Locked On ACC - Daily College Football & Basketball Podcast - ACC SQUAD - The Clemson Tigers have FALLEN | Who can take their place?

Episode Date: March 12, 2026

Clemson Tigers football declared “dead”—can Dabo Swinney revive the program, or is stubbornness holding Clemson back? Major questions loom over Clemson’s inability to adapt to NIL, the transfer portal, and quarterback recruiting, as Alex Dono, Kenton Gibbs, and Brian Smith debate Tom Fornelli’s explosive pronouncement. Has Dabo’s anti-portal philosophy doomed the Tigers, or does elite coaching still offer hope for a turnaround? ACC wide receiver rankings take center stage, with Miami Hurricanes showcasing top talents like Malachi Tony and Cooper Barkate while Florida State’s Deuce Robinson continues to impress. The crew spotlights breakout candidates across NC State, SMU, and Virginia Tech, raising the stakes for a competitive receiver landscape. As NIL spending escalates—rumors swirl of $40 million football rosters—controversy deepens: should Congress intervene, or will college sports self-correct? All this and more in a must-listen breakdown for ACC fans. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Clemson Tigers football program has been declared dead. We've got to get into this. Let's assemble 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 ACC weekend. Hang on, it could get loud. It could get loud. get heated and it will definitely be fun. Squad up, you're part of the ACCC squad. Thank you to the everydayers and thank you so much for making the squad your first listen. I am Alex Dono from Lockdown Cains. We got Kent and Gibbs from Lockdown Wolfpack, Brian Smith from the portal and Locked on Seminoles. We're available free wherever you get your podcast, free on YouTube. We're part of the number one Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day.

on this loaded squad. Has NIL spending? Is it really reaching the point where only the federal government can save college sports? I want to get into that. I want to talk ACC wide receiver rankings. I know Smitty has a few thoughts on that. But friends, let's start with Clemson. And Brian, I'll let you buy the first round on this one because Kenton and I did talk about it already this week on Locked on ACC. ESPN's Tom Fornelly. Or sorry, CBS is Tom. Fornelli appeared on the cover three podcast on Monday, very popular show. And he said this about the Clemson football program. Quote, Clemson is dead. It's dead. It's not coming back, he said. As the offseason goes on, you will start seeing people saying maybe old Clemson, maybe this is the year they, nope, it's dead, he said.

Now, Brian, a lot has been said about, you know, the blue chip. ratio goes down a little bit for Clemson every single year. And DaBow hasn't been using the portal. He's not recruiting the same way he recruited a few years ago. Is Clemson really dead or is that an overstatement? I think Tom was speaking a little tongue in cheek. But I mean, he's on the cover three podcast every week. And he likes to poke jabs at dabbo because, wow, I think we all do because he just doesn't

adapt. He has taken a few more portal guys. I mean, he's gotten above five. I mean, be careful. Don't get too excited over there in Clemson, South Carolina. But is there a program other than Clemson in the major P4 that has not taken a transfer quarterback? I can't think of one. It's a good question.

Kenton, I figured you might know if, like, is there any AC? Let's start with that. Is there an ACC team other than the Tigers? I don't think so. No, they're definitely in the ACC team because JKS technically is a transfer to Cal. That was the only one I could think of. He was a transfer from Oregon. So I don't think there's a single one that hasn't taken anybody in terms of transfers.

Yeah, even Wake Forest, Boston College, they've all taken transfers. Yeah, absolutely. Maybe SMU's got a backup or something because Kevin was a recruit there, wasn't he? Oh, you know what? That may be the only team. Yeah, because they recruited. But they have taken transfer quarterback. They took Tyler Van Dyke.

He just has a star. started there. Donno would know that one for a lot of reasons that he would like to forget. But the point is, it's still the same point. They just don't want to adapt. I asked somebody on their staff. I ran into somebody on their staff. I said, well, who's quarterback going to be this year?

