Andy & Ari On3 - Does the ACC have a perception problem or a depth problem?

Episode Date: May 15, 2024

This show is sponsored by Rhoback, the makers of the world’s most comfortable hoodies, polos and shorts. Use the code “ANDY” on Rhoback.com for 20 percent off for all new customers through the end of this week.As the ACC Spring Meetings continue in Amelia Island, Andy breaks down everything that is happening and the discussions being held. It also raises the question: Does the ACC itself have a perception issue?(0:00-1:24) Intro - ACC Meetings Continue(1:25-13:52) ACC's Perception Issue(13:53-21:21) More Kickoff Times Announced(21:22-45:57) Ralph Russo joins to talk CFB Future(45:58-1:11:56) David Hale from ACC Network Joins(1:11:57-1:14:01) Dear Andy tomorrow! Get your questions to [e-mail] and more kickoff times were announced on Tuesday, and this round of kickoff times may give us a SCORCHER in Gainesville.Ralph Russo, a friend of the show, joins us to discuss the overall landscape of college football today and what the future looks like.ACC Network’s finest David Hale joins Andy to give a mini teaser on all things ACC amidst the spring meetingsIt’s a Dear Andy episode tomorrow, so be sure to get your questions in! [e-mail] to watch the show instead? Head on over to YouTube! https://youtube.com/live/0gUqz9c1AzEOn-Air Talent: Andy StaplesProducer: River Bailey

Welcome to Andy Staples on three. Happy Wednesday. I'm still in Amelia Island, Florida at the ACC spring meetings. Again, not the kind of awkwardness you think. Everybody having fun. Florida State, Clemson coexisting. Everybody just living right, living the way they're supposed to. And they are talking about issues that affect the league, even Florida State and Clemson,

which obviously they're suing the league. The league is suing them. They're trying to get out. But they're still trying to figure out how to fix some of the things that happened in the past year to make it better for the ACC while they're still in the ACC and while everybody else is in the ACC. And so the football coaches met on Tuesday amongst one another. They then went to the ADs. What the football coaches talked about amongst themselves was there were two things that really came out of this. They talked about several issues, including roster size and some other

things that have to do with that house versus the NCAA settlement, but that's really out of their came out as they talked about several issues including roster size and some other things that have to do with that house versus the NCAA settlement but that's really out of their hands they're not in control of that but the things that the ACC can kind of control within itself one thing came out there was a two-pronged issue because basically the wound of Florida State being left out of the college football playoff as a 13 and 0 ACC champ is still very raw and very fresh and so they're trying to figure out how do we deal with this and it's not like to make sure the next ACC champ makes the playoff we know the next ACC champ is going to make the playoff like if Florida State or some other ACC team goes 13 and

O and wins the league this year, that team's going to be at worst. The fourth seed in the playoff are going to get a buy. Like they're going to be in the playoff, but here's where what hit Florida state last year could hit some other ACC team this year or some big 12 team or big 10 or SEC, but ACC and Big 12 are probably the league's most worried about this. If the league is perceived to be weak, it will get fewer at-larges in than one of the other leagues might. We keep assuming if you go 10-2 in the SEC or the Big 10, you are in.

We're not making that assumption in the ACC, and we're not making that assumption in the Big 12, even though you would think a 10-2 team from either of those leagues probably should get in too. But that's the issue, and that's what they're worried about. So they have a two-prong solution. One prong is basically staring at certain schools and saying, you need to invest as much as everybody else invests. And it was interesting. Dave Clawson was talking about this, the Wake Forest coach, and he's the chair of the football coaches group. And you go, Oh, Wake Forest, you know, they don't have a lot of money. But if you look at what Wake Forest has spent on football relative

to how much Wake Forest brings in, it's a significant investment. Wake Forest has invested significantly. Florida State, obviously, has invested significantly. Clemson has. Miami, recently, has invested significantly. Louisville has invested significantly. But there are schools near the bottom of the ACC that have not made as significant an investment. Now, it does seem like Syracuse is investing more now. Fran Brown's come in. You look at some of the coaches he was allowed to hire, the salary pool for assistance that he got. It does feel like Syracuse is trying to invest more, but that's a relatively new development. Boston College is being looked at like, are you investing?

And so you have that because the idea is if you raise the bottom of the league, the perception of the top of the league will be better. Solution number two is they want a better marketing campaign, like a football-specific marketing campaign. So when you see the ACC commercials during games, it's all about how broad the ACC sports offerings are, how awesome the ACC is at various different sports. Their thing is just make it about football. Football brings in all the revenue. Football drives the train. Football makes it possible to pay for all these other sports. So let's make the marketing campaign about football and tell everybody how awesome ACC

football is. That one, not nearly as effective as if you could somehow get everybody to invest heavily in football. Neither one of these is perfect because the, Hey, everybody you invest. Well, you can't really enforce that. The ACC last year approved this thing where it's basically an incentive based program where you get get more revenue if you're more successful in football and basketball. You get less revenue if you aren't. But the specifics of that have never really been released. We don't know exactly how much of an incentive or disincentive it is, but it is kind of carrot and stick at the same time. That is going to change, apparently, as different dollar figures change.

The college football playoff dispersions, what the ACC gets from that, those incentives will change. But that's there, and they hope that works. We'll see about that. The marketing campaign, that's not going to actually work. You can do it, but it won't work. People believe what they want to believe. And it's Dave Clawson brought this up. Michael offered the AD at Florida state brought this up. Like clearly there is a perception issue. It's not them making this up. It's not in their minds.

If Florida state's 13 and oh, they're the ACC champ and they get left out of a 14 playoff in favor of one loss Big 12 champ Texas and one loss SEC champ Alabama, then clearly people think the ACC is a weaker conference than those leagues in 2023. Why would they think that? Probably because the ACC hasn't been a particularly deep conference since 2016. 2015 and 2016 were the deepest the ACC has been this century. And a good way to look at this is the college football playoff started in 2014. There have been 10 seasons of it. How many seasons would the ACC have gotten in that large team in? It's four, but one of those is 2020 when they got two teams into the four-team

playoff because Notre Dame was playing an ACC schedule and we have to count them as an ACC team for that season. They actually did play in the ACC championship game. But there hasn't been a year since 2016 other than 2020, which again, outlier COVID year, Notre Dame doesn't really count. In 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, the ACC would have only gotten one team in under the current selection rules. That's not good enough. It's because their teams weren't good enough. It's not because of any perception issue. Like what happened to Florida state is absolutely a perception issue, but what happened to everybody else is not like in 15, they would have gotten three teams in and they would have absolutely deserved it. 15, it would have been Clemson. I believe that it was the number one

seed. And then Florida State was 10-2. And North Carolina was 10-3 and barely lost to Clemson in the ACC championship game. North Carolina was really good that year. Marquise Williams, I believe their quarterback. They would have deserved three teams in the playoff in a year like that. 2016, they would have gotten two in. They would have gotten Clemson and Florida

State. But if Louisville doesn't go to Houston and lose on a Thursday night in November, Louisville also would have gotten in. Louisville was number 13 in the final college football playoff ranking that year. It was the year that Lamar Jackson won the Heisman. And if you remember correctly, that Clemson team that won the national title, Louisville pushed it to its limit at Clemson during that season. So the ACC was incredibly deep that year. The ACC has not been incredibly deep since then. We'll talk later with Ralph Russo from the Associated Press about the depth of the ACC, and also with David Hale from ESPN about the depth of the ACC this year. Because I do think there's a possibility that it could be deeper this

year. If Florida State is as good as it has been or close to that, they're going to be up there. Miami's roster suggests it could be that good. We have to see it on the field. NC State has been consistently good. Grayson McCall might be the best quarterback NC State has had in years. Could NC State be that kind of team? Louisville made the ACC championship game last year. If there was a 12-team playoff, Louisville would not have made the 12-team playoff as an at-large.

