Locked On ACC - Daily College Football & Basketball Podcast - ACC CHAOS: Duke's Controversial Path to Title Game EXPOSES Flawed Tiebreaker, Teams OUTRAGED

Episode Date: December 1, 2025

ACC chaos erupts as a five-way tie sends 7-5 Duke, who didn’t beat any fellow contenders head-to-head, into the conference championship against 10-2 Virginia. Does this broken tiebreaker protocol threaten the conference’s College Football Playoff bid? Alex Donno and Kenton Gibbs spotlight the controversy, questioning Duke’s path and the fairness of winning percentage as the deciding factor.The debate heats up around Miami’s playoff hopes, Notre Dame’s suspicious rankings jump, and whether the playoff committee will honor head-to-head results or established criteria. Insights range from the impact of coaching changes at Ole Miss and Florida State’s post-snub struggles to key rivalry weekend upsets and bowl eligibility woes. Can Virginia solidify a CFP slot, or will playoff chaos leave deserving teams on the sidelines? Critical analysis and strong opinions make this a must-listen for ACC football fans.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Omaha SteaksSave big on unforgettable gifts with Omaha Steaks. Visit https://OmahaSteaks.com for 50% off site-wide and an extra 20% off select favorites during their Cyber Sale.And for an additional $35 off, use promo code COLLEGE at checkout. Aura FramesFor a limited time, save on the perfect gift by visiting https://AuraFrames.com to get $35 off Aura’s best-selling Carver Mat frames - named #1 by Wirecutter - by using promo code COLLEGE at checkout. GametimeToday's episode is brought to you by Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONCOLLEGE for $20 off your first purchase. Terms and conditions apply.FanDuelToday's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Football season is around the corner, visit the FanDuel App today and start planning your futures bets now.FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

When you have a five-way tie in the conference standings and somehow the team that is objectively the worst out of those five gets to play in your conference championship game, the protocol is broken. You are locked on ACC, your daily podcast on the Atlantic Coast Conference. Part of the Locked on podcast network, your team every day. In the most ACC of fashions, you get a five-loss team who, if they win your conference, probably won't make the college football playoff despite the auto-bid scenario. You get Duke, and I don't want to take anything away from Virginia. Like Virginia had a great season, 10 and 2. Virginia deserves to be in, but they're facing Duke.

Boy, do we have a lot to talk about. Thank you so much to the everydayers for making Locked-on ACC, your first listen. We're available free wherever you get your podcast. We're on YouTube. We're part of the now number one Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. He is Kenton Gibbs, NC State Defense of Lyman, former NC State Defense of Lockdown Wolfpack. You can still line it up, though, Kenton.

You're looking slim and trim. I am Alex Dono from Lockdown Keynes, and today's episode is brought to you by GameTime. Download the GameTime app, create your account, and use code Lockdown College for $20 off your first purchase. We'll talk about winners from Rivalry Weekend. Kenton gets to take the winner's circle for that. We'll talk about the college football playoff chaos. All right, but here, and I know Duke football fans are not going to like this episode.

I mean, I guess congratulations to your team. Yeah, I guess congratulations to your team to play in the conference championship game. So Virginia gets in as the number one seed. Now, there was some weirdness there as well because they go seven and one in the ACC, despite losing to a conference opponent this year. extra one, but it wasn't a conference game against Kenton's NC State Wolfpack. But Virginia, there was no controversy there. They get into the ACC championship game. And then for second place, you had a five-way tie, Kenton, because Miami, Georgia Tech, SMU, Pitt, and Duke all had six

and two conference records. Now, in that pool of teams, Miami is 10 and two overall. Georgia Tech is nine and three. SMU and Pitt are eight and four, and Duke is seven and five. So I've been asked this question a thousand times since Saturday night. Well, what was the tiebreaker that allowed Duke to advance over all of these other teams? And here it is, Kenton. When you have a pool of that many teams tied, the tiebreaker came down to winning percentage of your conference opponents, to which Duke had a slight edge over the rest of the field. Now, this is not winning percentage of teams you beat in your conference. This is just a winning percentage of conference opponents. Now, obviously the 7 and 5 record is ugly, but the non-conference had nothing to do with Duke selected.

