The first thing Todd McShay remembers about meeting Joe Douglas is the car he was driving.

McShay arrived on campus at the University of Richmond in 1995 and met a big offensive lineman who just happened to be the proud owner of a blue 1972 Chevy Monte Carlo with a Dale Earnhardt bumper sticker on the back.

“It was very easy to pick out in a sea of BMWs, Mercedes and Saabs,” Douglas joked last week.

Douglas and McShay hit it off at Richmond and remain close friends today, something that gets a little tricky around NFL draft time.

McShay is now one of the lead draft analysts on ESPN and Douglas is the Jets’ general manager.

McShay is trying to predict what every team in the NFL will do this week in the 2023 NFL Draft, and one of his best friends is in charge of making the picks for one of those teams.

But McShay and Douglas said they both stay away from talking in detail about the draft.

“I know better,” McShay said recently. “I would never put Joe in that position and I know he would never answer if I did [other] than to ask what they’re planning on doing, what’s their board looks like. I think there’s a misconception that Joe and I sit there and he gives me all the trade secrets.”

Indeed, if you look back at McShay’s mock drafts since Douglas has been the GM, he has gotten two of the first-round picks correct — Zach Wilson in 2021 and Garrett Wilson last year.

Still, that does not stop Jets Twitter from putting more weight into what McShay says about the Jets than other analysts.

“I’ve known McShay since I was 18 years old,” Douglas said. “I’m sure everybody thinks when he says something, it’s coming right from me.”

Douglas became a standout offensive lineman for the Spiders and grew up not far away in Mechanicsville, Va.

McShay, a quarterback from Massachusetts, suffered a back injury that ended his career.

But McShay stayed connected to the football program.

With his playing career on hold, McShay drifted toward scouting.

“He was doing scouting work when we were sophomores and juniors,” Douglas said. “He was watching tape in a closet underneath the stairs while we were playing Madden.”

They both graduated from Richmond in 1999.

Douglas jumped into scouting with the Ravens shortly after.

McShay worked for “The War Room” and eventually ended up at ESPN, where he spars with Mel Kiper Jr.

Douglas rose through the ranks and became the GM of the Jets in 2019.

That could create awkward moments between the friends, but they say they know how to talk before the draft.

“Before the draft, he and I will talk and talk through things, but never Jets specific,” McShay said. “Just like he knows not to ask me because I’ve talked to a bunch of different teams, I’m not going to give him, ‘Hey, I talked to this team, they’re drafting ahead of you, if you want this player, move up.’ Half the time we spend talking to each other it’s about our friends. We get into the draft. I’m not going to say we don’t, but I know not to ask, he knows not to ask. We do kind of an unspoken dance around what the Jets are going to do and keep it more as if he wasn’t the general manager of the Jets.”

That does not stop fans from wondering if McShay knows more about the Jets than he is letting on … or his colleagues.

“Mel will take his shots at me,” McShay said about when he tells Kiper what he thinks the Jets will do.

McShay and Douglas both speak highly of each other.

“He is funny, energetic and could connect with anybody,” Douglas said. “He’s just a great, genuine guy.”

McShay credits Douglas’ success in part to his personality.

“When I think of Joe, there isn’t a person in my life who hasn’t met Joe who hasn’t stayed in touch with him or doesn’t have glowing things to say about him,” McShay said.

“I think that’s part of the success. Don’t get it wrong. The NFL is very, very much a relationship-based league. He has cultivated those relationships over the years.”

Including a relationship with one of the top NFL draft analysts around.

Just don’t ask him what Douglas is going to do Thursday night.