Maybe don't lose to Kentucky. Just a thought. But Louisville this year under Jeff Brom, who seems to have his teams outpunched their weight class. I wouldn't be shocked if Louisville was very good this year. So you've got all these teams that are possibilities and Clemson again, of course, Clemson has still got very good players. Dabo Sweeney says buy stock in Clemson right now. If he's right, they could be right back in that mix too. The ACC will have those types of teams this year. The ACC should have at least two teams in the playoff. It should. But it is up to those

teams to perform. And I think last year, you know, the ACC actually had a good record against the SEC. I believe it was six and four in the regular season. Like Florida State beat LSU and Florida. The LSU win, obviously more impressive because LSU ended up winning 10 games. But you got to win those big marquee games or at least be competitive in them.

Like Clemson and Georgia, week one. Clemson needs to be competitive in that game. Tennessee, NC State, week two. If NC State can win that game, that's huge, especially if Tennessee goes on to have a good year in the SEC. Notre Dame, Florida State, week 11. That's a big one. Obviously, Florida State plays five,

or excuse me, Notre Dame plays five ACC teams. So if Notre Dame is good, if one of those ACC teams hands Notre Dame maybe its only loss of the regular season or one of its only couple of losses of the regular season, that bodes well for the league. That's how you do it. That is how you deal with the perception issue. You have to win games like that consistently. That's how you beat a bad perception. And I don't think they're paranoid. The perception is bad. What

happened to Florida State happened because of the way people perceive the quality of the league. It is up to the rest of the league to help on that front. Now, Florida State and Clemson are already trying to get out. You understand that? Florida State warned about this. Their board warned about this in August, and then it happened. So it's not them being paranoid. They're right in that the perception of the league is not great. They may be a little off about how you fix that in terms of a better marketing campaign, telling their story, quote unquote, better. I don't think that really helps you.

We have eyes. We see what happens on the field. If you have a deep league, we'll be able to see it. goes to Charlotte and plays NC State and the Wolfpack crush them and then Tennessee winds up winning nine or 10 games, you're going to go, well, guess what? NC State's pretty damn good. If Florida State beats Notre Dame and that's the only game Notre Dame loses and Florida State beats Florida,

you're going to go, you know what? Florida State with a good ACC record in those non-conference, pretty damn good. Miami plays Florida right off the bat. If they beat Florida, that's helpful. We don't know how good Florida's going to be. But if Clemson were to beat Georgia, yeah, we're pretty certain Georgia's going to be good.

Like that would be a massive win for the ACC. So the best way to change the perception is just win games like that. And we'll see if they can. And it certainly wouldn't hurt if the teams that we perceive to be at the bottom are better, that they do win their non-conference games, and then they are competitive in the league.. I think Syracuse is going to be more competitive than we've seen Syracuse be because they actually weren't terrible last year.

Fired Dino Babers anyway. Bring in Fran Brown. He has definitely upgraded the talent. Now, it remains to be seen whether Fran and the assistants he's hired are going to be great on-field coaches. But if they are,

in terms of play calling, scheming, all that stuff, I think they could be pretty good. So I do think this is a year where we will see the overall quality of the ACC rise. But they do have to get some results that allow us to recognize that. We'll talk more about

that very shortly with Ralph Russo, the Associated Press. But before we get to that, we got more game times released, more college football kickoffs. The reason we're getting a lot of these kickoff times is the upfronts are going on and what's an upfront that's where advertisers come in and they get a presentation from various networks that say here is what our schedule is going to look like in the fall it was a much bigger deal back when there were three big networks and everybody made comedies and dramas and had a bunch of scripted shows. And they said, well, here's all our new shows. We think these are going to be hits. Now, a lot of the big feature is here are the sports events that we have live on our air. Please buy commercials for them. So the ESPN, Disney, ABC, that family of networks released some kickoff times.

We got a little Fox and a little NBC. On Monday, on Tuesday, we got some ESPN and ABC. We start week zero. Florida State and Georgia Tech will be on ESPN noon Eastern time, 5 p.m. Dublin time because they're going to be playing in Ireland. The following Thursday. Really kind of big opening night for week one. 8 o'clock Eastern time.

North Dakota State, the Bison heading to Boulder to play coach prime. Again, if this had been five years ago, we'd have been talking about, Oh, is Colorado going to lose to North Dakota state, but North Dakota state is not the team that is perennially winning the FCS national title right now. They do have a good record against FBS teams, but they haven't played a bunch of them lately. And the last time they played one was Arizona, and they lost to them. That was 2022. And that wasn't a particularly great Arizona team.

So I don't know that, aside from the brand recognition, it's going to be a terribly competitive game. It would be interesting if it was. But I think probably Colorado wins that game, and then we wait until Colorado-Nebraska which is going to be a little more up in the air as to the result and both fan bases kind of saying, well, we're supposed to win this, but it's a good one opening night. Good appetizer right there.

Friday, Temple at Oklahoma. Jackson Arnold starting for the Sooners, his first regular season start, or actually not his first. I'm sorry, he started against BYU, replacing an injured Dylan Gabriel last year. But the first game where he's really QB1, it's his team. That's a big one. That's at 7 p.m. on ESPN. That's a double header. You get TCU Stanford, the Big 12 versus the ACC, TCU Stanford, that Friday night. The following Saturday, Clemson, Georgia.30 in the swamp. It's going to be, I would say, someone who's spent a lot of August days in Gainesville. I'd say it'll be about 94 degrees with a heat index of about 7 billion degrees.

That's going to be a hot sweaty game. Also Colorado state at Texas on ESPN that same time that my, the Miami at Florida games on ABC. So you will, this is, this is different. It may not seem any different, but this is the new contract kicking in for the sec. You got a game from an sec stadium coming on ABC.

Very interesting. Western Kentucky at Alabama seven o'clock that night on ESPN. And that is Kalen DeBoer's debut as the Alabama head coach. And then again, on SEC game on ABC, Notre Dame at Texas A&M, 7.30 p.m. Eastern time on that week one Saturday. The following night from Las Vegas, USC LSU. Great one because we have no idea if either team can play defense yet. And we're pretty sure both teams will be pretty good on offense. And then Labor Day.

So I mentioned Florida State's playing in Dublin week zero against Georgia Tech. So an ACC opponent there. They come back to the States. It's a little bit longer game week. You get nine days in between games, but still you're again preparing for a conference game. Labor Day night, Monday, September 2nd,

7.30 p.m. ESPN, Boston College at Florida State. So by the time everybody's finished week one, Florida State will be a quarter of the way through its ACC schedule. That's going to be an interesting schedule quirk of the season, but we're going to have a few of those. By the way, college game day that week will be emanating from College Station, site of the Notre Dame-Texas A&M game. Yeah, I'm excited just reading these times. I'm just reading off kickoff times, and I'm excited, and I know you are too because it starts to feel more real when we can attach a kickoff time to it. But we're not quite there yet.