But here's the problem, Kenton. And I know the ACC, to be fair, is not the only conference that uses that particular tiebreaker. I believe the SEC does as well. So it's not as if the ACC is alone on this terrible protocol. I still think it's terrible protocol. But when the tiebreaker is winning percentage of conference opponents, in the case, of Duke, the two teams that were propping up the opponent winning percentage were Virginia who went 7 and 1 in conference and Georgia Tech who went 6 and 2 in conference, and Duke lost to them both. But they're the ones. Those teams are the reason Duke gets in. And also, out of those five teams that are tied with the 6 and 2 conference records, did Duke beat any of those teams

ahead to head? No. Did Duke lose to one of those teams head to head? Yes, in the case of Georgia attack. Most of these teams didn't even play against each other, which is a whole another issue. The conference is too big and they probably should still have divisions. But like this is the ACC's worst nightmare, Kenton, because a seven and five Duke, even if they beat Virginia, they may not get into the CFP. May not. They are not. There is no if and or but about it. You cannot put a seven and five team with a loss to a G5 school in. You can't. I'm sorry. And this is not a knock on Duke.

As much as I have said, hey, Duke's fans need to show up for football. And Duke's fans, even if they go on and win an ACC championship, their fans are just going to be like, oh, that's cool. Anyway, what's Cameron Boozer stateline against Florida? That's just who they are. That's just how they exist in the world. But with all that being said, the criteria is the problem, not Duke.

Right. Benefits from a crappy criteria. Okay? The criteria, to me, the most obvious one, because I hate, I'm going to tell you another criteria that people are throwing out that I hate. Oh, the tie should always go to the highest rank team. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. I strongly agree because that creates brand bias.

We all know a large part of these rankings are historically how good having it been. For example, Tennessee and Missouri have, they are on a list of teams that have not beaten a single power for team. with a winning record all year. Now, with that being said, who do you think has spent more time ranked this season, Dono? Are potential conference champion in UVA or Tennessee? A team that's not beaten a single team with a running record in the power for our year.

Tennessee, they didn't drop out of the AP rankings until this week when they lost their fourth game. So you get my point here. So I very strongly don't want it to be the highest. To me, it should be the winning percentage of the teams that you beat. Of the teams that you beat. If you beat Dogwater, but you're lost to the big dogs and the big dogs lost to each other, you're out. You're not in this conversation.

Sorry, get somebody else to do it. You're not going to be in this conversation. But for this criteria, as unfortunate as it is, it has to happen this way. And one more thing before I pass it back to you, Dr. I see a lot of people saying, well, if I was the ACC, I'd go in and make Miami the team. You cannot. The same way that I said, Florida State being left out is creating a precedent for what should happen in the future if teams change a lot. And now people are looking around and saying, well, wait, why would Ole Miss get left out?

How could Ole Miss possibly get left out? There are one lost SEC team, a one lost SEC team without the team. their offensive coordinator, without their head coach, and who has the worst defensive metrics out of all of the teams that are in serious consideration of being the playoffs. They have some of the worst defensive metrics, and they lost all of the firepower that got them to this point. So you can't then tell me that's not a different team, but the precedent has been set. Same thing for Miami.

You cannot set a precedent here that we will shift and move the board and rig the game to ensure what is best for the conference. what is best for our big brands. Because again, if it is used for you, you know, my grandmother always used to say, the same thing to make you laugh or make you cry. And right now, if you are, if they were to switch it for Miami in this instance,

it would be make you laugh. But what happens if Clemson happens to come back? What happens if Florida State happens to come back? And now we're having an argument of, well, wait a minute, Miami earned their way in, but Clemson would be better for the conference in terms of viewers. ship to have in. I don't stop it. Again, the criteria is broken. Fix the criteria, but do not fix

the system. Do not rig the game to say, oh, we need this team in as opposed to that team. Stop it, man. Stop it. Miami, at the end of the day, I do really feel sorry for y'all. I do really feel like I'm not a big proponent of just win your games, when you won more than the other team. I'm not a proposal of that at all. But in this situation, It so happens to be that the tiebreaker criteria had nothing to do with your wings, which is unfair. That to me is deeply unfair, but it is what it was. I agree with you on the criteria thing. As much as I would like to see Miami playing in Charlotte this weekend, you're a thousand percent right.

