Locked On ACC - Daily College Football & Basketball Podcast - ACC merging with The Big East?? | Florida State Football prediction

Episode Date: February 24, 2025

Could a merger between the ACC and Big East reshape college sports? As the Miami Hurricanes and other ACC teams navigate potential changes, this episode explores the implications for basketball and football. With insights from Alex Donno and Kenton Gibbs, the discussion covers NCAA tournament prospects for ACC basketball teams, including the impact of recent performances on their chances. The conversation also dives into football win totals, focusing on Florida State's prospects and the broader ACC landscape.Key figures like Coach K and Rick Pitino are mentioned, adding depth to the analysis. The episode also touches on the trend of spring game cancellations and their potential impact on team dynamics.Tune in for a comprehensive look at the evolving ACC sports scene and discover what these changes mean for your favorite teams.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!PrizePicksDownload the app and use code lockedonnfl to win $50 instantly when you play $5. You don't even need to win to receive your $50 bonus, it's guaranteed! Prizepicks. Run Your Game.Click Here: https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/LOCKEDONCOLLEGEFabricJoin the thousands of parents who trust Fabric to help protect their families. Apply today in just minutes at MEETFABRIC.com/LOCKEDONCOLLEGE. Policies issued by Western-Southern Life Assurance Company. Not available in certain states. Prices subject to underwriting and health questions.ROYDownload the Roy app now from the App Store and start backing your favorite athletes the way they deserve—with transparency, trust, and a real impact. This is the future of college sports. Join it now by downloading Roy and supporting your favorite players!FanDuelRight now, new FanDuel customers can get ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in Bonus Bets if your first FIVE DOLLAR bet wins!Download the app or head to FANDUEL.COM to get started. Bet with FanDuel—Official Partner of the NBA. 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.

There's talk of a merger between the ACC and the Big East. How feasible is this? And would this solve a lot of problems? You are locked on ACC, your daily podcast on the Atlantic Coast Conference. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. Happy Monday and shout out to the everydayers. Thank you so much for making Locked on ACC your first listen and your first watch today. We're available free wherever you get your podcast.

We're free on YouTube. We're part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Today's episode is brought to you by Fandual. Right now, new Fandual customers can get $150 in bonus bets if your first $5 bet wins. He is Kenton Gibbs from Locked on Wolfpack. I am Alex Dono from Locked on Cains. We got most of, and all the relevant ones, I think, ACCC football win totals for next

year are out there. You can bet on these. Fan Duel, we'll talk about them. We'll talk a lot of basketball on this episode because it seems like outside of the top three teams in the ACC, nobody else wants to go to the NCAA tournament. A lot of bubbles were potentially bursting over the weekend. But Kenton, there's been some chatter out there.

And when, you know, Coach Kay and current St. John's head coach Rick Petino, who is, of course, is an ACC legend, when they start talking about how a merger between the ACC and the Big East, which obviously doesn't do a whole lot for football, but maybe more than you think. We'll talk about that. But would obviously be a basketball-centric merger because the Big East is a basketball conference.

They only have one member with a football team. The rest of them are basketball on down. But, okay, your first reaction, Kenton, and we think, of course, the ACC poops, they're on a down year this year. The idea of a merger between the ACC and the Big East, does that tickle your fancy? Absolutely.

And let me tell you why, it's already kind of happened. I mean, where did Miami come from before they were in the ACC? Big East. Virginia Tech by Chase. Where did they come from? Big East. The Cardinals of Louisville. Were they from the Big Ten or the SEC or something like that?

The Big East. So, I mean, it's already happened more or less. We just got the biggest brands out of the Big East. And now we're looking at the basketball side of things. I mean, my biggest question. is what is the potential downside? Because I really don't see one to a significant degree beyond what we've already done.

I could understand the argument of regionality and not wanting to stretch out these conferences too far if we didn't have counties. You get what I'm saying? You can't tell me, oh, going from Raleigh up to St. John's is in New York, correct? Or is in New Jersey. Yeah, New York.

Okay, so, yeah. Oh, going from Rale of New York, that's such a trip. Well, didn't you already have to go up there for Syracuse? Didn't you have to go? Don't you have to go over? Oh, going from Tallahassee up to DePaul, which I believe is in what? I were Illinois, one of the two? I think Illinois.