He said, we're going to have an open competition. And he mentioned five guys. And I'm like, now, wait a minute, five. And I'm like, okay, I'm assuming it's going to be Visina. But here's my scenario for fans. if they don't do well this year and like bazina struggles and they don't take a portal guy at quarterback this offseason, then I'll declare it dead until Davo's gone. You're always as good as your head coach making decisions that if he leaves and they hired the right coach,

Clemson could be reborn, just like any program. Miami was reborn when they got Cristobal. They were dead in the water forever, but they're looking pretty good right now. So it's all about your head coach. But I think they're in kind of no man's land until they figure quarterback out. And again, name somebody that hasn't taken a quarterback. This is on their staff. And that's why they're getting made fun of.

You guys take it away, but I'm pretty steadfast. They got to, they have to attack the portal differently. I mean, I wholeheartedly agree that they got to attack the portal differently. You know what? I hadn't even considered the quarterback angle of it all. But I am a little bit concerned by hearing that there are five guys. I thought there were three that had a serious shot at this thing. And now coming out hearing that there are five,

I mean, the rule is if you got two quarterbacks, you've got none. If you got five, you ain't got a shot in the dark. You ain't got a piss. You ain't, you know, you ain't pissed a drop worth of a quarterback. And so I'm very cautious of where Clemson is, but I'm also in the same vein as you, Smitty. It's all about your head coach making decisions. And nationally, who's shown us that they can coach circles around Davo? Who? Who could you say? Because with all due respect to a lot of coaches, and this is including your boy, Christabal, a lot of these coaches, especially the Sabin tree, most of them were born on third base. Most of them took over programs that were either very good or headed in the direction of being very good, and they were the capstone on it, as opposed to like coming into something where it's like, when Daubo took over Clemson, Clemson wasn't known.

Clemson's last national championship before he took over. Donnell, what year were you born? I was born in 84. I think they won't in 85. You weren't allowed. Oh, I wasn't. Oh, he was 81. Okay.

You were not alive. Donald was not alive when that happened. I was not alive when that happened. Smitty, I doubt that you were alive or you were in diapers when it happened. No, I was in second grade, but that's another story. Okay, well, never mind. He wasn't in diapers. And if he was, that is another story.

If you were in doctors in second grade, that is another story. But you get my point. Like at the end of the day, we're talking about this as if they've got a different head coach, and they've got a different decision maker. Don't get me wrong. It is possible for the game to leave guys behind. I'm always slower to call that moment, though, because in the words of Tim McGraw, I ain't as good as I once was, but I'll be as good once as I ever was.

And if dabble can string together just a season or two of being as good once as he ever was, I think that puts all this to bed. Now, do I think that's this year? No, but do I think he has a little? Yes. I don't know. I think he seems too stubborn to me because it's not like it's not Davo the coach that's failing.

Like to your point, Kenton, I just, if you go by X's and O's, he could coach circles around almost every coach in high level college football. It's just dabbo the GM that's failing right now. And, okay, like he started to take a few. transfers, and I think that's just kind of because he literally has to to get to the 105 scholarships now, because, you know, other teams are taking his players to the pool. Like, he's got to take a few players, but he's still, he's against it. You know, he doesn't use NIL. And I'm not saying they don't pay players. Clemson does. It's mostly for retention rather than for new recruits and,

obviously for transfer pool. It's mostly for the purposes of retaining their roster, but his philosophy is very much against using, you know, NIL funds to entice new players. And I, I think we're seeing the signs now that, you know, his recruiting classes are still good, but they're not what they used to be. We're talking, you know, top 25 recruiting classes now when it used to be top five classes, you know, in the pre-NIL era for him. So I think Zabo can still coach and he'll forever be able to coach. But I think if anything, he needs a complete shift in philosophy or the willingness to work with a true football GM who embraces all of that modern stuff if he refuses to. I mean, in Debo's defense, look what happened when he used the portal.

He goes out and gets one of the top linebackers in the portal. And he says, all right, just signed up for Clemson. He says, I'm signed up for Clemson. And then he gets some texts. And then he gets some texts saying, hey, I got a check for you here in Oxford, Mississippi. Come on now. Talk to me. We got a check that could double what they're doing.

