn't they need to win it they need to they I think he thinks they're going to be in in the in the pool of 64 I would hope so. Which hasn't happened in a while. So that's something that we need to keep our eye on when they announced that. transitioning away from that. We we definitely need to talk about the UComm game. So yeah, I had the privilege of going and I mean it was just I everyone was like yeah, we're gonna loose really that no one had confidence at all. No. And I I feel like I was a part of that. I was like, in a way we're gonna host what's their coach's name is like it's I don't know he's he's UComms coach yet he we got to talk to him and Paige Becker's after the game.

Stone Boylan 13:27
Ah Geno Geno Auriemma.

Griffin Cunningham 13:31
Yeah, he's, he's like, seems really cool. He's a big part of their dynasty and I probably shouldn't know his name off the top of my head. But yeah, he had a lot of good things to say postgame and it was cool to talk to them. But um, you I mean, we know that Paige Becker's is an all American and with Becker's they had fun and Edwards, Edwards had 23 and nine in their season opener. Mind you this was the only only the second game of the season. So when I was looking at the stat sheet, I saw that Becker's played the least minutes of all of the UConn starters in the season opener, and she was also the only starter to not score in double figures. So I like I wasn't sure like, because I know she's been injured often in college, but when she's not injured, she's elite. So I I wasn't really sure what Paige we were gonna get if we're gonna get like, minute restriction Paige or like baller Paige, and I would say, I would say Paige to her credit, balled out in the in the final minutes of the game when it didn't matter. She she she was taken every shot in the fourth quarter with like four minutes left Um, but Paige was not the best player on the floor in this matchup. It was Saniya Rivers. Yeah, it was rivers, rivers. She, you know, she's from the same. She's from Wilmington, just like Michael Jordan. She went to the same high school as Michael Jordan.

Well, she's our Michael Jordan.

She looked like Michael Jordan. She looked like Michael Jordan in that game. She did. I was so impressed. I, she got everything. She led our team in all statistical categories,

Stone Boylan 15:32
right. Like she got done. She got a double double as well.

Griffin Cunningham 15:35
Steals blocks, assists rebounds points, all one guard. She did it all. And I think she hit she hit a career high. In a couple of those categories, I think it was assists. Because she's, I mean, last season, she didn't, she didn't pass it. Like that, like she's not I mean, she, she kind of became the point like the de facto point guard, because Diamond Johnson was out a lot. And so they relied on her to dish the ball out. And she mean, that's not her natural position. She's like a lanky, like wing player. But when she was playing point guard, she was moving the ball efficiently, efficiently. She, you know, is one of the more athletic players. Like, regardless of what team they're gonna play. And I think the biggest thing was just hitting jump shots. Like, I've watched a good amount of women's basketball, and no hate at all. But I don't see college college, I don't watch the WNBA a lot. But I just haven't seen especially with NC State, a player go out and just hit jump shots at like, wherever on the floor. And to see Saniya Rivers and Paige just kind of shoot whatever they want. And Paige was actually finishing more at the rim Saniya was the one hitting all the hit and jump shots at the elbow. Like just pulling up shooting. She hit a couple of threes. Like she couldn't hit threes last season, she could not shoot,

Stone Boylan 17:20
which that was the question going into the year was okay, she's like, clearly good and you would definitely echo this as well. It's like, but she shoots like Russell Westbrook like this, you know, it's not really which Westbrook's a good player. But if you don't have other shooters around her, then there's going to be an issue which there wasn't a high majority of good shooters on NCSU team around her. So that's why we're concerned. But she, since her turning that around, she's absolutely solidified herself as one of the best players in college basketball, especially just one person elevating the entire team into being into the top 10 after not being ranked at all and obviously beating UConn, who I mean if you're living under a rock, at least with women's college basketball, they've been a dynasty for years, years upon years, the last time we beat them was like in 1998. We lost the last six matchups first, then going back to 2000 2001. Obviously, we didn't play them every single year, but still even back then maybe a little bit sooner that we're still a dominating team. So this is easily the best win we've had in a good while and hopefully they can continue it. Because they do end up playing number three Colorado, I'd say that's probably the next big game that's at home on the 25th of November. So hopefully we can carry our momentum and potentially win that home game as well.

Griffin Cunningham 18:31
And Colorado is the team that beat LSU Yes, and they won the national championship last year

Stone Boylan 18:52
And LSU is falling off a little bit. They have some issues with Angel Reese apparently not being there right now. But the I know their team is obviously still very good.