We have a little more offseason to get through, but that's okay. How do you get through that off season? Well, you can get through it stylishly by wearing rowback. I've got my rowback performance polo on right now. I wear the performance hoodies all the time. Doesn't matter if it's spring, summer, fall, winter. They are perfect for any season.

Shorts, polos, Q-zips, joggers. They got it all at rowback. You will look great. You will perform at your best. Remember, I was wearing a rowback hoodie when I caught a pass in an SEC football game. I know what you're saying, Andy. When you played football, you were an offensive lineman. So that certainly wasn't one of those games. That's true. And also, rowback didn't exist yet. So what happened? Well, I caught a pass from Haynes King when he played for Texas A&M. He was throwing it away. I was on the Alabama sideline. I left-handed, one-handed, caught it. I was actually filming with my right hand. It's on

video. It's all because of Roback. When I'm not wearing Roback, I can't do anything like that. So get yourself some Roback. Performance polos, hoodies, Q-zips, jogger shorts, you name it. Roback is R-H-O-B-A-C-K. Go to Roback.com, R-H-O-B-A-C-K.com. Use the code Andy and get 20% off your first purchase. You will not regret it. You will look amazing all summer,

and it will get you to college football season. You know, wear your team color row back to these first games, which now we know when they're kicking off. All right. Now it is time to kick off our discussion with Ralph Russo, the Associated Press. Great friend of the show. He's at Amelia Island as well, covering these ACC meetings. We had a very interesting chat, and one of the first things we talked about,

same thing that was the topic of discussion in the coaches' meeting, in the football coaches' meeting with the ADs. How does the ACC get more at-large teams in the college football playoff? Here's Ralph. We got Ralph Russo in person here at Amelia Island at ACC spring meetings. But we're of course talking about former big 10 punters because I almost forgot to press record on this. And I was telling Ralph about the time that I forgot to press record when I

was interviewing Tori Taylor, the former Iowa punter. And he graciously redid the entire interview. You got to understand, punters are geared towards things went poorly. Yes. I am here to make them better. Yes. That is the essence of what it means to be a punter.

I'm going to miss Tori Taylor in college football. And so will Iowa. Oh, yeah. No, they will always find another. Well, listen, we talked about it earlier this week. Like Iowa. Could go 10 and two against this schedule with a comp. You know, if Cade McNamara is all right and stays healthy, Lachey is healthy.

Like I'm not I might retire my Iowa jokes for a little while. We've heard this before, but obviously there's a big component that has changed. Yes. Yes. Not to pile, keep piling on Brian friends, but they have a new offensive coordinator there. Oh, I thought we were talking about the 12 team playoff. Oh yeah.

Well then there's that. Yeah. And then there's that, right? If you're Iowa now, all of a sudden you're looking like, Hey man, we can make that. We might, we might have a chance at that. Yeah. And that's, that's the thing. Like we're, we're going to talk about the ACC in a second.

Yeah. We might have a chance at that. Yeah, and that's the thing. We're going to talk about the ACC in a second. And one of the things that you and I have talked about while we're here is the idea of ACC at large teams and how it's going to shift from can we get a team into the playoff to can we get three teams into the playoff. Iowa is in that weird position of Big Ten team, did not get a terrible Big Ten schedule draw. And it's realistic. Like I put it out and I knew what I was doing when I tweeted it out because it's like, OK,

I'm doing this for the shock value of Iowa in the playoff. But then you think about it, it's you become the Alonzo morning gift. You're like, you know what? OK. That conversation is going to be had with a lot of teams. And, but also the core of that conversation, like in the middle of that is how do we value these 10 wins?

Cause there's going to be a massive shift in the discussion around strength of schedule. We've been having this banging our heads against this nine and three sec team went through the meat grinder. but in reality though like i think the sec and the big 10 are all geared up to say i mean they've already established this like oh we're going to be better than them we're going to be tougher than them but even with the more interesting part of it to a certain degree is even within those conferences, not everybody has the supercharged schedule. Yes.

Some a little more supercharged than others. So this is going to be, for those of us who get a little exhausted about the strength of schedule and who ain't played nobody, it's going to ramp up even more in college football. Well, in Notre Dame, which is kind of the most interesting component of that, I think most Notre Dame schedules of the last 10 years you would have looked at and gone, well, if they're 10-2, they're in the 12-team playoff. This particular one, and again, we don't know how good everybody's going to be, but on paper right now

you're like, maybe they need to be 11-1. Right, because all of a sudden you think, well, what is USC going to be? And they draw Clemson, but they don't draw Florida State. They don't have Clems usc going to be and they draw clemson but they don't grow florida so they don't they don't have clemson yeah yeah and i i think we think florida state's going to be pretty good but we're also pretty sure they're not going to be as good as they were last year so it's not oh i don't know i've got a lot of florida state kool-aid on this trip you you're a day behind me okay so you you have not gotten the infusion of florida state

kool-aid quite yet i mean i've only been in the state less than 24 hours so yeah it could be there's a lot let's put it this way there's a lot of florida and florida florida state kool-aid running around that they're different flavors obviously yes uh one's orange and blue and one's garnet and gold and one's about winning the acc and being in the playoff and one's about overperforming expectations sure and going like seven and five and making sure the coach doesn't get five right right right but there's a lot of that kool-aid going around but but let's on this topic of it's a 12-team playoff we're readjusting our thinking we're readjusting our brains if you're the ACC obviously your champion's getting it you're not having a situation like last year

like florida state the florida state of last year in this system is a top four seed right has a buy right all of that jazz right but can the acc get two more teams in is that possible can it get one you know what it should get one more we think would think. But then you go through the recent history of it. They actually probably not even as strong as the Big 12 minus Oklahoma and Texas in some of these years. Well, depth-wise. Right, because they would have that one elite team. I think that's always going to be the question about the ACC is depth. And how many, once you get down to three, four, five,

are you still talking about potential playoff contenders? You know, the interesting thing to me, Andy, on all of this is when we started having these conversations about a 12 team playoff, I think we were far more open-minded before realignment to the idea that, oh, there could be some real jostling between all the conferences. That's sure. We think the SEC is always going to get an extra one because it tends to be the way things with the SEC.

But yeah, you know, the ACC and the Big 12. But I think that with realignment and establishing these imaginary or real uh dividing lines between these conferences i think now we're we're wondering exactly what you're saying is is can the acc consistently be in the mix for getting three yeah do they even have to worry about getting a second team and i think that's the more disconcerting part but the simple idea that they might have to worry about a second team i think if you're not that worried about a second team. I think if you're the ACC. I'm not that worried about a second team, though, because we've got this on the graphic right now, who's in the ACC now, which is a lot of people.