And next thing you know he leaves. But I will say this. I do want to touch on the point that you said there, they spend their money over attention. That's a grave problem. That's a grave problem. Because you don't just spend money in the portal now. It's not like that anymore.

Trust me. Again, I'm a cast tech graduate. We got some big time dudes year in and year out rolling out of that program. You're spending on high school guys. If you don't spend on high school, guys, you will not get high school guys. As a matter of fact, my home state, Michigan just approved high school players receiving NIL while they're in high school. So if you don't want to spend, if you don't want to spend, and to their end, I don't blame these high school players.

Of course you won't get high school players. If the bulk of your money is going towards retention and not saying, hey man, you've been underperforming. We're giving you two, three years to work it out. the business is becoming more cutthroat than it's ever been. And when I played, I knew of a multitude of guys who were cut effectively, who were told, hey, man, there was no transfer portal, but they were told you will not play here. You will never play here. Like that's, you know, go find an opportunity where you can play elsewhere.

So with what we're looking at now, I mean, I believe the game is more cutthroat than ever, and I think that there just needs to be an adjustment in terms of not even necessarily just a transfer portal, the bulk of your money cannot be spent on retention unless you are number one year in and year out. If you rocking like that to where everybody you bring in, y'all kicking button, take your names, go for it. But now you need to spend money in recruiting. Well, and Brian, isn't it obvious that's what's happening? Because, like, how else do you explain Clemson's recruiting class is slipping? Because from where I sit, Dabo, outside of the money,

he has one of the best recruiting pitches that nobody else in FBSS can match. And that's if you come play for Clemson, I'm not going to recruit over you in the transfer portal the way every other coach does. We're going to invest three years, four years, five years into developing you. And if that pitch isn't getting them top five classes, it's pretty clear to me they're not paying. I know they're not compared to some other schools. Now, there might be a few exceptions.

but I had some face-to-face conversations with some high-level recruits. And I had one kid tell me he wasted his time by going on the visit because of how much money they offered compared to the other teams. Like it was like a third of the money. Now this was two years ago. Things change. There are a lot of, like Georgia doesn't pay a ton of upfront money, but it's Georgia. They can get away with it as much, if not more than anybody.

And their development obviously is really good. Well, in Georgia, do they pay off? off your speeding tickets for you because that I think that's part of the contract that's seven figures for some of these guys it probably needs to be that is by the way that is the comment of the year. Congratulations Alex honor right there that is spectacular um but like Georgia gets out bid regular it still gets guys because it's Georgia Clemson could do that to a certain degree but you can't be like one third of the money and consistently get guys unless that kid's just a die hard Clemson thing like daddy went to school there and all that it's not going to have

happen. Then when you go out of state, like Dallas, where they go, sometimes, Birmingham, Atlanta, those kids probably didn't grow up, Clemson fans. So they have to adapt a little bit there. Is Davo down with that? I'm not 100% certain because, again, I was told they had a completely wide open quarterback room for spring. Now, maybe that was coach speak. I still think it to be Chris Vizina, but is anybody excited about that? And on top of that, you talk about how Georgia as players, Georgia, Athens to Atlanta is an hour and a half with the way they drive 45 minutes. So like you're looking at a situation where what's the next big city near Clemson? What are you looking at?

You know, maybe Charlotte. Maybe, and that's, Charlotte is a ways away from there. And that's what I'm saying. So you're looking at, you know, selling these kids, hey, you'll be developed, but you'll be in the middle of nowhere. You'll be developed, but, you know, we'll take care of you, but we're not going to take care of you up front. If you stick around here, we'll take care of you on the back end. That's a tough sell. That's a tough sell. In a popcorn society, it's hard to sell people oxtails. That's just the

reality of what we're looking at. Everybody wants everything right now. And if you're not giving it right now, you're going to run into some very serious troubles. I don't even know if they'll have a top 15 class this year. You can't do that year in, year out and not supplement a high level with the portal. and I'm not trying to pick on anybody, but Deshaun ain't walking through those boars and either is Blondie. Those guys made up for a lot of ills, and they don't have to de-lines of those eras either.