You're asking the wrong guy, but. Either way you cut it. I know, I know Marquette is in Wisconsin. Wisconsin, yeah. That one I know. Marquette is in Wisconsin. Yeah, but either way you cut or slice it, I don't see these as like these massive, oh, my God, this is going to be such a terrible, terrible thing because, I mean, again, what does the ACC stand to lose from this?

Well, yeah, and honestly, I don't, I don't really see any downside. Now, there are obstacles. I don't see any downside. And just so people know, and again, this would create a basketball super conference. And I know like a, you know, in some previous years, you would have already called the ACC a basketball super conference. Last couple of years not as much. But you would be adding the likes of Yukon, St. John's, Creighton, Marquette, Xavier, Villanova, Georgetown, Butler, Providence, Seton Hall, DePaul. And again, so it's like, and obviously most of these schools don't have football teams.

Yukon is the only one with a football program. not that their football program is great, but, you know, and I would have to wonder if the big obstacle for merging these two leagues could maybe be an added value for the next TV deal, but, but Kent, that's where the obstacle is, okay? Because the ACC, we all know, because we've covered the grant of rights extensively, has a TV deal with ESPN that runs through 2036, okay? Where the big east, their TV deal, which of course is for significant,

less money because, you know, football is the big driving sport. The Big East doesn't really have that. They've got a TV deal with, I believe it's NBC, Fox, and TNT. So they're spread out across a bunch of networks that do not include ESPN. So you would, you know, if you want to do the merger sooner than 2036, there's a long way away, you would have to, you know, unravel all of the TV deals and come up with a new one, which doesn't seem that feasible. because, again, ESPN, as we've covered, is already in a very favorable TV deal with the ACC.

I don't see why ESPN would want to throw that deal out to make a new deal that has more basketball teams on it. The TV deal that the Big East has runs through 2031 with those networks that I mentioned. Now, the only thing, though, Kenton that gets me thinking. And when, you know, we had Brett Friedlander on a couple weeks ago to talk about the ACC Grant of Rights, we had Doug Rohan of Rohan Law on recently. we talked about this. You have to wonder if the ACC comes to that settlement agreement with Florida State and Clemson, who they're suing them, they're suing each other.

One of the proposed settlement terms, again, it's been thrown out there by the media. We assume that maybe there's some truth to this would be the ACC possibly shortening the grant of rights to 2031. So if that were to happen, Kenton, that would line up with when the Big East TV deal runs. out. So maybe you could be talking about instead of, you know, 11 years from now, maybe six years from now, you could see this merger between the ACC and Big East take place. You're absolutely right in terms of the timing would align almost perfectly. But the question becomes this. Is the juice worth the squeeze in that potential scenario? Because, yes, you're gaining Big East basketball. Yes, it's a big draw. Is that draw? Is that draw

big enough to say buy to Clemson and Florida State. And even if your argument is, well, Clemson and Florida State are going to leave anyway. They're going to leave by pain. Donald, you came up in the generation where I'm sure you've heard this song plenty of times. It's cheaper to keeper, right? But that's where Florida State. Why do you think I've been married this long? But that's where Florida State and Clemson both are.

They're in a standpoint where it is cheaper to stay around. because they just don't have the duckets. If they have the duckets to go and make extra money, they would make that payment, but they don't. So the question becomes, is the draw from Big East merger, from Big East basketball enough? Because I get how now you're working in their basketball money, then goes into the football pot.

And now they're making more money from basketball than they probably work beforehand as well. I get that. But again, is it enough to say, let's say both of those teams have to pay 200 mil or so, 150 mil or so, is it worth a $300 million gamut? Because that's what it would be if you were to say, because your TV deal aligns, we will cut the granted right short and let them leave. I'll say, let's go back to court.