Like your criteria is what got you into this mess, but you can't change it after week 14 for this year. Like, they may have to sit down during the off season and say, hey, moving forward, just so all the teams are aware, we're going to work on changing this moving forward. If you want to change it for 2026 and beyond, do that. But you can't change the rules to the game while the game is in progress. You at least have to wait until the round is over. So I'm with you. Like, the ACC made their bed here. Like, they allowed this possibility that a team that lost to Yukon is playing for your conference championship.

this is honestly, you know, for how many issues and the reputation the ACC has, you almost feel like this is the conference championship game that they deserve. So let's talk about what happens on Saturday between Duke and Virginia. Let's talk about the other results from Rivalry Weekend. And now, you know, with, I guess, you know, obviously Virginia, if they win the ACC championship game. And Miami possibly at large are the only chances this conference has at a C.S. F-P bid, how that can all go down. You want to keep it locked right here. We're only getting started on this brand new episode of Locked on ACC. Folks, the World Cup is coming back to North America

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All of the awesome hosts, there are, you know, hundreds of hosts across the lockdown podcast network. We all work really, really hard. And the fact that this is now the number one network, we have you, the listeners and the viewers, to thank for that. So for the bottom of our hearts. All right. So Kent, as we're looking at this college football playoff picture,

you know, obviously I spent a lot of time talking and thinking about Miami's scenario. and it seems as though Miami is going to be hard done just based on where the rankings have been, with Miami having been consistently ranked behind Notre Dame. And that head-to-head thing is starting to look a little more suspect week after week because now that Miami finishes their season 10 and 2, Notre Dame is also 10 and 2, not only does Miami have the head-to-head victory over Notre Dame, the committee seems to want to ignore, Miami also has victories, against all four of the common opponents that those two teams have.

Because Miami and Notre Dame both also played against Pittsburgh, against Syracuse, against Stanford, and against NC State. And both teams beat all of those teams and Miami beat Notre Dame. Yet Miami has been ranked three spots behind them. I wouldn't expect Miami to jump over Bama or BYU unless they both get blown out in their conference championship games. So I have felt all along, Kenton, that the committee was kind of hoping and expecting that Miami would lose again so that they wouldn't have this problem that they're in

because it's very clear to me the college football playoff committee wants Notre Dame to be in no matter what. But the conundrum is how do you put Notre Dame in without putting Miami in as well? The big CFP lobby got you muted. And not only, see, not they're coming for me. The Irish lobby in the CFP lobby going to come for me for this one. But I got to say it. Donno, in terms of the margins of victory in those games, if you exclude the Syracuse game where by the time that Syracuse and Notre Dame had played, it was clear that the story was

they've got a lacrosse kid and quarterback. It was basically airbud. Let's be honest, right? This is an airbud type of deal where a golden retriever would have completed more passes. And guess what? We're not talking about his skill on the football field at all. I didn't hear one time. He threw for 30 touchdowns in high school.

He was a great runner of the football in high school. I didn't hear anything other than four-star lacrosse guy. I mean, Fran Brown stinking up the joint, not just as a coach, but probably physically the man ain't showered in damn near three months at this point. I mean, sheesh, an entire off-season is stinking. Mrs. Brown ain't going to be too happy with that at all. But it's to me, with the exception of that one. game where you hang 70.

If you look at the margin of victory at each of those games, and even if you include that game and say, who had the larger margin of victory in each game, guess who comes out on top of that? Miami. Miami. So what are we doing here? Common opponents, we were better against them, with the exception of one game where you lit it up, everything worked out well for you in that one game.

Okay, great. But then we played each other. We played each other. If the idea is, oh, well, the loss is. happened so early and they've gotten better and better and better and Miami hasn't? Miami hasn't? If we are talking about how good Miami has been and the teams that they've beaten down the stretch, I want to make one thing clear to everybody, right?

The ACC obviously had their problems this year and all that good stuff. However, when you talk about Miami football and what they did closing this season out, you would say, well, they played Syracuse and NC State and Virginia. Genie Tech three teams that weren't much. Sure, but they dominated all of them. All of them. As a matter of fact, not only did they dominate all of them in the month of November over these last four games, guess what?

All of those teams didn't really look that bad. NC States only lost in the last four was to Miami. And they played a top 10 team in there. Georgia Tech was undefeated top 10 at the time. So I really don't see how it is at all fair or decent to say, you know, Miami doesn't belong in based on, based on what? Based on what? You can't tell me Notre Dame's best win is better than Miami's best win. Their best winning was against USC.

Okay. So is USC better than Notre Dame? No. Obviously not. They played head to head and Notre Dame beat him. Oh, okay. Okay, because Miami's best win is whom now? Notre Dame.

Oh, okay. So now we're going by worst loss, but everything else points to Miami being the better team. Again, I don't care about anything else other than what happens when you line it up. What happened when you lined it up? And we have so many common opponents, and a head-to-head game, how much more?

