Locked On ACC - Daily College Football & Basketball Podcast - ACC SQUAD - Can Miami, Clemson, and Louisville STAY Ranked in the Top 25?

Episode Date: October 3, 2024

Welcome back to ACC Squad, your essential roundtable podcast for all things Atlantic Coast Conference! In our Week 6 preview, hosted by Alex Donno from Locked On ACC, we’re diving into the upcoming matchups, analyzing key storylines, and making predictions for this week’s action in ACC football.Join us as we break down the pivotal games that could shape the season for your favorite teams, whether you’re a fan of the Boston College Eagles, Clemson Tigers, Duke Blue Devils, Florida State Seminoles, Louisville Cardinals, Miami Hurricanes, NC State Wolfpack, North Carolina Tar Heels, Syracuse Orange, California Golden Bears, Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, Pittsburgh Panthers, SMU Mustangs, Stanford Cardinal, Virginia Cavaliers, Virginia Tech Hokies, or Wake Forest Demon Deacons. This episode is packed with expert insights you won't want to miss!In This Episode:In-depth previews of Week 6's key matchupsAnalysis of team strengths and weaknessesPredictions from Locked On podcast hosts on who will prevailDiscussion of players to watch and their potential impact on the gamesMake sure to subscribe to ACC Squad and hit the notification bell for all the latest updates and in-depth coverage of ACC football. We want to hear from you—share your thoughts in the comments below and let us know which matchups you’re looking forward to! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

No, it was not a catch. Just stop it. Let's bring in the squad. You're talking ball with the ACC squad. From Florida State to North Carolina, from Syracuse to Miami, and from NC State to California, it's the local experts of the Locked-on Podcast Network, bringing you scoops, breakdowns,

and the most comprehensive preview of the upcoming ACCC weekend. Hang on, it could get loud, it could get heated, and it will definitely be fun. Squad up, You're part of the ACC squad. Shout out to the Everydayers. Thank you so much for making the ACC Squad, 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 Fanduil. Place your first $5 bet, and you'll get started with $200 and bonus bets guaranteed. Visit Fandul.com to get started. So only me from Lockdown Keynes and J.J. Jackson from Lockdown Blue Devils know that 5-0 feeling today. We also have Jackson Holzer from Lockdown Syracuse,

Kenton Gibbs, and Grayson Boone from Lockdown Wolfpack. Dalton Pence from Lockdown, Louisville is back, and I'm so sorry, Isaac Shade from Lockdown Tar Heels. It's basketball season. We'll focus on basketball, Isaac. We got that going for you. We're

definitely beating you all in basketball, especially JJ and stupid Cooper flag. He's the worst. I can't want. Beating who in basketball? Last time I checked, my boys got an ACC championship up off you. This is your reminder. Alex Nunnily has as many ACC championships as Armando Baker.

That's rough. As far as football goes, I guess guys, I'll have to buy the first round today because Miami 3834 over Virginia Tech on Friday night, there was controversy at the end. It was even prior to the final play, it was an insane game, an absolute roller coaster. Cam Ward was making plays that seemed to defy all laws at physics. Kyron Drones, who's making tremendous throws off schedule for Virginia Tech.

And then the Hail Mary happened. And ACC officiating happens where they, for whatever reason, because I, I mean, I didn't think anyone had control of that football. Maybe some of you guys disagree. But the ACC officials were basically, I don't know if he was actually trying to signal touchdown or if he was just trying to shrug when they ruled it a catch in a touchdown initially. Then they go to the review for seven freaking minutes.

and I'm breathing into a paper bag during that entire review, and they ultimately rule it, not a catch, game is over, Miami wins. Now, I've noticed some of the dialogue around this, and obviously I'm a little biased towards that game and that play, but a lot of the dialogue I see is people saying, well, yeah, I don't think it was a catch either, but I don't think they should have overruled it because it took too long or because they didn't have enough evidence.

It's like, well, shouldn't the pro, like you have a problem with the protocol, shouldn't the protocol mean you try to get the call right at all costs yes yeah but people don't like miami i mean let's just be very honest about that that's that's one of the biggest things that there is about it you know the same way that miami had a a terrible call work against them last year in the georgia tech game people did not really remember the call because they remember you shouldn't have been running the ball the same way people are still talking about the uh the referee from the um Pitchy Pitchie Woo-woo situation from a few years ago with Miami.