Because we see. The last thing we're talking about in court, decisive victory for the ACC and we're doing the contract. So I'll say, let's go back to court. Come on. Let's go on back in there. Let's see if this will work out a little bit different. You raise a great point. Another thing I was thinking of is if they were to merge, would it be a straight up merger where, you know,

the 18 team ACC brings in all 11 from the Big East, which would basically make it at, what, a 29 team conference? Or do maybe, you know, a couple of a weaker links on both. sides, maybe get spit out and kind of pushed out to the G5. I wonder, I wonder about that, Kent. And if they, if you straight up 18 from the ACC, 11 from the Big East, or if they might kind of re-formulate, because then it could be very complicated. If you're talking about maybe giving the boot, you know, to a few of your, of your lesser

revenue schools, does that open you up to lawsuits? And what could the, what could the domino effect be there? That's another thing I think about. I mean, 29 teams, you would obviously be able to make some dream matchups where you could have, you know, regular, regular season games between Duke and Yukon. But then it's like, it's tough to make a schedule with that many teams in a conference. Oh, absolutely. And even beyond that, you talk about purging lesser teams. We all know just the fact of how these contracts are setting up, realignment is being driven by football.

So if you're talking about purging lesser teams, you're de facto saying some of those. teams from the big east will not make the jump because everybody that has football they're not leaving it doesn't matter how many people watch wake force guess what they still have a football team to watch so you know at that point you're saying hey sorry debaul we figured out you were in chicago but that's about it we are not bringing you on it is so we confirmed they're in chicago it is chicago it is in chicago hey sorry guys we we love you but if you're not a big big name out of the We can't do nothing for you, which, you know, that, that brings up an entirely different type of question because then you say, well, who gets left out? Is it Providence? Is it Seton Hall? Is it Zay? Who gets left out who comes along for the ride? Because again, you're not getting rid of teams with football teams to bring in basketball unless the numbers for their basketball are so astronomical that it just blows everything else out of the water. But if that were the case, there would be no talk of a merger. They say, we're good with red.

We're good. Yeah. Y'all stay over there. We'll stay over here. We'll see you when we see you. Now, you know, one of the reasons why I thought this was a worthwhile topic, why we thought it was a worthwhile topic to discuss on Locked on ACC is at least one of the commissioners has acknowledged this, right? It's like, so at that point, it's no longer a rumor.

It goes from rumor to a legit suggestion. Now, to my knowledge, ACC commissioner Jim Phillips hasn't talked about it yet, probably because no one's had a chance to ask him about it to this point. But Commissioner Val Ackerman of the Big East was asked about it. She said she appreciated the comments. The comments were made two separate comments from Coach K and from Rick Petino. They both talked about it. She said, quote, when you've got two Hall of Famers opining about not only the history of college basketball, but the future of college basketball, you have to listen, she said.

I take very seriously any idea around the future of college basketball, all what it means for the Big East, what the Big East should be doing. Now, obviously, if they were to merge, I think this could be mutually beneficial. But, of course, the Big East would have a lot more to gain from this than the ACC. Let's not kid ourselves. They would be the much bigger winner in a Big East ACC merger. So I'm not surprised to hear that the Big East Commission is open to the idea. Oh, absolutely.

It's not a shock at all. And I'm in most intrigued to see how Jim Phillips plays this. What is his response to this, right? Does he play it coy? Does he shut it down? Does he say, we're looking at all options and da-da-da-da-da, you know, the very general, legally speak where it's like, I'm not confirming or denying anything. We're looking at any option to increase revenue and make us a more competitive conference.

Or is he like, oh, yeah, this is happy. Get ready. We're making it, you know, this is something that we are in very intense talks for. And this is something that we think would be great for both of our conferences is there for college basketball. So I'm very intrigued to see how Jim Phillips was wrong. Because obviously, from bowel side of thing, it makes sense. From Jim's side of things, you're looking at it where there are multiple different parts

of this thing that are like, you could go a multitude of ways, which path will you choose? Yeah. Well, when we come back, it was an eventful weekend at ACC College basketball. And it seems like nobody outside of Duke, Clemson, and Louisville wants to make that NCAA tournament. We had bubbles popping on Saturday. We'll talk about it next year on Locked on ACC. Oh, my friends, you know prize picks is the spot. Guys, it's a great time of year with March basketball coming up.