Let's be real here. It goes coast to coast. It's not just the Atlantic Coast anymore. It's got the Pacific Coast as well. But there's going to be another 10-win team in the ACC. I think so. Whether it's Clemson, Miami,

NC state, but then, but then again, somebody is going to be that. I'll give you another one. Virginia tech. Okay. I think Virginia tech's got a lot of,

a lot of players coming back. And again, it goes back to that idea of schedule. So this is why I'm saying that schedule conversation is not just going to be a conference versus conference because if i'm in the acc and i'm virginia tech and i've played x schedule vanderbilt and ruckers yeah rucker's gonna be pretty good i know ruckers gonna be pretty good but nonetheless but if i played x schedule and all of a sudden i'm miami and i've played y schedule or you know again i

haven't looked through right miami's florida usf those are their non the fact of the matter is not all the schedules are going to be created equal in these conferences the more you put teams into these conferences you're going to create not just imbalance from sec to big 10 to big 12 to acc but imbalance within the conference so i'm a nine and three team in the acc with clemson's schedule yes and i'm and i'm a 10 and 2 team in the acc with virginia tech or maybe miami schedule if i'm clemson i'm like whoa whoa whoa yeah what are you you're gonna go why did we bother playing georgia right yeah even if we lose to ge, I can say, hey, listen, it was 24-10, and that's pretty good if you look at that Georgia team, or maybe it was 24-17. I understand we lost, but if you're comparing our 9-3, and that's one of the three, so that conversation is going to be much deeper and I think also lead to, frankly, I think eventually it might lead to changes with the selection process. Yeah. And I think they're sort of feeling all that out. And I just keep saying, and I said this on the show on Tuesday, we keep saying they need to do this. They need

to do this. They need to do that. What they need to do is figure out who's in what conference first and then they can do all this other stuff. And we don't know who's in what conference first yeah and then they can do all this other stuff and we don't know who's in what conference in two three years right now right and being here with this is yeah i mean this is the this is the point of of contact right this is the this is the place where the pivot point where things could go awry i think the other part that I've been saying a lot when it comes to this year and next year and the playoff is a little bit of a trial run. Right. 12-teamer, first couple of years, we think it might even be going to 14 in 2026. But who knows?

But who knows? Maybe not. see when I was out in Arizona talking to folks in some other conferences this idea of yeah we have some ideas about maybe what would the selection process should look like and how to maybe give them a little more guidance them being the selection committee but I don't know if we're going to be able to implement anything this year let's see how it plays out I think it comes to the selection process I think it comes to where to where the sites and where these games are played. And I think to a certain degree, it might determine how many teams are getting in. Yeah, and I'm fascinated to see how the selection process goes.

I'm sure the ACC is too, because what happened last year was so psychologically damaging. I mean, it's still a topic of conversation. Absolutely. And I also think because it happened to Florida State and Florida State had warned in its trustees meeting in August as they sort of got the ball rolling toward suing the ACC, they had warned this might happen, that there's a disadvantage here, that you're not perceived as being in the strongest conference. So you've got to deal with that disadvantage but i do think if there are some teams at the top that are that are clearly better than everybody else that they're going to be okay like they're going to have two and maybe three teams in the in the playoff and it's just a matter of who those teams are like if miami achieves what the roster suggests they should achieve, they should be able to make it.

If Louisville, like I keep saying, we've still never seen a healthy full season of Tyler Shuck. Which is amazing because it seems like he's been here for six or seven years. Right, and Tyler Shuck has all the tools. And I keep saying it's sort of like Michael Penix when he left Indiana. We've never seen a fully healthy season of this guy. And he's with, now he's with Jeff Brom, who's a total quarterback whisperer. So Louisville is another one. You mentioned Virginia tech, uh, NC state. They, they've got Grayson McCall now quarterback. We know their defense

is going to be good. Casey conception comes back. So. So it's like there is potential in a lot of places. I think if you are the ACC, right? I mean, this new world order, you're sort of eyeing the Big 12. Yes. Now, that might be a little bit of a loser's lament, but I think you're comparing yourself more so to the Big 12. I will say the ACC has more non-conference opportunities it feels like to show what you can do you have Clemson against Georgia uh Miami and Florida State all these SEC games right like if you do well against them all these teams play Notre Dame well it goes back to also why the the Florida

State thing was so jarring last year because Florida State is a school that should get the benefit right and had beaten LSU and beaten LSU should get the benefit of the doubt. It had beaten LSU. It had beaten LSU, should get the benefit of the doubt, had beaten Florida. I think if you're the ACC, and let's just talk about this year, the construction of the conference this year, we know things might change. But where you think you have an advantage is, hey, we have these high ceiling programs. And I think in the Big 12, they are going to be incredibly competitive but i think a lot of those schools are going to have to overcome the perception that like well you're good but can you really win a national championship because you haven't and that's even harder you do it what if ucf is sitting there in the big 12 championship game which they very well could be i think i think any of about 12 teams could end up in the Big 12 championship game.

But that's going to be one of those ones where in the back of the minds of the committee members, they're going to be going, oh, are you deep enough? Whereas if it's Miami and you're trying to weigh the two, I think Miami wins that. I think so. It'll depend on what's happened. People will push back on that and say, well, we shouldn't have such deference to the big brands. But the fact of the matter is the big brands tend to recruit at a higher level. They also, again, have, again, you're going back

to those opportunities. The ACC is going to have these opportunities between Notre Dame and a lot of their relationships with the SEC to sort of say, Hey, listen, we proved that we, we, we got to that bar. So I think that should play into the acc's favor again in the bottom might be a little farther there might be a little bigger gap but i do think the acc's high ceiling programs should give them an advantage of the big 12 i'm just excited also about what the what the 12 team playoff means kind of at the end of the season what some of these games could be like like imagine clemson's nine and two going to the south carolina game and south carolina's had a decent season like that game becomes awesome we we talked about uh the other day we were talking

about let's say usc decides they're going to play defense this year and they're nine and two going to the notre dame game and like it's two nine and two teams and what could you play in game like how great would that be right there's going to be a lot more opportunities for you know this happened a couple of years ago right Ella uh South Carolina beat Clemson yes sort of a shocking yeah right after they beat Tennessee yeah Rattler threw for a zillion yards in that game. He threw for two zillion against Tennessee. And that was a spoiler game. There's going to be a lot more opportunities for, even in these rivalry weekend matchups,

to include some spoiler element. We just talked about Louisville. Louisville, if you're in that position, you better beat Kentucky. Don't let Kentucky knock you out of the playoff. Right. Which, again, raises the stakes for all of those games. Yeah. And that part I'm very excited about.

We're starting to get these kickoff times rolling in. I don't know about you. I just kind of smile because it's like, okay, it's starting to feel real. Because it also sort of reminds me, too, about, oh, that's right. That game's on the schedule. Oh, that game's on the schedule. And look where that one's being played. So, yeah, you definitely get sort of ramped up when you start seeing the kickdowns.

And you've had to cover this probably a little more than I have, the settlement in the house case, the NCAA stuff. So I want to talk to you about this because Charlie Baker was here on Monday and talked about potential settlement. He talked to talk to you about this because charlie baker was here on monday and and talked about potential settlement he talked to the acc leaders about it i you and i talked off air about this like i cannot believe i'm hearing an ncaa president say that and i realize given everything that's happened in the last few years if you just dropped in this, this makes perfect sense to you. But if you've been following this for 20 years or so, like the idea that they're just going to cave on this is still

wow. It's pretty, yes. It's remarkable when you think back to how long, again, quite literally, it's been about 20 years since I've been covering this on a national level. And if you go back and recall some of the conversations and the way this stuff was framed 2015, really even as much as like five or six years ago, because that's when it really started to move quickly in this direction. If you want to put a pin in it,

you can say the Supreme Court case ruling coming down in 2021. And I think that did sort of change the dynamics. It also sped things up. Yes. At that point, it became very clear that, oh, none of this is going to stand anymore. I think even before the Supreme Court ruling, it was becoming fairly obvious that things were going to change, but the Supreme Court ruling sped everything up. But you're right. The idea of an NCAA president, and i think this has been

significant and i think frankly it's some of the things that i i think with baker he hasn't gotten enough credit for i'm not saying we have to throw a party or parade for the guy there never will be one for an ncaa president so don't worry about that he's in a position that will always be viewed with skepticism though he has taken over for a guy who was viewed with the ultimate skepticism and probably had worn out his welcome. But I do think it is significant that he has been an active participant and a catalyst in the conversation about moving things in the direction of professionalism. I remember when he came out with the idea, the Project D1. Back in December.