The same way to talk about him working this game. People don't like Miami, and that's just part and parcel of the gig of being the black half, being the bad guy in a lot of situations, which Miami naturally is. But I will say this, that controversy saved pride from criticism. Because, again, if he kicks the field goal earlier in the game, now here's the thing. Grayson and I both intimately know that Kate and Noonkester kicked. eight punts for 398 yards, seven inside the 20. He didn't win ACC Special Team Red of the Week.

Who did, Donnell? Was it the kicker from Virginia Tech? Yes, it was. Because he hit a 18 yarder. So why the hell did you not trust him to hit the basics? If you trust them to hit a basic early in the game, you end the game with another 40-yarder, get right, church, and let's go home.

But instead, Pry, ax and ass at multiple points in that game. And now we're depending on. on ACC referees. Good for you. More part to you, buddy. You know, I kind of get fed up with replay sometimes. And by the way, I am like pro replay. Like, I think it's a good thing to have replay.

But I hate the terminology of, well, is it conclusive enough? I think to Dono's point, like, you got to get the call right. Is it a catch or is it not a catch? And at no point did I actually see a catch? I could not find a catch. Like, they ruled a touchdown on the field. I get it. And there wasn't really evidence that would suggest you overturn it.

But at the same time, I'm like, I don't see where he actually catches the ball. But, Jackson, did you see a not a catch to play devil's advocate? Because I feel like I nothing did. I saw more of a cat that a catch. It was like a pigskin falling into a black hole of a cacophony of football players. It really was. And nobody knows what happened. That football might be under the turf at that stadium right now.

and we don't know. Like, that's the thing. I don't know if it was a catch. I still don't know. Yeah. I don't know if it was a catch, but honestly, I didn't see a catch.

And so therefore, I would rule it no catch because where do you actually see it? This isn't, it's not like a turnover, where does he actually catch the ball? It's not like a turnover. I mean,

usually, you know, when a turnover happens, when it's kind of controversial, usually they'll call the turnover on the field and they go to review it. This is a touchdown. And like Jackson said,

I don't know how, anyone watching that, the referees right there, but there's seven, eight doos right there trying to make a call. I just don't see how you can call that a catch on the field at that time. So to Donald's credit, I'm the same way. It's, oh, yeah, in principle, like in a perfect world, it's hard to overturn that call. But Alex said it best, you have to get the call right. So that's what, I mean, Brent Frye should be more thankful than anyone else out there right now, because like Kenton said, he deserves more of the criticism than what he's getting right now. And I'll tell you this much, in terms of whether or not it was a catch,

whether it was a no catch in my opinion, because a lot of people said on Locked on ACC's comments, I was ducking the smoke of whether or not I thought it was a catch. I thought it was, whatever the hell they called it, they should have left it. I thought that was what I saw on that play. If they would have ruled it incomplete, I would have been fine with him keeping it incomplete.

If they ruled a catch, I'm fine with them ruling in a catch. I did not care one way or another because it was one of those bang, bang moments where it's like, it looks like he has possession, and I know that they changed the rule about going down to the ground and what that looks like now and all that. So it's like, okay, he may have had possession, but then when he hits the ground and still does some market, if we're talking about the call in and of itself,

I believe that there was not conclusive evidence to make it one way or the other based upon the ruling on the field. She just replayed the down. Like, who knows? Honestly, I was, that was my thought. Why don't we just have a whole redo? Like someone come up with a phantom flag, like, Fanthum, fall start, or whatever, and let's redo the whole thing.

Let's do one more Hail Mary and see what happens. I think that was, everyone would have been okay with that. But again, for your Virginia Tech fan, you wouldn't have been, but that's besides the point. You have a kicker that's hit multiple from 50, and if you trust him to hit two from inside of 50, you win the ballgame. You win the ballgame. But there is one thing that I think we're all missing here. Donnell, what did I say Miami had to do that they had not?

shown us yet beat a power four team with a head coach that was going to be there at the end of the year because let's be honest billy naker is going to be on the squad with us very short billy jenker is going to be right with us pretty soon and he's going to be on the sDC squad no either way i'm going to tell you he looked real so Miami looked kind of shaked you back around right here we love we're not we're not he's a wonderful coach i think that he's a young coach that's building and you need to give him time to build over there in Chapel Hill. But I'll tell you what, I'm not going to lie and say I'm fully confident in Miami as I was before this game after seeing this game.