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Like this show, it's available free wherever you get your podcast and available free on YouTube. So, you know, Kenton, I know you are, you were probably pretty happy about this on Saturday and rightfully so, being an NC State Wolfpack alum, But we talked about it late last week. Like all Wake Forest had to do to stay off the bubble was go beat a not so good NC State team that were 3 and 12 in ACC heading into that one. That's all Wake Forest who was being projected by everybody an 11 seed. They're getting into the tournament.

Just make sure you don't lose to NC State. They lost to NC State. So all of a sudden, the Wake Forest NCAA tournament future that we thought was pretty solid becomes very precarious at this point. I was told Steve Forbes was the best coach in the world. I was told that nobody coaches up and circles the wagon like Steve Forbes. And lo and behold, of all teams to let beat you, you let this iteration of NC State beat you. I'm going to tell you what, not only them, the NCAA tournament hopes of a lot of these teams are in trouble.

But I want to take it a step further. the ACC championship picture is getting very murky and muddy. What do I mean by that? The bottom three teams miss the ACC tournament. Now, Dono and I are both not happy about this because both of our teams are currently in the bottom three. Right. However, however, Donald's team is probably the only one that is eliminated,

with Miami at 2 and 14 in conference. But we have every team between ballroom. Boston College and Notre Dame within two games of one another. That is Notre Dame, Virginia, Syracuse, Cal, NC State, and Boston College. In that order, all of them are six and ten or four and twelve or somewhere in between. So what does that mean, right? All of these teams have approximately three to four games left, meaning not a single one of these teams can take their foot off the gas.

And any one of these teams, if you get hot, all of a sudden, you're in. I want to run something by you, Kent. Now, you mentioned Miami is virtually eliminated from the ACC tournament. They're eliminated from every tournament. And, NIT, CBI, like, they're eliminated from all of them. But there is talk that Miami reportedly has found their next head basketball coach, that they're going to be hiring away. This is not confirmed because they're still working out details.

But Jay Lucas, who is the associate head coach of the Duke Blue Devils, considered to be one of the more effective recruiters in the country. He's John Shire's top assistant coach there. He was a top assistant under John Calipari at Kentucky, who was highly regarded for his recruiting. Calipari had him as the head of recruiting at Kentucky, 36 years old. So it seems like he's energetic. enough to deal with this college basketball landscape that has a lot of those coaches in their

60s and 70s. They got kind of run out of the business. So, you know, when when the report started to surface that Jay Lucas is, you know, at the end of the season, going to leave Duke for Miami, I got pretty excited because of his reputation. And I expressed my excitement on Locked on Cains. And I can't, I've been getting a lot of pushback for Miami fans, a lot of pushback because they, I think they, and not everybody. Some people love the. And, the idea the higher. Some people hate it. Very polarizing. Uh, but a lot of fans just want Miami to be going after somebody who's got head coaching experience, which is one thing that Jay Lucas does not have. He's not fit a head coach. Like from where I sit, if you can poach arguably the top

assistant coach in the country, because that's what you are when you're the associate head coach at Duke. Uh, I think it's a pretty great hire if this gets finalized. I mean, but where, where do you sit? Like how important should it be to get someone with head coaching experience? Because to me, I think this is a gamble probably worth taking. I agree. I think this is absolutely a get worth taking. I think that we are over-indexing on what it means to be a previous head coach, because there are plenty of previous head coaches that flamed out immediate,

that were garbage truck juice immediately. And there are plenty of guys who was like, where's this unheralded assistant coming from? Or, oh, yeah, everybody loves him, but he's never been the main guy, and then they go on to do great things. I think we're greatly over indexing in terms of, you know, what you would look for out of a head coach here for one simple reason. It's one of those prerex that, you know, to me, I'm a recruiter by trade, okay? And, you know, when I'm not recording, that's what I do.

And that one thing I always ask with my hiring method is this a must have or is it a nice to have? And if it's a must have, you got to justify it too. You've got to tell me this is why this is a must have. If you're saying, Ken, I need you to hire somebody who knows Ruby on Res, this is an absolute must that they are really going to go to this life. Okay, so I'm guessing our tech stack or some of our database stack. If that's not the case, what are we doing? In this situation, if your goal is to have a winner,

if your goal is to build the program back to where Lerniga had it a few years ago, If your goal is to say, I want to exceed that, then okay, fine. But please know, when your list of must-haves gets longer, you can justify all of them, but so does that check. So does that check. When you start asking, hey, you've got to have previous head coach experience. You've got to be a previous head coach who made the tournament regular. You've got to be a head coach who dominated the mid-major level, so on so forth.