Griffin Cunningham 19:02
Yeah. I just really quickly wanted to mention the the River statline. She played 38 minutes, scored 33 points, had 10 rebounds, five assists, three steals three blocks. So if you play fantasy basketball, that's a monster line. That's a monster line. So I I saw that. And I mean, you It looked like she was doing that too. It wasn't a quiet 33 Like she was shooting, shooting efficiently. Right. And it was to the point where I wasn't even. I wasn't even paying attention to other players on the team. Like that's literally my job is to like analyze the game

game the game but and I was just so drawn into the performance.

I really was she looked like one of the best basketball players I've ever seen. Men or women. So

Stone Boylan 19:49
Which if you compare the two teams that you could definitely say that she would be especially with her, like comparing them in each sport. Definitely awesome for that. So that's for Good now, men's basketball, they have kind of not, I mean, they haven't really played any good teams. So we can't really give a definitive answer as to if they've been very good or not. But they've done what they're supposed to do. And they've been crushing these lesser teams, that's very good. Scoring 80 over 80 points in their last two games, winning by a margin of at least 20 in both of them, there has not really been a lot of complaints. To be honest, I think both of them have clearly looked very good in terms of all the teams and players, from men and women men, especially with just how balanced they've been. Because like we said, we were trying to find some sort of star. And it seems like a different guys is merging each game, with the consistent one being DJ Burns, which is very good. Because if you can consistently get you double doubles, or not even double doubles, but like close to 20 points, and just be a guy who's not fauling out in the paint. That is a very good recipe for success. So we can't we just don't have a ton of in depth analysis on it, because we want to wait until they actually play, you know, relevant opponents, which I would say that's their next game, as it's against an SCC school. It's just it's probably the worst SCC school like one of the worst and Vanderbilt. They haven't really done anything. It's at Vanderbilt Vanderbilt,

Griffin Cunningham 21:19
Remember when Hallie was on here. And she said, she said what are you going to wear it? Vander belt?

Stone Boylan 21:25
Did I say Vanderbilt? And she said

Griffin Cunningham 21:27
no, it wasn't you? It was? it was the other person?

Stone Boylan 21:30
Yeah, Yes. Because I definitely forget the the name like when I was a kid I used to pronounce like Ole Miss. I said Ollie miss when I was a kid. So he's for now, or providing or I would say what provide instead of Providence, Providence? Yeah, I would say provide instead when I was a kid. Little dumb kid, dumb analyst kid but I knew what I was talking about. Just didn't know the team name. But we play at Vanderbilt. And then, as we just mentioned, we're also at Ole Miss, which Ole Miss is, I would say worse than us, but still not as bad as Vanderbilt. So that's definitely going to be a game. And then Boston College. And after that. Our next biggest one is Delphi, Tennessee, which Tennessee is playing like a top three team right now. 100%. So that'll be a telling game is kind of a long shot. A long shot that we win that, but I think we could at least see what we look like against you know, top seeds. Because if we make the tournament, like we're hoping to as a 10,11 seed, maybe even nine. Those are the kinds of teams in the second round if we win the first round that we're gonna have to face. So we'll get into that after the break, but or the winter break, but there's just what I there's not a lot of stuff to go over verse Charleston, Southern or ACU like, what like from what NC State has won? Like we need Charleston Southern ACU.

Griffin Cunningham 22:59
Oh, Abilene Christian. Yeah, it's like, what is it? Yeah.