I'm going to tell you the truth. I'm going to tell you the truth because I saw some things. I said, if you play against a better team, this is a loss every day and twice on Sunday. Yeah, and listen, another part of everyone just focusing on that one play, it also distracts from, like, Miami didn't play well in that game outside of a handful of guys, Cam Ward, despite the fact that he turned it over three times still played very well in the game he played well elijah erroyo the tight end played well he even saved a touchdown on what would have been a a pick six which was an unbelievable play and malik bryant the defensive end played well he blew up the fake field

outside of that nobody tackled like they missed 20 tackles in the game like okay if you don't fix that you're not beating cal this week so i totally agree now i i will say Miami won the game did they really deserve to win with the way they played if they didn't have camels award they're not winning that game can i just say this they won the game right yeah they want that is the number one priority like in college football and in college sports in general style points do matter they do how you look does matter but with this new format if you win the conference it doesn't matter how you look if you just win your conference and so for miami to get a conference win while not playing well. Take it from the Syracuse guy, me, who had to play on a

Friday night the week before. We were a play away from beating Stanford and lost that game, right? They found a way to win anyway. Yes, they didn't play perfect. No, they didn't play well at all, but they won. They won. Fix them up. Get ready for next week. Just take the win and run. That's what I would do. Hey, speaking to new schools in our conference, How are we 10 minutes into this thing? And we've not talked about the fact that Florida State is trying to run away from bringing SMU in to this conference and then they go and get absolutely boat raced by these freaking pony boys. The beauty of this thing of Florida State getting absolutely walloped out behind the shed by the team that they could not stomach coming into our conference is the most beautifully.

poetic justice I've ever seen. And Isaac, Florida state fans would say we can't win games like this because we don't make enough revenue. Isn't SM you paying to be in the conference and you couldn't beat them? Like, oh, we can't win games because we're not making as much revenue as SEC, SEC and Big Ten teams. Well, why don't you beat some of these ACC teams then? Well, no, all they need is $20 million more dollars a year. Then they could be Boston College, who is a perennial payout powerhouse. You know, nobody beats their NIL collection. I mean, come on. Now, Eric Dickerson said he took a paid cut to come to the NFL, for Christ's sake.

Georgia Tech, I don't even want to tell you what the NIL looked like in Atlanta. You know what I mean? Lemon Pepper Lewis down there feeding the streets, if you know what I mean. And so, you know, all and all, all these teams that'll beat Florida State so far, Memphis, hey, come on now. The stimulus package is coming out of Memphis, something like we've never seen before. So, you know, Florida State just needs their additional 20 mil per year, and they'd be okay to beat these teams.

But until they get it, they're just poor and lowly and downtrodden. You know, it's hard for them to survive off the measly shackles that are coming in so far. You know what? Again, just 20 million more, and they'll do. Do they really deserve to be talked about? Like, they're so bad. No, no, no. They are so atrocious.

Exactly. They're so bad. No, no, no. Just race. Jackson, here's why. Because if they're terrible. But if they are such a big deal nationally, that their brand is so big that they deserve to go somewhere else,

then they deserve to get dumped on every single time. I'm all for dunking Florida State, but if they really want to go elsewhere, they should look into the group of five, but I don't even think the group of five would take them, all right? Let's just take them to the, go to the FCS, all right,

work on your game over there. They're so irrelevant to me that I don't even care about, oh, they lost by 26 points to SMU. Yeah, that's about what I expect, because they're terrible. Isaac, you got to offer the devil's advocate here. You know, as much as they want to be nationally relevant to offer the devil's advocate. And also it's got to be killing them to be talking about all these teams in the ACC.

And they're like, oh, yeah, Florida State sucks. And that's little all you're saying. No wonder they didn't want SMU. And did you watch the game Saturday? I watched maybe a half. I'm like, yeah, this is, they need to be playing one of those FCS Northwest teams, week one. And the worst. But not James Madison.

I would suggest not playing James Madison. Well, James Madison is group of five. that one. They're a group of five. But I'll tell you what, the worst part about this before the state, they got to,

it's the same thing that's terrible for all of us right now. We all got to look at Dono and all the Miami fans, smug faces. You know, I had a coworker.