Okay. But when you bring all that together, that coach ain't coming cheap. that coach is not coming for, you know, for anything less than not only the money part of it, but the control part of it. You have a very different aspect of a guy who's the first time head coach. He's saying, I want to fill this thing out. I want to figure out what works and what doesn't, as opposed to a guy that's like, I've been a head coach for five years now.

I've dominated everywhere. I've been for these five years. So y'all got to get on my program. If you want Miami to be successful, Miami has to get on the King Gills program. Not I'm going to figure out how to do this. and I'm malleable to what Miami says you all want to be done. Yeah, and I'm with you. I think it would be a great deal if they can get it finalized.

You know, obviously it's a little riskier when he's got no head coaching experience. And the only other part of it is it seems like, you know, he wants to stick around with Duke until the absolute end of their season, which could be, you know, could be in April, depending on how well they perform. And, you know, the only slight issue there is, you know, the transfer portal college basketball opens up on March 24th. So, you know, if Miami doesn't have their head coach by March 24th, it could make the first portal a little bit more difficult.

But hopefully they can figure that and work that out. But I want to talk football on the other side, Kenton, because we have more over unders revealed by fan duel for next season, win totals. And we've been wondering for weeks what Florida states over under is going to look like. We've got our answer. You want to keep it locked right here. we're not done yet on this brand new episode of Lockdowne ACC.

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Make sure you also check out our other shows. Kenton Gibbs and Grayson Boone do an awesome job on Locked on Wolfpack. They've been breaking down that big victory knocking Wake Forest down into and maybe out of the bubble. On Locked on Cains, which I host haven't talked about too many basketball wins, but there's always exciting stuff to talk about when it comes to football. and the new basketball coach. So make sure you check out our other shows free wherever you get your podcast and free on YouTube.

Now, I don't know if you already know the answer, Kenton, but do you want to take a guess as to the Florida State football over under the win total for next season because Fanduil has it out now? I'm going to get six and a half. Higher. Seven and a half? Seven and a half.

They're trying to make me a degenerate, Donna. They're trying to make me a degenerate. They're trying to make me a degenerate. they're trying to make me a degenerate between them and the dirty foot club there is a parlay cooking on unders in the ACC there's something calling you know it wow seven and a half for florida state and a half off a two off a two win season well do you want to we can go through the schedule kenton and we can identify the games that the games that should be victories just based on although So Florida State obviously lost a lot of games last year that should have been victories based on the talent level.

But there's always going to be some. It could be victories, some that are toss-ups, and some that should be losses. So they open up the season. They open up the season home against Alabama. That one's probably a loss, right? Right. All right. All right.

Then they should win the next two. They're home against East Texas A&M and against Ken State. Those should both be wins. So that's two wins right there. they're at Virginia. I mean, you're based on the talent level, like they should be able to win at Virginia, right? Right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, should. Yes, absolutely. So that's three. Home against Miami, that's, you know, that's probably a loss for Florida State. I don't want to jinx it as the Miami guy. It's probably a loss. I will.

Miami going to put belt to behind on that field, but proceed. All right. So that would keep them at three wins. Now, home against. Pitt. Now, they do have, they have a higher overrunner. I think Pitt is five and a half. We'll go over that in a second. Like, Florida State

should be able to beat Pitt at home, so I'll give them four there. Okay. I'll give you that one. Four. At Stanford. That should be a win. I'll give you five. Okay. Although Stanford is tricky. Because Stanford, the same team that allowed 59

NC State went on to beat Louisville. But I'll give you that. Five. And they got to go out there. So we'll see if they give them the PAC 12 after or dark if they give them like the 10.30 p.m. or if they give them like a 3.30, we'll find out. But we'll take that as five. Now, home against Wake Forest.