And again, I'm a big proponent to just win your games if Miami had beaten Notre Dame but had three losses. I could make the argument of just win your games, just win your ball games. You shouldn't have that third loss, just win your game. They have the same record with a win over that team. What's the argument? What is the deal here?

It's an embarrassment and it's a sham. It really and truly is a sham if Miami is left out. And especially with how many times this committee will have to, not just might will have to contradict themselves very directly in order to leave them out with Ole Miss and how much they're losing. Again, we saw one quarterback. One quarterback is worth dropping you down one spot. Okay, so how much is the offensive coordinator worth dropping? How much is the head coach worth dropping you?

You would think it's worth something. And again, I think we're in agreement. We don't want them to do Ole Miss dirty like that, but they have set that precedent. I actually do. I'm sorry. If you're going to hold it, hold it consistent until you change the rule. If the rule has been changed and injuries and coaching exits are no longer a part of the equation, then fine, leave them in. Because some people are saying that the criteria was changed when it was moved to 12.

I have not seen that. But if it is the same, that's a clearly different team. It's a different team. And that's not even a situation where it's like, oh yeah, their offense was barely scraed. by anyway and you lose your head coach and your office coordinator who are not the same guy by the way so these are we're looking at the the CFP principles and these are up to date from college football playoff.com these were not the 2023 principles these are the principles for today the committee will select the teams using a process that distinguishes among otherwise comparable teams by

considering strength of schedule now Miami is one spot behind Notre Dame and strength of schedule. So you, I mean, you'd say that's pretty much a wash, right? When you're a spot behind. Head-to-head competition. Miami won the game head-to-head. Comparative outcomes of common opponents without incenting margin of victory. You mentioned not only Miami beat Notre Dame, they had four common opponents. They both beat all four of them, right? And then you've got to what you were just saying about Ole Miss, other relevant factors such as unavailability of key players and coaches that may have affected a team's performance during the season or likely will affect its postseason performance. So they have that written in their up-to-date principles.

And not only, and so this is my question. How do you look at that and say that and also say, so what that you lost? Again, Lane Kiffin was not their offensive coordinator. They're losing their head coach and their offensive coordinator. Right, right. This is not like a, and my. you, we're already hearing reports about players hopping in the portal. So this is not a knock on Ole Miss.

This is not me saying, oh, miss, you're a terrible team. You don't deserve to get in on your merits and all that. On your merits, you do deserve to get in. But on your merits, on their merits, so did Florida State. Right. So did Florida State. Right. A young man, Jordan Travis, had to tweet out, I wish I would have broken my leg earlier

so y'all could see how great this team was without it. Oh, can you imagine? And to that effect, this is like giving choosing the leave. All of the turmoil. All of the turmoil that you're seeing. All of this is he staying? Is he going? Is it week to week?

Is he re-uping? So to me, to say that one quarterback being out is worth as much as a head coach and a coordinator leaving, that would be complete and other nonsense. That would be complete in other nonsense. So, you know, basically we have on the last. line anywhere between two college football playoff bids for the ACC if Virginia wins the conference championship. They're favored by three and a half points this weekend. And if the committee decides, you know what, Miami really should be a top 10 team and we're going to have the

rankings reflect that. It does like the scenario kind of reminds me, Kent, and again, going back to 2023, it was a 14 playoffs. It was kind of a different, a little bit of a different process. But when they left Florida State out, a big reason why they wanted to do that was not only because, oh, Jordan Travis is injured, they wanted Alabama in. Like, it's no question. They wanted Bama in, but then in letting Bama in, they also had to put Texas in because Texas had a head-to-head against Bama and the same record. So this kind of feels like that, that if you really want Notre Dame in that badly, you kind of have to put Miami in as well. But then the issue here, though, is the committee knows they're going to be royally pissing people off no matter what they do.

Because if you leave Miami out, not only is Miami angry, but a lot of folks, Paul Feinbaum, even Nick Saban, Josh Pate, Ari Wasserman, Booger McFar, like, you know, all these talking heads are like, hey, like the head-to-head needs to matter. So you piss a lot of people off if you leave Miami out. But then also, if you put Miami in the field, does that come at the expense of Alabama. Does it come at the expense of BYU? Does it come at the expense of Oklahoma? So Miami's been ranked behind these teams for several weeks. So the committee understands like there's no easy decision to be made here. If you leave Miami out, people are angry. You put Miami in, people are angry. And I don't know how they're going to approach that situation.