I know he's listening to this. Shut up to you, Kyle, who left a note on my desk saying, Ken needs to be excused Friday to go to Hard Rock Stadium to watch a game

pick up a win. Go to hell. Go to you, Miami fans. We're sick of it. We're sick of you being good. We're all time. you being a gun, and I didn't even been a four year yet.

Right, it's been five games. Miami fans deserve some happiness. And the funny thing was, like, Miami, again, they didn't play well on Friday night. And I kept seeing these Florida state fans who were like talking trash about Miami almost losing to Virginia Tech, only to get mercy ruled by SMU the next day. So, okay, you guys deserve what you get right now. You make your bed, you sleep in it. I got a very simple solution for Florida state fans. You still have to find three, two, one, no. There's a very logical explanation about my things are still going the way they're going. You got to find that guy ASAP. There's a price

on your head, Mr. 3-21. The streets is looking for you, but hey, you better not find yourself slipping in Tallahassee. They're so bad. He likes River Mulligan. Yeah. He's not hanging out like Steve Bartman somewhere and Jeffrey

Meyer and he changed his name, changes address. By the way, we do have some games this weekend we need to talk about. You know, we've got college games. day's going to be at Cal, Cal taking on Miami, Clemson at Florida State. That one could get ugly. Pit at North Carolina, Duke at Georgia Tech. And Duke stay undefeated. You guys want to keep it locked

right here. We are only getting started on this episode of the squad. And folks, we are only getting started on fan duel. You placed all those futures bet before the season started. Now, if you place your futures bet on former ACC favorites Florida State, you need to chase that. You need to make that up. You can bet on Heisman odds. You can bet on all the games this coming weekend. And NFL fans, you can start the season with a big return on Fandul, America's number one sports book. So when you get a hunch in the middle of the game,

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sports book. Thank you for making the squad. The ACC squad, your first listen and your first watch today. Alex Dono from Locked on Caines, Jackson Holzer from locked on Syracuse, Kent and Gibbs and Grayson Boone from Locked on Wolfpack, Isaac Shade, locked on Tar Heels, J.J. Jackson, locked on Blue Devils, Dalton Pence, from Locked on Louisville. All right, so first and foremost, guys, Since we ended the last segment talking about Florida State, how ugly do you think it's going to get against Clemson this week? And now the only thing it's disappointing for me, DJ Uwee Ungolet, if there was, I think I might have added extra syllable.

If there was ever a game when DJU was probably going to play really well, it might have been against his former team in Clemson because you know the effort would have been there. DJ's got a hand injury. He's not going to go. It's likely going to be the Brock Glenn show this weekend. But guys, how bad is that game going to get between Florida State and Clemson? Donnell, if you thought this was the game. Yes, great answer. Yes, this is a great answer by Grayson.

It's a great answer. But Donnell, I'll tell you what, if you think this was the game where DJU was going to play well and set the world on fire, I know you're somewhere back there, Jarvis. I know that you're somewhere in the shadows. We got to start drug testing locked on hosts. We got it. The DARE program has failed us all if you believe that this is the game. But in all seriousness, I look at this and I say to myself,

there is no way under God's green earth that Florida State does anything with Clemson. They'll get beat up front. They'll get beat on the perimeter. I'm very seriously concerned about whether or not we will instill a mercy rule after this game. Well, Clemson's only favored by 14 and a half. Is that not enough? No, that's not enough. You know, occasionally, the guys in the desert are usually right.

They're usually right. There's a reason why they have all those new buildings. Every year they have a new building, right? And we talked about it last week with the Miami and Virginia Tech line, how that made no sense. Miami was like almost a three touchdown favorite in that one. Look how that one turned out. Yeah, this one doesn't make a lot of sense either.

How, how, what? 14. That's it? That's it. So you would tell me that if these teams play, because you get three points by being at home, that Clemson would only be a 17 point favorite on a neutral site. That's it. And the thing like with Clemson, I feel like it's one of those classic

situations of they got absolutely blasted week one by Georgia. We all write them off. And then it's like Clemson ain't it. Y'all, I feel like they've been coming, man. They're looking infinitely, infinitely better these last several weeks. Kate Klobnik just looked much more improved as well. You look at the progressions. And the main thing is he looks confident. Get Riley is doing wonders in South Carolina right now. And you're right, Isaac. We all wrote them off. And when they beat Appalachian State,

I'm like, eh, it's not a good team. And then they've done it for a couple weeks. NC State with a freshman quarterback and, you know, a Stanford team that we're still trying to get some data on what the hell that team looks like. Ultimately, all you can do is beat the teams in front of you.