That should be six, right? Right there? Okay. I'll give you six. I'll give you six against Wade Forest. I feel like we're being very generous, but I need six. Yeah. At Clemson, that's a loss.

So you stay at six. Home against Virginia Tech. Like that, that could be a win. It could be a win. Is that seven right there? Sure. I'll give you a home against Virginia Tech. I think that's much more of a toss-up than a could be a win. But sure, I'll give you that one. So we're at seven. What about at NC State second and last game of the year? I'm going to tell you something. I don't know what it is about NC State and Florida State. It's like NC State plays that game like it's our Super Bowl every single time. And Florida State on the road coming to see NC State? it's another one of those that's a toss-up

because NC State season is going to be decided within the first five games. Like, very seriously. That's true. I think they're either going to be cooked or they're going to decide like, oh, this is another one of those years where everybody tells us we're a six-win team

and we go out there and get nine. But this is another toss-up. So, you know, it's, I will leave it in your lap as the Miami guy, how you feel about it. But, you know, That one and the Virginia Tech, both toss-ups. You could go one-in-one with it.

I doubt 2-0, but we'll see. And then they end the season at Florida, which is probably a loss. Okay. So, but it's like, you can make, you can make an argument that, like, you've got seven games at least that they could win on that schedule. So, like, I guess long and the short of it is, I can see how they got to seven and a half, but I still six and a half is where I would put it. but six and a half to me would have been the magic numbers. So if I feel like the number should be six and a half, I'm probably taking there under seven and a half.

Donno, are you a spades guy? Do you play spades by any chance? I'm not. I know of it, but I've never played it. I've heard people talking about spades, and I always felt left out. Let me tell you something. My family get real aggressive on a spades table.

It gets real. I've called my granny out for reading it. I love my granny to death. Don't cut hearts if you got hearts. I know you go I know you're listening I know you like I call you where I think you brought up that's here's the deal if when you look at your hand and you're about to put your being in you don't grant every possible to yourself you see what I'm saying because that then you're overbidding for what you think if you're like oh I think this this queen

could walk if you think don't you don't don't do that don't if you know put it down put something on. But if you're thinking, we got multiple games in there. And mind you, we just got to eight with giving them NC State and Virginia Tech. Like it's not like that is a nine-win team at that point where it's like, oh, they can lose one of those that still be over there over of seven and a half. So with that in mind, you know, that underover way too high, you need to cut it. That's a great.

I may have to go. I may have to because, because again, again, you bid that high. on the table. And you said, oh, well, I thought that Jack was going to walk. You know, Granny might not talk to you for a few. So I'm just going to tell you, you know. Yeah, no, that makes sense the way you leave. Even though I don't know Spades, you still, you explained it in a way that made sense to be. So I'll leave that at that. So some of these we already knew, Clemson, nine and a half over under, Miami and Louisville, eight and a half, North Carolina, seven and a half. I know that's the one that turns Kenton into a degenerate

taking the under. Georgia Tech, seven and a half, NC State, six and a half. Pitt, five and a half. So they don't have a whole lot of faith in Eli Holstein running it back, I guess, only five and a half. I mean, they won their first seven last year, and they only won seven games.

So I don't know, maybe they felt like the last five was closer to who Pitt really is. Syracuse five and a half, keeping in mind, they have the toughest schedule in the conference. Yeah. Yeah. So I think they got that one right. Virginia at five and a half, Virginia Tech at six and a half.

And we finally have the SMU number, which I don't know why they didn't release that one early, eight and a half for SMU. So SMU, Miami, Louisville, all have the same eight and a half number. That's interesting. That's interesting because there's no way all of those teams get to eight and a half. Like mathematically, that's got to be like, oh, everything has to go right for all these teams. They're not all winning nine or more. That's for sure.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I don't think so. I don't think so, man. I'll tell you, I am very intrigued to see what this new look at SMU looks like. And I know people are saying, new look, they're bringing back their head coach, their quarterback, all these things. Well, yes, but everything else around them is going through changes, you know. So you're going to have some differences between what you saw last year or what's your expectancy issue. Duke is at six and a half, which feels about right to me.