The linchpin of that is schools saying we will devote X amount of dollars to share with the players. It could be X amount of dollars, it could be X percentage of revenue, whatever that is. It's basically a minimum threshold. It's the floor. If you want to be in this new tier,

you have to commit to that floor. Right. And that pissed a lot of people off because they weren't consulted on it. Now, when you start to see the leaks about what the potential settlement might look like, then you go, okay, I think I know where he was grabbing this from. It's not that far away from what is what we're heading toward through this settlement. It really, I mean,

the, the numbers may be a little different. I think there's some subtlety, subtle differences between the idea of in, in Baker's model, you could sort of buy your way into the game as opposed to in this model, you're still controlled over who's in the game, so to speak. And there's some subtleties there about,

you can talk about conference realignment. Let us talk about that because you were in Phoenix at the beginning of the month. That's so the big 12 is meeting was meeting there. The American, the mountain West. And some other college football officials were through there. So, but like for the mountain West people and the people in the American, how do they feel about this? Where are they at on this? So I think

generally speaking, the more I talk to folks in G5 conferences in general, I think there's sort of a resignation of, okay, I just want to know what the playing field is. We don't have to chase that. We're not really... Are they going to be able to buy in or do you think they have to kind of find

their own level? I think there will be case by case, which is a little bit of a bailout answer. Do I think some schools will look at that as an opportunity? Because again, there's only so much you're going to be able to buy in because you can't buy your way into the conference. Right. I think with Baker's idea, you could buy your way into this subdivision, which could have gotten you something of a seat at the table. Which if you weren't at one of the conferences, you'd have to form your own conferences with the other people who bought in. To a certain degree, right? There was some complications there.

And now, frankly, the big conferences can still gatekeep a little bit as opposed to who gets in, who gets into the club. Though. I do think, listen, I think we can probably name them, right?

Boise state. We'll probably look at this and think, how can we get close? Yeah. Memphis. We'll probably look at this and say, how can we get in the ballpark of this? Maybe too lame because you got, you're catching them at a good point, right? They get in the ballpark of this? Maybe Tulane, because you're catching

them at a good point, right? They're sort of trending up, but frankly, I don't know if Tulane has the infrastructure to be able to really, you know, to be able to go all in on something like this. Here's one that has not been as successful lately, though they had a good year under their first year coach last year, and they're building a stadium on campus and they're you know so you you ask step without which is trying to kind of follow the ucf trajectory but even then you're competing with you're still going to be competing within your own conference are you just positioning yourself for the next round of call-ups probably when does that happen i don't't know. Could be a while. So how much are you, but this has been a conversation for years about how much do you leverage yourself to look like a power five school?

And then if they don't, we don't use that anymore. Right now, I don't even know if power four is applicable anymore. Yeah. How much do you leverage yourself to look like a power, whatever school, and then you don't get that call up, and now you're just stuck with a bunch of debt? Yeah. Because you bought in with the assumption that, oh, eventually we'll get that big paycheck.

And that's why I keep saying don't get too caught up in what the playoffs are going to look like in 2026. We don't know. We don't know, And this next few steps will help us figure it out. Yeah. Yeah, I do think so. And I think it's an important time for group of five schools. And I'll give you another element of that. You have all these new AAC schools just came in last year. The AAC has got a pretty good television deal relative, right? There's going to be some red, like that's going to lift up some of these schools, but they're not there yet.

Yeah. So if you're North Texas, I may say to you, oh, you know, North Texas, I keep an eye on them and people may shrug and really North Texas, they got a lot of nice stuff there. They're about to have an infusion of cash. What does that look like for them in a few years? I think if you're the AAC, you're hoping that you create the next UCF, Houston, Cincinnati. Now you're hoping to hold them for a little longer, but you're hoping that a few of those schools emerge and become that level. It's going to be fascinating to watch because everything will change, including based on all of the lawsuits flying around this building right now. Sure. And there's a whole

other element of, again, what will the next round of, again, realignment, sorting out, consolidation, some might call it, look like once the ACC figures out what its future is. He's Ralph Russo. And for once, he's not going to text me yelling about what he's hearing on the show because he'd be yelling about himself. Maybe, though. Maybe. I might critique myself. That Russo guy's an idiot, Andy.

Why do you have him on? That is a great Ralph Russo. One of our dedicated viewers slash listeners he's he's more of a podcast listener than a youtube viewer because he's like me he's old but ralph is is one of the best because he gives us very honest feedback about this show sometimes it's three or four days after it airs and i don't remember anything I said the day before, but when he jogs my memory, it certainly helps. And it creates interesting discussions that usually find their way onto the show when Ralph gets back on the show. And this is something we've, we've actually been talking about offline for quite some time. This idea of what is the ACC need to do to increase this number

of at-large teams? We've had the same discussion about the Big 12, and we will talk about that over the next few weeks, especially as we do our ceilings and floors for the ACC and the Big 12. We've done the SEC, we've done the Big 10, and we'll do the same thing for the ACC and the Big 12. We'll dive deep into the schedules, try to figure out what the best-case scenario is for each team,, what the worst case scenario is for each team. That's been a fun exercise. I feel like it's been pretty educational, and I hope you're enjoying that too.

But this period covering the ACC spring meetings has helped give me a little cheat sheet for that. But the guy, when I want perspective on the ACC, the guy I turn to is David Hale from ESPN. He covers the whole country, but he's covered the ACC very closely for a long time, lives in ACC country, and has done quite a bit on the rise of Clemson and has kind of followed Dabo Sweeney's career arc very closely. And we talked a lot about dabbo what does he need to do to get back to winning the way that clemson expects him to win or does he have to and is he ever gonna take any more transfers here's david hale you read him at espn.com. You watch him on the ACC network. David Hale, how are you doing?

I'm well. I'm well, Andy. I feel like now I've finally made the big time, though. Oh, no. Yes, your network linear television job is not good enough. You've now reached my YouTube channel. This is where the future is, okay? On YouTubes?

Yes, on the YouTubes and the internets. It is fun when my kids go to school and explain their dad is a YouTuber now. I remember, and you may well have been at this SEC Media Day, I remember distinctly Sylvester Croom trying to explain what the internet was to a room full of SEC reporters. And he basically was, well, it's these tubes that the information goes. And now here we are. Not wrong?

Here we are. Not wrong. Yeah. And now here we are. Not wrong? Here we are. Not wrong. Well, yeah. That's what I've talked to people. I've had a few people. Because apparently I'm part of the furniture here now because I've been here. I've been to the ACC meetings here in Amelia Island. I think I've been here more than 10 times.

And the people who've been in the business a while are like, oh, how long have you been doing this now? And they said well things have kind of changed since you started and i'm just like yes no if you if you had gone to me in 2000 when i graduated from college and explained what my job is now i would have been like i do not understand the words you're using i uh yeah i remember my so i went to journalism school syracuse i remember like one of our the first week the dean of the department came in and he's like now just so you know you know a lot of you guys are not going to have jobs in this business. I was like, surely he doesn't mean me.