We know the defense is good. We know Phil Mofa is one of the better running backs in the country. But Cape Clubney deserves a little bit more praise than what he's not been getting these past couple weeks. I didn't write them off. One thing I will say about- I didn't write them off. One thing I will say about

Kay Klovenick is, and I will admit that I was a victim of this too. We are so used to being a microwave society and seeing guys like Ryan Williams, who I don't even think that boy was slow dancing at prom a few months ago. I think he's too young for that. He was that junior prom or something like that, trying to cop a feel and whatnot. And he's out there hitting spin moves that scouts have never. ever seen in their lives. And we, and again, I'm not saying we isn't everybody,

as I'm saying me in particular, fell into the mode of this young man keeps making bad decision after bad decision after bad decision and did not give him the grace and time to grow up, which he has, he's seemingly this season grown up a lot, especially, and I want to really say this, especially in game one. Whenever getting their heads beat in, I didn't see a bunch of bad decisions by him. Don't get me wrong. They were outman, outclass, outmatch. I didn't have those moments where I'm just like, hey, what do you do?

That always tend to happen with him. So I think that he's done a lot of growing right before our eyes. That needs to be acknowledged. And one last thing about Clemson, that if you draw parallel to the last year, one of the main things that I kept looking back on was that, yes, Klubnick had his struggles, but the wide receivers also struggled to create a ton of separation downfield. And you look at what they've been able to do this year.

Bryant Wesco, he's only caught seven passes, but he's averaging 34 yards of catch. Like they have that explosiveness, Antonio Williams. And then they have one of the more underrated tight ends in the conference. Overall, I think it's also been a weapons upgrade for Clubnik that's helped out a ton because you look at some of these touchdown passes. And these guys are running untouched. And you have to zoom out the screen just to see the defensive back. You know what other game is really intriguing to me?

this weekend, Dalton, while you're talking, is the pony bros coming over from Dallas to visit you guys in Louisville. I think that is a very intriguing game. How are you feeling about it? Yeah, it's one of those things that before the season, I was higher than most of the Louisville fan base on both Georgia Tech and SMU. I called SMU the number one trap game, because I looked at that offense last year. I'm like, man, Red Lashley can really scheme up some things. They've got the pieces coming back. This year struggled a little bit out of the gate. The BYU loss isn't really looking as bad as it did just a couple weeks ago. But they still have a really good offense. Now, unfortunately, they had a cornerback.

Choose that play four games redshirt transfer trend that we're picking up on. But ultimately, I don't know what to think of it, Isaac, man. Louisville was about a six and a half point favorite. But truthfully, I mean, Tyler Chuck looks good. It's just a matter of if the offense can do what we know they can do. And ultimately, at this point, we're just kind of waiting to see if that's going to be the case. Interesting. Well, I tell you what. JJ, what about Duke's streak?

Is that going to continue? Best start since 1994 for Duke football at 5 and 0. Yeah, it's been a long while. We hadn't been talking about Duke much at all this season. I was kind of hoping we would continue that trend and see if that was the reason they were able to kind of stack these wins together. The line keeps going in Georgia Tech's favor. In some ways, yes, call me a Duke Homer, but I just don't get it. What are people minus nine?

With this Georgia Tech team that makes them that much of a favorite over Duke to come back like they did this past week against UNC. No, that didn't happen, JJ. That game ended with eight and a half minutes to go in the third quarter. Stop to go. Stop the doubt. Yeah. I don't know, guys. I'm just, I'm like, I felt like there should be more love on the Stuke football team.