Here's one. Cal at six and a half. I would be tempted to take the under on that. They lost Fernando Mendoza, who was really the primary driver, you know, to them being respectable last year. And of course, you know, Cal has the brutal. They got to go out east so many different times. Like I don't know, Cal at six and a half. I feel like that's a five or maybe six win team. I guess I got to pull up their schedule to make sure I'm right on that.

But Cal six and a half feels a little high to me. I mean, the scheduling absolutely is a large part of what makes teams or what makes these odds be what they are. But I do want to pay attention to something really interesting here about Cal. You talk about, hey, they have to come across country a ton, which they do. There's no if, ins or buts about that. There is no denying that. However, I'm very, very intrigued by the idea that when you look at Cal and you see, say, you know, they're scheduled for next year. It's not expected to be much tougher than last

years, but they have so many questions to answer. There are so many questions in terms of, didn't Jay not leave as well? I believe, hold, let me double check that. Because, okay, keep talking. I'll find that. Well, well, either way you kind of slice it, they're going to have a ton of changes and things to overcome in terms of that team. And, that secondary that was taking a ball away from everybody. Oh, no, odds back. Oh, okay. All right.

Well, if he can show up and be who we expect him to be last year, then that makes that more understandable. But even still, I don't think that their schedule is easy enough for me to give you an easy seven in this one because you said six and a half. If I give you Oregon State, Texas Southern, San Diego State, you still have to win. you still have to beat some combination of one of the three of these teams uh well actually no at six and a half they need to win seven so they need to beat some combination of four of these teams boston college due north carolina virginia tech virginia louisville stafford s md

is it possible yes but again it's like those books you don't want to overbid yourself and say hey we know what we what we know and also also don't know and i don't know and i reserve the right to change our opinion based on what we see out of some of these teams spring games because I knew right away and again this is something that I did not say publicly but we could get Grayson moving on the air to verify this I watched NC State spring game and I said there is a specific unit that if they have to play some of these guys that I saw in this spring game NC State will have a very bad season there's a specific unit I'm not going to going to talk about the unit, not going to name the players, but I watched and I saw, and I said,

that doesn't look like an FBS unit, let alone the power for you. I remember the one you're talking about. Yeah. And oddly enough, a lot of injuries happen to that unit in particular, and those guys had to play. And I was just like, oh, oh, no, this ain't going to go well. So we reserve the right that when we watch your spring scrimmages or spring open practices, say, oh, whoa, whoa, their quarterback couldn't hit the broadside of a barn. We're going to go be very bullish on that team. Or, oh, that offensive line was mauling some folks. Now, they were getting people about the bank.

They were moved some furniture. We may need to put a little something on that old. By the way, nobody in the ACC has canceled their spring games yet. Have you seen a lot of programs or, it seems like a big 10 thing. USC, Nebraska, and I believe Ohio State as well, all just decided we don't even want to put anything on TV because we don't want you coming in stealing our players in the portal. But nobody from the ATC has done that yet. Well, I will say this, Donno.

You've chosen your words very properly because yet is correct. I suspect that there will be at least two to three that I'm already hearing rumblings out of, yeah, we're probably not having a spring game. So I've kept my ear to the street. And if it happens, it happens. But it's rumblings for right now that I cannot confirm publicly. But I wouldn't be surprised if multiple ACC teams follow suit. I feel like that that seems like a Belichick thing that that's going to happen because he likes to do things.

I mean, he wants to be filming other teams spring games, not his own, right? I mean, he's going to make sure they don't have a televised spring game. I mean, hey, you know, UNC is known for being a very upstanding program. they are not known for having any scandals, which would give them advantages over other teams. And neither is Belichick, of course, scandal for them, right? Exactly. Upstanding members of the Atlantic Coast Conference, both of them, the head coach, and the program. Well, that'll do it for us.

Make sure you hit the thumbs up button. Like this episode, subscribe to Lockdown ACCC. Subscribe on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your pods. Make sure you check out Kenton at Lockdown Wolfpack and underscore or no, not TGIF underscore, I got the underscore on the wrong spot. At Lockdown Cains, no underscores where you can follow me. And we'll talk to everybody again next time on another episode of Lockdown ACC, part of the awesome Lockdown Podcast Network.

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