This is all going to work out just fine. Exactly. I think they said that in one of my introductory journalism classes at Florida, too. They're like, two percent of you are going to work in this field. So, I mean, maybe. Yeah, exactly. We survived. We're all right.

As best I'm aware, we're still being paid. So that's great. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, D. Yeah, exactly. We survived. We're all right. As best I'm aware, we're still being paid. So that's great. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Dabo yelled at you. So David went viral. And I asked him, like, how many years ago is this? Because it all blends together.

It was 2015. David went viral asking Dabo Sweeney about the concept of Clemsoning. Shout out to our guys, Dan Rubenstein and Ty Hildebrandt for coining the phrase. And it was a good question about a stupid thing and i think that's the important distinction that we make here wasn't a stupid question about a good thing it was a good question about a stupid thing oh and he went off it was so tremendous it's so uh my wife is from alabama and her whole family are diehard Bama fans and her nephews to this day,

like get a kick out of making fun of me for this. Like the last, one of the last times I was down there visiting family, like her nephews are like pulling it up on YouTube to show to my kids, like, look at your dad getting yelled at by Davo. And now you can be like, but did you want him to replace Nick Saban?

Yeah. Yeah. And that's, I don't think they did. They didn't. I like to think I played a small part in how all of this caitlin deport would not be there right now if not for me it is it is amazing but well let's talk dabbo because i think this is an interesting place to start like dabbo sweeney has carried this conference yeah i i don't think i'm exaggerating when i say that both in terms of

like wins and personality like he has been the guy he has been the figurehead yes and it's interesting seeing him you know it here in these meetings and he's he's hanging around with mike norvell who is kind of the the future but it's when they're sitting together you almost wonder what are they talking about like does does dabbo ever just tap him on the shoulder like okay so how does this portal thing work tell me tell me about this again they were sitting out next to each other like right over here having lunch earlier and dabbo was just going on and on and on and i'm like yeah there's got to be some part of him that's like you've been doing something with this portal you got a few guys right how did you like call them text them how did it happen it is fascinating like i i saw this one i can't give credit to whoever put it out there first but four teams didn't take a transfer army navy air force

and clemson yes which one of these is not like the others one of those does not require a congress person to recommend you Yeah. Yeah. It's fascinating. And look, is Dabo the type of person who will die on some hills? Absolutely. He is. And I think that's part of the fascinating, like, in some ways, I think this is sort of true in a lot of things.

Like sometimes your best strength is also your biggest weakness at times. And, you know, so much of like what has gotten dabbo to where he is in his life is this steadfast determination to do things my way no matter how many people tell me that's stupid and won't and he stuck it in their eye for how many years and and frankly like the margin of sticking it in their eyes still has not been that far off right it's far off enough that you can't help but ask like maybe a veteran quarterback as a backup in the room would be good. I don't know. It is to the point where when I was prepping for the Big Ten ceiling floor show

and was looking at Maryland, and I realized that one of Maryland's transfer takes was the shorter college offensive tackle that Dabo offered in the portal. He got an offer from Dabo in the portal. He must be amazing. What's fascinating, Dabo will tell you, I'm not against the portal he must be amazing and what's fascinating like deba will tell you i don't not against the portal right i'll use it hunter johnson can come and go as he pleases which is the best sort of like like like insider joke to everybody who has criticized him like oh

yeah we went and got a portal transfer it's a guy who's never going to play for us and also used to be here he's coming back and he was actually just trying to be a ga and we were looking at why they play too but look the fascinating thing is i don't think he's against the portal philosophically but his approach is like we're not going to take somebody unless they are a really really good player yeah and we're not going to pay portal guys we're going to pay our guys which is the smart thing right yeah but effectively it's like it's like saying i want to buy a car it's got to be a bmw or a porsche and i'm not going to pay more than like i don't know 20 bucks for like yeah you're going to struggle to find one on the market at those at those prices yes well

i do feel bad in a way that we do harp on this all the time because i understand his philosophy that it has worked. There was that period. I will never... It's funny. I'll say I'll never forget. I don't remember the exact specifics of the years or the number, but I want to say it was like 2013 to 2017.

Clemson lost something like seven people to attrition. Yeah. It was insane. And most teams back then would lose 12 to 15 guys a year. On purpose. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And what's really fascinating about that too,

and I won't come up with a good list of names now, but some of those guys who did nothing for three years or four years would finally get on the field and be a different. I mean, he turned Kevin Dodd from a guy who was nothing into a first-round draft or a second-round draft who was nothing into a first round rapper. Second round. He was like the third pick of the second round. Yeah. And I mean, that is like the end result of you sticking that out and not

having the attrition. And to his credit, they've lost a few guys in the portal, but a good bit less than everybody else, too. So, I mean, you can talk about we're not bringing guys in, but they're really not losing big key cogs of the the problem is when you get in a game like florida state last year and i i use the hypothetical obviously keon coleman was only looking at a couple of schools and and you know clemson wasn't one of them and and we don't know if they would have recruited him out of the portal but if you put clemson if you put keon

coleman on clemson in that game and he's playing for them instead of florida state clemson wins the game yeah like yeah i mean i think there's there's absolute truth to that and there's been certain I mean wide receiver is a position offensive line is probably a position where like you didn't need a superstar but you needed somebody yeah you needed a warm body with some experience who could at least help me like that receiver room has been so young for so long like the last three each of the last three years the best receiver has been a true freshman and then those guys have not really developed well i was gonna say whatever it could be old but they're right now you've got clemson student beau collins going back and forth the south bend to to notre dame spring practices

because he's going to play for them next year yeah and again part of this is i think dabbo's blunt honesty of saying like this is what we think your value is to us. If you think your value is more somewhere else, like, I'm not going to adjust who I am to satisfy you. And frankly, I think there's a lot of coaches around the country who would love to be able to say that they just don't have. Two national titles on the shelf. Yeah, that's exactly right. Well, and that's the thing, like, you can say what you want about frustration with Dabo or where, you know, because they want to be national title contenders. I don't think they can if they don't use the portal. But it's not like Clemson is in a position where it

can do anything about this, like, Dabo has established himself there. And you, as Clemson should be grateful for what he's done well i mean it's it's you know like i don't like this thing that's happening well all right like dabbo ain't gonna change just because you don't like it so what's your what's your plan right there isn't one yeah it is just a fascinating situation and then you the backdrop of these meetings clemson florida state they're suing the ACC. The ACC is suing them. We, we, we find out as Bubba Cunningham, the North Carolina AD gets here that his board of trustees is taking a two by four to the back of his head, essentially in a meeting, like, because this faction wants to

get out of the ACC. Like, what do you think happens to this league in the next couple of years? The truly crazy part about this is there's three other teams here that said we'll come and play here for nothing you don't even have to pass we just want to be a part of it yes and then you have three other teams that are basically like knocking the doors down to try to get out it's wild and look i think it's almost impossible to separate the what is the future of the ACC conversation from the what is the future of the NCAA? What is the future of the entire industry conversation? Because so much of this is driven by almost a sense of fear that when the game of musical chairs stops, I need to make sure I have a seat.