Stone Boylan 23:01
So yeah, whatever. But we'll get we'll get there later. Hopefully we win some games. And then we can end it off with football, which has definitely, I would say, rose in terms of people's popularity, their popularity in terms of people's interest on campus. Because we did an episode, I believe it was with Ethan when he was here. And it was after the Duke game. And it was just like, there's no hope. Like, we were very disappointed, I sure was at least speaking for myself. And there needed to be some sort of major flip for them to even want to obviously, they were on pace to reach a bowl game, but it would have been a low bowl game. And they're not gonna really reach more than like eight wins, I'd say like seven or six was what were they were looking at. And as we mentioned, last episode, they've just been killing it and have been on an amazing run the two games at home that we won, versus I believe is Miami. And Clemson was the other team. Yep. And we went on these two road games and did the same exact thing. So that is extremely, extremely, extremely satisfying. And it makes me feel so much better about the team itself, because road was kind of what I was worried about. And for them to go out there and not really have a question in either of those games is huge. At least, you know, analyzing both of them. There's not I don't want to like do this super in depth thing just because it's kind of just it was kind of like the Wake Forest game was literal domination. There's not much. We had 100 we had 268 rushing yards and they had seven. Like that's absurd. The Wake Forest game where we went 26 to six wasn't even a game at all. And then tech, the one I went to was a little bit closer score wise, but in general, the game was never really in doubt, especially if you watched it like I think Griffin, you said you stopped after the fourth quarter because a lot of people did because it was over. Like we pretty much won. They just scored in the last second and tried to get an onside kick. And it didn't, didn't work. The experience there though, I would say just from a like stadium and just go in there perspective, not really analyzing the game. It was really cool. I know. People say Tech has like a really good environment. And it's like, pretty crazy. Sometimes when they're there. I know Sam Howell had said something about it when he was asked about some of the best atmospheres that he's been in. And when he was at UNC playing at Tech, they were definitely definitely pretty crazy there. I would say that was the case for this game, like the intro at least, was electric. All the people that were pretty nice. Those this one douchey was in front of me with his wife, who's this old guy, and he would like, Get mad or whatever. If you'd say something after a play. I'm like, well, it's not my fault. Your team is shit, dude. Like, I don't know what to tell you. Like, why are you getting pissed at me? Because I know what, like hell I'm talking about like I don't. And then you left him and his wife left or whatever, like after the third quarter. And when he got up. He poured his beer on a random girl in front of them. And my, my mom like flipped him off when he left. She didn't even do anything. The girl in front, she did nothing. She was a tech fan as well. Oh, he's just pissed. I don't know. It was it? Just a dipshit so I'm, I hate him. I hope hope he trips. When he left us. We got a bruise he if he's listening, he's not listening. But people who were there with me. They know he was he was the worst. Yeah, but everyone else was really nice. You know, they weren't like Cowboys fans or Eagles fans like after games or whatever. They were really they're really chill. And yeah, I mean, maybe I say that because my family is also but even the people we didn't always just sit with my family. There were separate tickets that we all got, like my aunt and uncle got separate seats, and my cousin's got separate seats. And then my mom and dad and brother did as well. But the fans around were pretty cool. But then the game itself. I think, you know, if you want you can go into some of the stuff you saw, but I it's pretty much similar to what you had wrote down. And that was Concepcion, Raphael, and Armstrong. You said those were kind of the guys that you saw that kind of stuck out for you in this game?

Griffin Cunningham 27:36
Yeah. I mean, it's been. It's been clicking. And I think Michael Allen was out this game. So they were relying more on Kendrick Raphael, but we've seen big things from Raphael the past three weeks. And I was really excited about him before the season even started. I thought you know, this, this is a freshman running back who, you know, could take on a big role. And that's, you know, that's been the case. And I think even if Michael Allen is healthy, I think Kendrick Raphael still needs to get at least 10 touches a game because he's proved to be kind of a an explosive back everything that you want out of a running back. And as far as KC Concepcion I, I mean, he's the best he's, he's, uh, he's,

Stone Boylan 28:26
he's very, you know, like, what am I doing? We're

Griffin Cunningham 28:28
on the field, and he's gonna produce, you can GamePlan for him, which I'm sure teams are doing this thing. Okay. There's number 10. On the field. Right, I was watching the broadcast. And we're like, all you need to do is look at 10 on offense and 11 on defense. Yeah, that's it, Payton Wilson and KC Concepcion. And then they both still produce Yeah, like, so. I don't know what I mean. Obviously, it's a team sport. But those are by far the two best players that we have. They just happen to be on opposite sides of the ball. And I think it's really cool that KC is a freshman because he you know, he's going to be around for a while, fingers crossed, hopefully. But he looks to me like an NFL level receiver just because of how dynamic he is, and how well he does in space. He's got that next level speed. It's just I think, early in the season. They didn't they didn't realize his his potential until I think once once Armstrong was benched exactly had to rely more on him. Exactly. Now, I point with Armstrong back in the lineup, it's like okay, so we can still rely on KC while, utilizing Brennan strengths