And maybe in the weeks. to come. We'll start to see it. But what Star Thomas has been able to do out of the back field for this Duke football team? It's not Malik Murphy. Duke's able to run the ball now, which a lot of people didn't know, myself included after the first two weeks, I didn't see any of this coming. Well, let me ask you this, JJ, in terms of this team and how they're getting it done, right? We all know Manny Diaz, defensive head coach, defensive guy, former defensive coordinator and all that. But it seems to be they're not just stacking up wins. They're stacking up really good defensive performances. I mean, when's the last time a team put up over 30

on this squad? And just as a one more thing for everybody on this on this podcast right now, if you are above the age of 30, if you were alive last time Duke was five in those, say aye for me. Aye. I. I, I. Mm. That's great. Yeah, we got a young guys on here. We're crazy. We're pulling the Alabama. We got the young. I know. I don't, I don't specifically remember them being five in 94, but I was, I don't know what I was doing. I was alive. I wasn't watching Duke football. I got on a weird, the Waldorf and Statler of this thing, man. We're like the old grandpa from the Muppets, just heckling from the cheap seats. I came to the world in 95. I missed it by a year. So this is for the Duke fan in me. This is exciting. First time ever that I'm able to

see something like this. And this is, oh yeah, by the week that countdown to craziness happens on Friday. Like, I'm already for basketball season. And this Duke football team's like, wait a minute, JJ, make sure you're paying us some attention and paying us some love, man. It has been fun to watch. Now, I got to ask, Jackson, what about Syracuse going to UNLV? They still look good despite Sluka opting out and redshirting. When we talk about the NIL controversies, he was the OG for this season. UNLV still favored by seven points against Syracuse. What's going to happen? It sounds about right, honestly. It's a rogue game. It's the first road game of the Fram Brown era. We have no idea how they're going to fare on the road. they weren't very good on the road with Dino Babers.

Let me tell you that much. And honestly, their quarterback now is better. Okay, I was not impressed with Matthew Sluca at all. I remember a lot of fans were like, oh, does this make the game easier now that we're going to go against a backup quarterback? And I'm like, well, I think their backup quarterback is going to have better than a 43.8% completion rate.

So I'm not so sure just yet. And then they just demolish Fresno State. I know that Fresno State is not some juggernaut. here. But they're playing really well and they're ranked for the first time in program history. So look, I think Syracuse can win the game. It's not one of those games where I would say UNLV is just so much more talent. They can't do it. It's impossible. I think it's one of those games where you have to be on your A game. Syracuse is going to have to play like they did against Georgia Tech. Their most complete effort of the season, despite what the final score really says in that one,

they dominated that one from start to finish. If they play like they did against Georgia Tech, they can beat UNLV. Other than that, they probably lose. I'll tell you what, with Devante Adams and Max Crosby, Action for Trades, UNLV might be the best football team in that time. They really and truly might be the superior brand of Rebel football is running. I didn't see Max Crosby demanded a trade. Oh, no, no, no, it was soft talks of it in the offseason.

It was soft talks of like, oh, maybe I. Oh, yeah, they're terrible. They're going to trade them anyway. Well, getting Vonte Adams out of there. I got Brock Bowers on my fantasy team, baby. Just racking up those tight-end catches. That's right. Well, listen, I don't understand how Nesbitt and company don't have more

tight-end catches with the struggles U.N.C. had offensively in the second half. Isaac, what's going on? I think Nesbitt had five receptions on 37 targets, if I'm remembering the count. No, it was legitimately like 12 targets and five catches. Look, Jacoby Chriswell, Here's the thing I've noticed through two games. He's got a cannon for an arm, but like our bro, Nolan Ryan,

doesn't know how to get that little touch off the ball when he needs to to just drop it in. And that's what Drake May, for example, was so good at these last couple years, is having every throw in the book that you need, but knowing how to get the right amount of touch on it to drop it in where he needed to. Chris Will has been missing those kind of throws

that allows you to just get that extra edge to where, you know, if that game is 28, 31 to nothing or something like that is a whole different story there when you get to the middle of the third quarter. And as JJ said, you know, at that point, you're expecting Omari on Hampton to be the guy that is just bludgeoning people wearing the game out that way. Instead, it's Duke figuring out, hey, we've made adjustments and now we're stopping Omari on Hampton, and Carolina is not able to counter adjust and do it. And so I thought it was a much better coaching job by the Duke staff than the Carolina staff.

And instead it's Star Thomas, the one that's making all the bludgeoning runs late in the game. And to me, that that's where it was one is in the adjustments from Duke and the lack of ability to do that from Carolina. Well, we got a couple more games we want to look at guys, including Wake Forest at NC State. NC State. We'll see if they can start a little winning streak here. Stanford hosting Virginia Tech, North Carolina hosting pit. You guys want to keep it locked right here.