And I mean, it's part of the reason Washington and Oregon are willing to take less, just be a part of the Big Ten. Because you know, if you wait out that first TV contract, you're going to be fine. Yeah. And I think everyone is – look, one of the big – Charlie Baker is here yesterday, and one of the big topics is the revenue-sharing model. Like this is – if you add revenue-sharing, increased scholarships, plus what they're going to have to pay to the NCAA to help settle this case, the average school that's all in is looking at probably a 30 to 35 million somewhere in that window uh change to their budget right and that's a lot of money if only there was a way to get 40 more million dollars a year

wonder what we could do if only someone had that extra cash yeah in a couch cushion oh and that's and that but that really is where it's at. It's that's, what's driving everything. Okay. I want to take you back. Let's, let's go back to 2015.

Dabo is in the middle of yelling at you about Clemson. I'm going to tell you that in nine years, there's going to be a 12 team playoff. They've never played it, but they're already going to move it to 14. Yeah, of course. Florida state will be suing the ACC. Clemson will be suing the acc trying to get out the big time will have 18 teams uh-huh cal and stanford will be in the acc right like you would

have had me committed um yeah i mean much to the thing of like try and go explain to young you about your youtube show that you have. And I was joking with you yesterday that our pal Alex Kirshner had talking about Livvy Dunn and Paul Skeens and said, oh, Livvy Dunn like rizzed up baby Gronk on TikTok. And I'm like, I don't know what any of those words mean. So this is we're in a world where like, i maybe i've aged out or something i don't know but it is it is it's lunacy on every practical level but and bubba cunningham is one of the people who has said this to me as i say like what this this this none of it makes any sense and he's like yes but we're not in a business driven by logic we're in a business driven by emotion

and that is very much what's actually probably the best way to put it. And unfortunately, now he's taking the brunt of emotion from a certain faction of his board of trustees. Or being the cold, logical person about, hey, North Carolina, we don't need to jump to the first exit either. Well, and that's the thing I don't know that people understand. And I was trying to explain that on the show on Tuesday. In Florida State's case, in Clemson's case, they kind of have to create the demand to right. Yes. North Carolina, the demand exists. So I, I would imagine I, you know, Bubba hasn't told me exactly what he's told his board of trustees or his president, but my guess is he's told them something to tune of. If the musical chairs start moving again,

we can just say we would like to be in the big ten or we would like to be in the sec and either one of them will take us it's basically the equivalent of like somebody's put a little reserved sign on one of those chairs in this game of musical chairs like that one's ours whenever the music stops we don't need it it's got argyle on it yeah it's in reserve right jordan logo yeah so and look and again and i i i've asked folks at clemson who filed their lawsuit after florida state like why not let them be the canary in the coal mine and i think there's some there's some reasons why you do or you don't uh that are beyond just you know i think there's a lot of what clemson is doing in their lawsuit that is different than what right they're taking

different strategies right and and i would imagine whichever one seems to be working the other one's going to shift we've already seen a little bit of florida state's shifting a little more in clemson's direction on some on some levels but you know the funny thing is is like this is all coming down to money well they're spending a lot of money on lawyers right now that if you don't have to do it right now and you can let somebody else blaze this path yeah it's sort of like you know it's like if you're a company if you're a tech company why do all the r&d if you can just let some other guy do it and then come in and make the better model or immediately i mean what what we're saying is north carolina is the namby pamby skill position player and florida st clemson on the offensive line they're the guys with the right

yeah they're gonna make sure you don't get touched till you hit the second level look again i'd rather be this i'd rather be the wide receiver in this scenario yeah so i get it i get it it's it's just amazing to me and okay i'll ask you this question because i got asked this in the mailbag last week so we've seen rhett lashley troy taylor justin wilcox here smu stanford cal still finish what to say yeah which of the newcomers do you think has the best year in your one? Really? I was thinking about this. So I think the, the easy answer is SMU because they finished last year.

Right. But I mean, even look at the schools who have moved up that have had a lot of success like TCU or Utah, there was still a not immediate. It was not immediate. And you look last year, the four that joined the big 12 struggled.

I mean, they all took a step back. Yeah. And and i i remember talking to of all people bobby vitrino about this when louisville joined the league yes and he said it's not our top end guys can go match up it's if you have an injury or two yeah you don't you you can't survive the attrition that comes with a full season until you've had a little bit of time to build up the roster with legit acc guys or SEC guys. And it's interesting because now Rhett has had the opportunity to watch some big, like he's, he's a Gus Malzahn guy. So I'm sure he was in constant communication with Gus Malzahn about what did you run into year one of UCF in the big 12, which they did.

They ran into, we don't have this depth, a couple injuries. And all of a sudden we're blowing a 28 point lead to Baylor like that is that is what they ran into so if it like if you if you look at what SMU did in the portal a lot of linemen they took out of the portal that doesn't necessarily guarantee success as the viewers know when I talk about Colorado you don't always you can't really change your fortunes on the line of scrimmage through the portal but there's a strength of numbers but maybe some behind yeah maybe maybe you when when somebody gets hurt you have the swing tackle you need to get you through a game yeah so i i think there's a good ceiling for smu if everything kind of breaks right i will say i think stanford might struggle a little

bit yeah my answer might be cal and that answer might be a seven and five team right maybe an eight and four team, but the schedule is okay. Justin Wilcox is so much better coach than he gets the credit for being because of that. It's a very hard job. People don't understand how hard that job is. And to have a star like Jay not to keep a player like that, it's not easy. It's not. And frankly, they've done really well in the portal. They've added some quality players this off season. I think the quarterback situation, because Mendoza showed his signs last year, but they bring in Chandler Rogers who had a very good season last year too at North Texas. That'll be an interesting conversation about how that plays out going into the season.

There's some upside to Cal. So speaking of quarterbacks and fun quarterbacks, BC and Virginia, I feel like have the, the, they're my favorite. Cause obviously they play a lot on Friday nights. So you kind of see them on their own. You get the Roddy Jones game of the week. Well, listen, we love Roddy on this show. Like Roddy needs to be you a hundred. I know you don't make the decisions at ESPN, but Roddy,

Roddy needs to be so far up in the roster. It's not even funny. He is an immense talent. This is a RodPN, but Roddy needs to be so far up in the roster, it's not even funny. He is an immense talent. This is a Rodney Jones-Stan show here. Yeah. I'm all for that. Yeah. But those guys, which of those two is your favorite to watch?

So, Castellanos of BC is fun. And, like, I looked this up the other day. But you keep saying it's a deep drive. But I looked this up the other day. He had more designed runs than any quarterback uh power five quarterbacks since 2018 nick fitzgerald was the last guy with more in the season that is not a name i thought i'm here today so that's good i'm bringing i'm bringing something of value to the show so but i i will be fascinated because you

look bill bill o'brien's history is not with that kind of quarterback no so i i'm very curious given what jaylen milrow said last year before the rose bowl so yeah so i'm i'm it'll be very interesting to me to see how that relationship works out anthony calandria at virginia like the game i'm gonna blank on who they were playing it was the friday night before notre dame played ohio state yes i watched it because i was staying in an airbnb rv 20 miles away from south bend but it was as close to South Bend as I could get for a reasonable price. A lovely RV in somebody's backyard. It was amazing. Shout out to the RV.

Yeah. Who are they playing? Were they playing weight? No, it wasn't. It was some, uh, God,

uh, NC state. That's what it was. Yes. And like him, like doing the flex. Yes. And he's like,

I'm like, don't do that. Yeah. Like guy, a freshman who looked like you are not supposed to be doing that after a drive like that and it was so stupid it's the kind of swagger a place like virginia yes yes and so like and look virginia if you watch those games that he played he was it was the up and down you expect with a freshman but when he was in there it was a different team yes different ceiling and i want freshman. But when he was in there, it was a different team. Yes. Different ceiling. And I want to watch them when he's in there.