Stone Boylan 29:39
100%. We had talked about it before the podcast about the Armstrong thing, which obviously if you listen to previous episodes, I was not in favor of the benching other people were. And obviously it turns out now that Armstrong was definitely a better quarterback than MJ, which was mostly my point is that I just didn't see a difference and I thought Armstrong was better for the offense in general. because he provided so much more with his legs like so much more. And it's so obvious in these last two games like if you, like you said, you can know what's happening and they're still producing, that's an NFL level player. So at least on defense, which defense I don't even have a lot to say, because it's been the same thing. It always has been. It's been very elite, especially for ACC, and the players haven't really fallen off. The only thing is the secondary is a case sometimes they're good, sometimes they're bad. But the front seven is as consistent as it gets. And Payton Wilson, I'm very excited to say I covered him and that we covered him, we're able to watch him when he is putting on an NFL jersey and playing on Sundays, because he's a total stud. And as you said, KC is, I think, easily the best freshman, not only in the ACC one of the best freshman's in the entire country, because no one else is producing like he is, and no other teams are saying, Hey, we know this guy is getting the ball, but we still can't stop it. And I think the turnaround and the credit needs to go to Robert Anae and Dave Doeren because they at least with Dave Doeren specifically just talking about him after that Duke game, like it was not bad to say, hey, we this is what we're projecting for the season. Like if you want to save people thinking about you're going to be fired, you need to change it. And he 100% did. And it worked. And I think him and Robert Anae clearly had talks and Robert Anae has done an awesome job doing exactly what I wanted him to do. And that's utilizing more motion, because motion creates these different plays that defense doesn't understand is coming. And they like I think the past two games are a perfect example of them taking, hey, this is what Brennan is good at. And we knew this beforehand, before he was benched that he can run the ball. And he's not a bad thrower. Like he can get you these occasional down the middle throws, sometimes on the outside on the numbers, deep throws, he doesn't hit all those and he didn't in the past two games, especially against tech. He missed a few throws that were outside the numbers that he needed to get. But what he does do well is run the ball, even when you know he's gonna run. He's still somehow it gets like seven yards, and down Oh, cross across the middle, he can still throw that. And KC is an amazing playmaker. And they weren't using him in motion beforehand. And when they benched Armstrong and brought in MJ, they're like, Okay, we need to, as you said, find different ways to do the offense. And it was through KC, and I guess to the defensive, of Anae, you know, we had said before the season started, we wanted to know who was going to step up. Again, the receiver position we didn't we started was Rozner. Other guys, we didn't really know, KC was right there, but he wasn't as consistent. And suddenly throughout the year, he's been way more consistent. And he's been getting the ball way more and has produced, like, tenfold. I mean, it's amazing. Even when MJ was starting, it was obvious that KC was clearly the leader of the offense, because he would get a quick, you know, screen and KC would just take it like 60 yards to the house. And that's technically a pass. And like I said, that's not anything that MJ is doing. It's KC doing it. So I love how they're combining more use of motion. And KC getting the ball more, plus Brennan being able to run, and it's made the offense peak, which the defense is staying the same. And it is a perfect combination, going into the final game of the year against UNC the biggest rival who is on the decline. They have lost, like some games that they should not have lost in general, like they lost at home to Virginia. They lost at Georgia Tech. Both of these teams are definitely some of the worst ones in the ACC I would say Virginia, and has been playing much better as of late but the record still, it's it's what it is what it is like they're not looking at a bowl game at all. And neither is tech. And the fact that you lose those two games is not great. And then I think just not trying to be like recency bias, but with NC State, with the Clemson game being after the Duke game when we kind of were like okay, this is what we're trying to figure out with our offense using KC more winning that game against Clemson by seven versus UNC losing to Clemson by 11 as their last game, I mean, I think that kind of shows that hey, we you should absolutely be thinking hey, we have a total chance of winning this game. I'm like I'm a better I like betting. I think NC State is underdogs. I would totally take that not just being like an NC State bias and I try not to be biased on the podcast. I try and do a lot of due diligence and stuff and not just hey, when they're good, I'd say this and when they're bad I ignore this like, you know, I I have my opinions. And I try and stick with them, no matter the face of the team. But I think these two teams are going in completely different directions. And it's at state. And I think the biggest difference is going to have to be the fans, because we need to make this place electric and insane. And the one of the craziest environments in college football, for us to get even more of an edge in order to beat this Carolina team, because Carolina is one of the most volatile teams in the entire ACC, their offense is amazing, but their defense is horrendous. And they're also the second most penalized team in terms of penalty yards in the ACC. So I think if we can stick with what we're doing, but like you said, I do like how you brought up Raphael because I think we need to use them a little bit more. He did get 10 touches in the Tech game, eight rushes and two receptions. But I think if we can use him a little bit more, just because when you were watching the Virginia Tech game, it was like, Okay, well, it's either gonna be an Armstrong run, or KC sweep, and he's gonna get it. And they did a great job of mixing in, hey, Armstrong can throw down the middle, or, Hey, if you didn't watch KC threw a touchdown because they did the screen. They're like, Oh, go get him because he's just been doing motion the whole time and through it because the defense was not ready. Perfect play calling if we can keep up this play calling the defense states how it is because you're not going to be like you're not going to stop UNC, but you can limit them. So we can limit you and see and continue doing what I've been doing on offense holding the ball. We'd like the second longest time of possession and the whole ACC, keep the ball limit the chances the offense has for UNC. I definitely think we can win this game.