We're not done yet on the ACC squad. All right, squad. So for the rest of these games that we haven't discussed yet, which one stands out most and anyone want to buy around here? Bueller? I was just about to say, don't everybody speak up at once. We went over a lot of the key. I mean, Miami and Cal is going to be an interesting one. I was just about to say, I think Miami and Cal is going to be a lot more interesting

than most people think because you look at a Miami team that has struggled with tackling and you look at a Cal team that, objectively speaking, Jay Knott has not had his game yet. He has not had his welcome to the ACC. He's absolutely doing it. And so you combine those two things and you say to yourself, what could this be? On top of that, love me some camboard.

I think he's phenomenal. But last game, we got the full Camboard experience. We got the plays where you were like, what is he doing? He's a freak. We haven't seen anything like this. And you had those players, you say, what is he doing?

He's a freak. I haven't seen anybody like it. Can I just say. I'm worried. You've seen a lot of bad decision making. I need to see Cal. Not from Cam Ward necessarily, but from quarterbacks, that's a lot more common than you think. Well, sure, but with a Cal secondary that is completely retooled, that has shown against

Peyton Thornynick of it, they'll take the ball away from anybody, okay? Those boys are number one. They're number one in turnovers. And there's another interesting storyline for this game. Now, Cal's defense has been a lot better than their offense, right? But I will say, you know, Fernando Mendoza, their quarterback, who's been, he's been efficient. He's made some good throws this year. He's, he's a Miami native, and he wanted to play for Miami.

Now, he was coming out of high school. Actually, he's, ironically, he played for the same high school team that Mario Cristobal played for. Now, Cristobal was not the coach yet at Miami when Mendoza was coming out of high school. It was Manny Diaz, who didn't really recruit him and actually offered him, like, potentially a walk-on spot. he ends up going to Cal. But, you know, Mendoza grew up in Miami, rooting for Miami. So he's going to be extra motivated in this game. I would also like to point out, I believe I just quickly stand the Stanford and also the

Cal schedules. This is the first time. It's happening simultaneously this week that a team from the East Coast is going to make the trip to the West Coast, right? This is all what we were envisioning. Yeah. When these teams from the West Post came into the conference, Stanford and Cal, like, how is it going to be when an East Coast team like a,

a Miami or Virginia Tech is going to go all the way out west. And we're going to find that out this week. So I'm very curious to see what it's going to be like. Is it actually going to matter? Is the travel really that big of a deal where they can't handle being on an airplane for five hours and playing in different time zone? Or is Miami and Virginia Tech just going to handle their business and go along their merry way? Donnell, you mentioned earlier we've got our two undefeated hosts on here in you and JJ.

We've got one other undefeated team in our conference, Pitt. You know what? Here's what's crazy about Pitt. This is week six, and they are the lone ACC team yet to play a conference game. So they're undefeated, but we've got to start figuring out what they're going to be, right? Like who of these three teams are legit? And it seems like Pitt has some nice pieces. I'm obviously going to get to watch it up close and personal this week as, you know, probably Carolina is going to be up about 25 to nothing, maybe early third quarter and cop it off.

That's right. And at that point, I heard that if Carolina gets up by 20 points, the officials will stop the game. So therefore, Carolina will win. This is a blessing of manna from the gods down to Keenan Stadium. And I'm here for it. If you are counting on ACC refs to do anything right, congratulations. You blage yourself in the words of a Miami. They're going to do it wrong and they're called a game.

So you're counting on the officials to be wrong. Now, that is a good strategy. That's a plot twist, M. Night Shemelon. I couldn't have put together, Jackson. We may disagree on many, many things, but I'll give you that one. That's a pretty good. I like that. Well, I appreciate everybody taking time to join us here on the squad.

Thanks, everyone for tuning in. If you're watching us on YouTube, make sure you smash that like button and subscribe. And this is along all of our channels from Locked on ACC to all the team shows. Make sure you subscribe. Make sure you subscribe to the audio podcast as well. And we'll see if there's still multiple undefeated. teams left in the ACC this time next week. We will talk to everyone then on another episode of the squad right here on the lockdown podcast network. See you.