I can't remember which philosopher it was, but one of them said the only way to offend is to do nothing, be nothing and say nothing. Congratulations, guys. You're on the committee. You have to do things say things and be things you're going to piss somebody off regardless but if you're going to piss somebody off it should be based on fairness and consistency it should be based on what people have earned not hypothetically who would win this game hypothetically who would win oh the sharps who would they favor who would the sharks favor oh what are the sharp saying because the sharps got a lot of people a whole lot of money they got a lot of people a whole lot of money when they put out that unc line of under overall wins don't know was

Was that not the most bet on bet for unders in the nation? Yep. So apparently Vegas could not see something that a bunch of random gamblers, wait a minute, hold on. What? They're going to win. How many get? Baby, put the, take out the HELOC, put a second mortgage down on this thing.

We got the, we're going to get us paid. And they did. So again, I'm about what happens when you line it up. And there is no argument for when the ball was placed down. to 50 when that ball was kicked off in Coral game or I'm sorry in Miami proper actually when that ball was kicked off at Hard Rock Stadium there is not a world that you can say they get in and it's a lot like my my Hall of Fame argument for Matt Stafford because I say this all the time if you let in Eli Manning you have to let in Matt Stafford and everybody's like no that's not true and I'm like

look at the look at the numbers if you switch the teams that they're on it's not close you don't If you switch their last name and it's right the last name versus Eli Stamber, it's not even a thought. You don't even think about it. It's the same thing here. If we are talking about Miami with a head-to-head loss against Notre Dame, with their best win being number 19 or 20 in the nation, are we even having a conversation about Miami being in over Notre Dame?

No, we're not. So why we're having this conversation about Notre Dame being over Miami, again, the consistency, and I got into somebody with, I got into it with somebody on Twitter about this, I said, I don't, I have a problem with the metrics, but my even bigger problem than the metrics, which use preseason rankings and all that. My bigger problem than that is, are you consistent?

If you're going to say these metrics matter, fine, use the damn metrics. Okay, but like Dono just said, the strength of record has them one apart, and they played each other. So what are we doing? What are we doing, man? Get Miami in the playoff.

At minimum, even if Duke wins the ACC championship, Miami needs to be in that playoff. That's right. All right. Let's recap a busy rivalry weekend. You had some surprises there. Not that this one was a rivalry game, but Cal over SMU. I mean, that's Mandy Diaz is sending a thank you card to whoever the coach of Cal is right

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For your next list and check out our other shows. Kenton, Gibbs, and Grace and Boone do an awesome job hosting Lockedon Wolfpack, talking all things NC State. I talk all things Miami on Locked on Cains. All right, Kenton, NC State got it done. Not that I was surprised about that against old Belichick. 42 to 19, Dave Doran over Bill Belichick. Now, let me ask you this.

Do you think that was, is that Dave Doran's, you know, final regular season game with the pack? What's going on there? It's already been announced. He's going to be back for the 2026 season. He's back? He's back. And I warned everybody this was probably going to happen because of how,

how wild these, this coaching year was in terms of the coach. Oh, yeah. This is not a good time to be on the market for a new coach. This ain't it. This ain't it. You're going to have to settle. To say you're going to have to settle would be an understatement. And now you're saying, well, we got to start back at one with somebody that we're not even sure about. It's not even like we're starting back at one with a guy that everybody wanted.

And if there was a different year, everybody would be on them. No, that's not the case because you're not beating out Florida for who they want. You're not beating out LSU for who they want. Obviously, the LSU job was going to go to somebody who was of a very high caliber, even if it wasn't Lane Kippen. So that's some job that was also very high caliber was going to open. And you know who's still looking for a coach, whose players are saying, who's our coach going to be? Literally, players from this team are tuning that.

Penn State. And again, while I do think, what is it, Happy Valley up there is a interesting place to be, you still can't argue, is it the same level of job as NC State? So, you know, it objectively was just a terrible time. And it is not his last game, but I will say this. It is something about Dave Doran that every time he sees the over-the-hill coach with the first name, William, he wants to put him down. He wants to do him the worst way. You know what I mean?

This is one, two, three, four, five, five straight, okay? Bill Belichette, Bill O'Brien, don't matter. Don't matter. Pack if I. That's what happened. That's what happened. Pack for five straight, baby. what a game. That was beautiful. It was 42 to 19 NC State over North Carolina. Some of the other results, man, man, it's like he is coaching like a man who knows he cannot be fired. Because like ever, ever since Florida State came out and said like, hey, we're going to continue to keep climbing. We're going to build around Norville. We're not going to fire him. He keeps lowering the bar, Kent. And Florida State loses to a now four-win.