Griffin Cunningham 36:37
I couldn't have said it better myself. I think the way you broke down what they're doing with the offense is accurate. And I think going back to fan bases, I have a little story about a UNC fan. Oh, um, so I went to go get I went to my dentist appointment two weeks ago, this was the Friday before the Wake Forest game. And my, my dentist graduated from UNC. And like, I was talking with my like hygienist about where I go to school and like relationships, and we're just chatting it up. And so she told my dentist that like everything about me. I I'm not sure why. I thought it was confidential. But he comes in and he's like, so you go to NC State. I was like, yep. And he was like, Oh, I went to Carolina and I was like, nice. He's like, Yeah, you guys are, you know, keep your eye on that Wake Forest team. Cuz, you know, you guys might not, you know, might not win. And I was like, okay, all right, buddy. And then he he goes and cleans my teeth. Now he wasn't he wasn't supposed to clean my teeth. And he just like he's not the hygienist. He's supposed to check for cavities, no cavities, by the way. I have good perfect teeth. Nice. But he was like hurting me. You know what, he's also incorrect. He was dominated well, but more importantly, he took his little metal tools. And he was like, Oh, he was like messing with me being like, he's being aggressive. Really hard. He's being aggressive in my mouth

Stone Boylan 38:07
Because you were in NC State. Wow.

Griffin Cunningham 38:09
I think so. Wow. I don't know. I didn't like his attitude. I think he was being mean to me.

Stone Boylan 38:12
I think he was well, he's been mean to me. Obviously, that doesn't encompass all UNC fans it does. But let's say just for motivation of the game. Everyone just think that that's the UNC fans, they probably already do. I'm a little more tame, but everyone else is which is probably better for them to not be more tame because then they can channel that aggression in the in the game. But again, like if we want to win this game, I think the biggest thing, obviously is gonna be the play calling in our offense, but it's home. Like, we got to make sure it's home field advantage. Not like the frickin Carolina Panthers. My stupid team who plays the Dallas Cowboys and it's half Cowboys fan, it's probably more Cowboys fans and there are Panthers fans. It's got to be all out. They can't hear anything. And make Drake mais life hell, because he's not going to necessarily losing the game. We're gonna have to take it. And hopefully we do that. And obviously we'll have analysis of it because it also gives us a better bowl game. Like, well, we would have we have I think you'd mentioned you know, we won't make the ACC tournament or I mean the ACC championship game, which sucks because if we beat Louisville in that home game that was like the worst game we had, because we had 10 points, the 13th and we had missed field goals and all this other BS, but it's whatever and then Brennan threw it. Yeah, like, he wasn't great. He had a bad throw. But like that offensive line was horrendous. The running game was horrendous. We didn't use anyone. We had one receiver that caught like, more than like a 20 yard pass. Everything was bad except the defense but if we can win this game this gets us like a very good bowl game, which I think only helps promote your program in the eyes of the public and maybe get you more recruits. And if they can obviously win that game that'd be huge because be a 10 win season. So winning this game is not Just because it's a rivalry game, it's big because it propels us even higher in chances of getting better recruits because the resume for David Doeren is so much better. So hopefully they can do that.

Griffin Cunningham 40:10
I'm correct me if I'm wrong, but I think a 10 win season would be the best. It would be crazy.

Stone Boylan 40:16
Well, because they've won eight games like the past five years. With all these other elite programs, they just aren't looked at the same because they don't finish or they don't elevate the like Clemson's on there. Yeah. Well, Clemson has won a national title you know, Notre Dame's on their Notre Dame has been to the college football playoff, Oklahoma's on their Oklahoma been to the college football playoff, we haven't even been close to that, let alone winning the ACC. So that's why we need to finally break that mold to where we can try and build off of it with some of the younger talent that that we have, even if you know Wilson will be gone. I think that this still means much more not only for this year, but for the next few years to come.

Griffin Cunningham 40:59
Definitely. Well, I think that's all we got. So enjoy your holiday break. We'll enjoy ours and for sure I think are we are we done for this semester?

Stone Boylan 41:12
I think so. I think when we done for this semester, we're gonna go Thanksgiving and after that, it'll be finals. So obviously if you know we're students, so we got to kind of focus on finishing the semester off strong and then it'll be break and we will jump right back in in the next semester. And we'll have a lot of stuff to talk about because college basketball will be going on football would have finished other sports will be starting up so should be good.

Griffin Cunningham 41:38
All right. Well enjoy your holidays. And I guess yeah, this has been Light it Red for the semester. Music and this podcast was Jonas hipper king of sports and vibe and sneaky, licensed under creative commons from the Free Music Archive

Transcribed by https://otter.ai