Wake Forest Coach Jake Dickert Insists This Strange Ingredient Is The Secret To A Good Backyard Burger

When it comes to free time, there are few things I enjoy as much as grilling and smoking some grub.

Why, just yesterday, I smoked a nice rack of ribs for me and my fiancée. They were delicious.

But one of the things I like about grilling and smoking is that there's always room for improvement, and you're always on the hunt for new things to try.

For instance, this past weekend, I had some family over and smoked some turkey breasts, using a tip I learned from comedy writing great and BBQ Hall of Famer John Markus, which was to use mayonnaise as a slather on meat before hitting it with the rub.

Sounds weird; worked great.

You know what else sounds weird? Mixing some Sprite in your burgers, but Wake Forest football coach Jake Dickert swears by it, and in the interest of stepping up our backyard cooking game, let's hear him out.

Dickert, who grew up in Wisconsin, said he typically goes for the Badger state method and adds some beer to his ground beef. Nothing wrong with that, but if you're going to be cooking a lot of burgers for a lot of people, including kids, you can't use beer.

Even though the alcohol cooks off, but whatevs…

Wake Forrest head coach Jake Dickert has a wild secret ingredient for his hamburgers. (Getty Images)

"The process when you’re cooking for 100 football players, you’re talking about, you know, 300 burgers," Dickert told ACC Network, per On3. "The last thing you can serve is a dry burger. When you’re from Wisconsin, you know, to be honest, we put the burgers and the brats in the beer, right?"

Yes, yes; beer good. 

"So, you know, I learned a Dickert family tradition," he continued. "You know, you got the kids around, you can’t use the beer? You put a little Sprite in there. Gives it a nice, little sweet taste, you let it stay warm, hydrated, being there for about 30 minutes, you eat them perfectly."

Uh… okay? You've to at least admit it sounds way better than a Chuck Schumer burger.

Look, I'm willing to give it a whirl because I recently had a root beer-brined pork chop at a restaurant, and it was phenomenal.

Combining the flavor profiles of a nice grilled burger and lemon-lime soda is messing with my mind, but perhaps we need to do a little science and see if the Dickert family tradition holds water.

And by water, I mean Sprite.