Florida team 40 to 21. So both of those teams are ineligible for a bowl. Florida finishes 4 and 8. Florida State finishes 5 and 7. I mean, that program is so disappointing right now. Did you see that Bud Elliott, who's a very prominent media member and a Florida State alum. He does multiple big shows like the cover three podcast. Bud Elliott just canceled his Florida state specific pod that he did, just citing the fact that like nobody wants to talk about this team right now. Like they got podcasters opting out because that team is so bad. That's what's going on in Tallahassee. Hey, listen, the Saints would say they're coming up on the rough side of the mountain.

Well, Florida State is one that come up on the slick side. You know the problem there? You got no traction to get higher. This is unfortunate for Florida State. Yes, Norville has taken them to the highest of highs. Yes, we talk about that snub and all that. this was a team that honestly and truly they have not recovered from that snow. They've never recovered from it.

It's two years ago now. And I was the first person saying, this is terrible. You cannot leave this team out. But you have to get back. You have to shake back. You have to recover at some point in time. The son, you know, Skeeter Davis said, why does the birds go on seeing it?

Why does the seeds rest of short? know it's the end of the world because you don't love me anymore. The committee don't love you no more. That's okay, Florida State. Get your behind up and understand you've got another season to go back and do it again, you know, and they just haven't seemed to do that at any level. I mean, that snub has done irreparable damage since then. I don't believe they won a road game.

That's how deep that rot in that program goes right now, man. And it's unfortunate, but financial. like you said, apparently the Magic Fairy Dust money ran out. They just don't, they don't got it to fire him. So, you know, it's a shame. This game was a good old-fashioned mid-off that saw Florida State lose its ability to go to a bowl game. I really do hate it for those guys. Yeah, for sure.

Other other results, you had Boston College, 34 to 12 winners against Syracuse. Man, since Steve Angelly went down, Syracuse might as well have canceled the rest of of their season. They lose to now 2 and 10 BC. You know, Duke, Duke beat Wake Forest 49 to 32. So you couple that with Cal upsetting SMU 3835, which, you know, it's, I wasn't shocked, Kenton. Like I really, and we kind of saw you got an interim coach in California. It's a home game out there that they would play with a little bit of a spark. I mean, SMU, they controlled their own destiny to get into the ACC championship game and they blew it.

SMU absolutely late day. I want to talk about Syracuse for just one moment. Yeah, please. We get to the ASMU. Yeah. Syracuse has not, not only have they not won a game? I mean this very seriously, Donald. The closest game that they've had since

Steve Angelly went down was a 13 point loss to SMU. That was the closest. Other than that, here are the scores they've lost by. 35, 17, 25, 17, 28, 63, 22. I'm starting to question Fran Brown. I don't care that your quarterback position was bad.

You can't tell me one player made your team that bad to where it's not even competitive. Fran, you got a big year ahead of you, brother. You got a lot of credibility on the lot. And now to another coach that everybody thought was the new greatness. Brett, damn Lashley. What was that? What was that, Red? Everything on the line for you.

Everything on the line. Everything. And you let J.K.S. go out there and put on the show against you to end this thing. You had the opportunity to be one of the only coaches in the nation. Four straight conference appearances at the same school. Conference championship appearances at the same school. Rarified air. You just read up.

made you one of the highest paid coaches in America. Hey, you're doing the thing, brother. You're doing it. Everybody's loving you. Everybody's saying, who, thank God. SMU goes to the ACC championship, saves the ACC from doom and disaster. And then he says, everybody,

hold my pony express-shaped beer. We are going to lose this football game. I mean, man, what an epic collapse by their defense in this one. You know, it's tough to even imagine. a world where you're you're talking about a head coachless team last game of the season. That's not your actual arrival. And you cannot win that football game. Man, that's that's just foolishness.

That's that's terrible. It's rough. Well, we appreciate everybody for making Lockdown ACC your first listen. We'll be breaking down the riveting Virginia versus Duke ACC championship game, which I think goes head to head with the Big Ten championship game. This is going to be the first game that gets negative viewership in the Nielsen ratings. Somehow it's going to be like a negative million people watching this one. He is Kenton Gibbs from Lockdown Wolfpack.

Follow him at TGIF underscore Kenton on X. Follow me at Lockdown Keynes and at Alex Dono. And we'll talk to you next time on another episode of Lockdown ACC. We are part of the awesome Lockdown Podcast Network, number one, and your team every day.