Exactly right. Unfortunately for Tony Elliott, part of the reason I want to watch it is he might do this and the flag might come out. It's like a Real Housewives show. It's really, I'm watching for the drama. It might be good TV also, but it's because I don't know what's going to happen.

Exactly. But that does, and that excites me. And then I think, you know, when you watch Virginia play, like they got better as the season went on. And I don't think anybody can appreciate fully what a hole they started in. The job Tony Elliott has done because of something that happened off the field. They had I mean, they had a shooting involving their players and he had to deal with the fallout of all of that. And,

and you know, I've written Tony story. I think you have to, who is it? It, you can look it up. It's an incredible life story that he's been through a lot, but I don't know that there was a better head coach to have to deal with

that. Like to be prepared to deal with something like that. He had said this, like if my journey here gets me fired next year because we didn't win enough, I'll know that it was still a worthwhile thing where I was supposed to be here in this moment to help these guys. I mean, there's,

there's like, again, you can like that. If that had happened to anywhere, it would have been earth shattering. Right. But like, this was a team

that had a lot of other problems and holes that needed to be filled and building that needed and suddenly football doesn't matter and then it didn't matter at all yeah so you basically take what was year one was already sort of a lost cause then that happens and then so last year was the first time that you really had a chance to build something and you're building it under this cloud and the fact that they did i mean look the record is not going to make anybody feel good but you again you could tune into the games and say this is a much better football yeah they are one that we saw you saw it and obviously different circumstances like jed fish arizona he just took over a roster that was in really bad shape but you saw like in year two that they were getting better even if the wins didn't come.

First you lose big, then you lose close. And then you win. Yeah, and you hope that's what happens with Tony Elliott and that team. Stay in the state of Virginia because this is one team that we've talked about a little bit since I've been here. And they're definitely getting, you know, I think they're getting to be a little trendy, buzzy is Virginia Tech. And I think a lot of people are just looking at the schedule and saying that.

But I do think there's kind of a dividing line in the middle of last season where, you know, Tyler Bowen gets more comfortable calling plays for Kyron Jones. Kyron Jones gets more comfortable in the offense. And all of a sudden they look like a different team. Yeah. I remember talking to Brent Pry after the end of the regular season when they beat virginia we're talking about where they might be going for a bowl and he was like i hope we get a good bowl opponent because i want to show

the world how good i think we can be i would give anything to go back and play the first half of our schedule again because we could do it now we would have been so much better yeah well you look their schedule's pretty accommodating this year yeah and it's hard to say that when like you're you're losing games to like marshall and old dominion before like that doesn't necessarily mean the schedule should be easy but this should be a much more manageable schedule if they're playing that level of football now and to your point they're they have got uh some real weapons that they're comfortable using now yeah it's funny we're talking to pry i mean you go back even to his penn state days he's like i can't remember the last time i had an offense that i was this excited about like i hope we're not giving up 30 a game yeah i think we could and still win football games now i think

he's forgetting saquon and mike gasecki and and trace mcstorley but that's okay but that's yeah well i'm not saying all the way back there but we will we will give him a little license for for some hyperbole here yeah it's talking season well it's it's also exciting because look virginia tech being good at football needs needs to exist you can't i was getting very worried about that program in general yeah for good reason the the end of the justin fuente era and the beginning of the brent pryora you were like okay there's a chance this falls off and doesn't come back or or somebody else has to bring this back but to see them be able to bring it back is is exciting and i think it's another example of where fit matters because brent prize a virginia tech guy who knows the area

knows the recruiting knows the high school coaches understands the dynamic of the community there and i i liked justin fuente quite bit, but he was just a bad cultural fit there almost from the outset. And then you have a guy in Brent Prye who I think, you know, with, with Fuente, there was a lot, a couple of different factions within the administration that some were sort of Fuente guys and some were not. I think Prye has a personality and a history and a vision that everybody's kind of rowing in the same direction now and it's funny how much you see and the nil has followed and has allowed them to keep a lot of their best players so you know again i would have said if you even just this time last

year i would have said i don't know man i don't know how that's going to work out and then you look at a year later after just a seven and six season it wasn't like they were ten and three last year that's right but it's the outlook and, the trend line looks so much better than it did. Yeah. It's, it's going to be very fun to watch them because we're talking about teams that might be able to win 10 games in this league. They are one of them. Yeah. Louisville might be one of them. Miami should be one of them. Florida state should be one of them. Clemson should be like there there's, there's some depth here, but maybe there wasn't before. I think this is the most wide open the top of this league has been.

Oh, NC State. Yeah, NC State. And then, I mean, look, I know Carolina loses Drake May. There's part of me that thinks like they're not better without Drake May, but they can be different without Drake May. And, like, for example, so I did one of their spring practices for TV, and I remember last year we had gone down. I was in Tallahassee.

I remember looking at FSU's O-line and for the first time in a long time being like, those are dudes. Those guys can play at this level. Then a week later, we were up in Carolina. I looked at their O-line. I'm like, this ain't it. Now, this year, they have brought in some really good transfer talent on that O-line.

They've got a great running back, Am and ham oh yeah that maybe you don't need to be an entire offense that revolves around your dynamic quarterback as it was with sam howell and it was with drake may maybe you can put in whether it's max johnson or connor harrell like maybe you don't need them to be the superstar because you can build an offense that does something and in doing that might help the defense out a little bit because the defense has been not good but also put in bad positions really often well one of our favorite guests from last year came in rucker is back this year too so i'm excited about that and singing star came in absolutely like well and you guys have him on tv he's so good so david went to college to write pretty words i went to college to write pretty words uh andrew adelson my former boss at the uh school paper at florida his co-host on the acc

network it's beautiful watching you become tv stars but well she's host i'm co-host just oh really is that okay host that's like when she was sports editor and i was assistant sports editor that's exactly that's exactly right nobody else is and listen andrew is the boss you're gonna see andrew on the show very soon but she's she's the boss she is a boss a boss she's the only one who keeps this whole system running somehow absolutely david thank you so much my pleasure good to see you man yes sir thank you to our friend david hale for ACC, realignment, Dabo, you name it. That was a fun conversation. David's the best. He and Andrea do a great job in the ACC network. Watch them, especially if you want to learn more about ACC players, coaches, athletic directors, you name it.

They do a fantastic job. These are the questions that you would hear them ask for the stories that they write, except you get to be in on that conversation. And I am so glad that you got to be in on that conversation with David because he's so much fun to talk to and knows so much about the ACC. The institutional knowledge is off the charts there. I had a lot of questions for him. Well, guess what? Tomorrow's Thursday. If you got questions for me, send them your way. My favorite day of the week.

Dear Andy, you drive the show. You ask the questions. I love to know what is on your mind. What is burning you up? What do you want to know about college football? So send me your questions at Andy underscore staples on Twitter at Andy underscore staples on Instagram, Andy staples on three at gmail.com. If you want to shoot yourself on video and then email me that video of you asking the question, you want to be marginally internet famous for about 30 seconds, by all means, send it to me, andystapleson3atgmail.com. Or if you just have a very long question,

if you got to, I don't know, attach a realignment spreadsheet to your question, andystapleson3atgmail.com. Cannot wait to see your questions. I will attempt to answer them. I don't always successfully answer them, but I will certainly make the attempt and we're going to have fun doing it. Talk to you tomorrow.