So they're good, but they ain't like that 218 D-Line group is about as good as we've ever seen. You know what a fun fact was? Clemson had more defensive player of the years from their defensive line room over like it. There was a five-year span where if you would have bet that there would be a defensive lineman out of Clemson's defensive line room to win the ACC

the ACC defensive player the year, you probably would have came up like six or seven units out of betting that every year. Like that's how crazy that run was from Bowers, from Bowers up through Beasley, that was an incredible run of defensive player to year, defensive player of the year time and time again. And now we're at a point where it's like, who's next? Who's going to be the guy? And top edge rushers. Those are the types that'll tell you, I wasted my time because they, the money ain't matching up. They can go somewhere else and get paid two, three times as much money. They're going to leave.

They ain't going to go to Clemson. Those days are over. Yeah, well, Dabo's on the mat, but I'm not ready to count him out just yet. But we'll see how things go this season. Now, when we come back, let's talk ACC wide receivers. Now, Kenton, you took some of my guys there, Jojo Trader, Chance Robinson, Florida State still has some dudes. I know we're down on their team, but News Robinson is still walking through that door. Miami's got

some dudes. You want to keep it locked right here. We're only getting started on this brand new episode of Locked on ACC. I'm Clea Butler, host of Locked on Women's Basketball. And this is Mazda's Women's Basketball Snapshot, celebrating the work no highlight reel can ever capture. Texas won its first ever SEC championship on Sunday, beating South Carolina 78 to 61 and snapping the game cost three-year run as SEC tournament champions. In the Big Ten championship, UCLA dominated Iowa 96 to 45.

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alongside Kenton Gibbs from Lockedon Wolfpack, Brian Smith from Lockedon Seminoles and the Portal. All right, so Brian, Florida State, as I mentioned, they still have a good-looking receiver core, despite a lot of negativity around that program. Where do they stack up against, you know, Miami, for example, with Cooper Barcate and Malachi Tome? I think their top three is really, really good.

I just don't know if Javan Boggs is going to be completely healthy. I got to see it. But he was like the state of Florida's all-time leading receiver. Out of high school, I know you're familiar with him. He played over at one of the prominent programs at Coco. That's their third guy. And Mackay Danzy was literally the fourth fastest 400-meter runner at one point in the world last year. He had a really good year.

And then Deuce Robinson was over 1,000 yards and 56 sketches. 6-6-2-20 something. He's a mismatch. The question mark for me is who's going to throw him the ball? They still don't know for sure. It's probably Ashton Daniels, but Kevin Sperry and him were battling it out. But why receiver town won't be Florida State's downfall? That might be their strongest position along with running back.

Now, for Miami, you and I talked about this before the show. I think it's a top five to seven somewhere in the country, maybe top three, depending on how you want to rank it, regardless of conference, because you got Malachi Tony and Cooper Barcate to start with. Is it Van Dreyfiz Jacobs? Is it Joshua Moore? Is it somebody? I don't know which guy it will be as the third.

I don't either for the record. I'm counting on Tony and Barkate and the third job is up for grabs. Yeah. And it's like, okay, I don't care. And by the way, Van Spafford is going to be a freshman there. Nobody knows about him. He's going to find his way onto the field too. I know that kid.

He's a dude. He runs a 433. Yeah, I mean, he's, I've seen him run. I'm like coming down the track. I watched him run a 4-3-5 right at me. I got that sucker on video. He can fly. And he's going to be a backup.

So it's going to be hard to cover them. I think those are the two easiest ones to pick. But there are a couple others that are really good. Jojo Trader, former Miami guy, Victor Snow, former Buffalo guy, 62 catches and eight scores last year over there at NC State. That's a possibility. They got some other receivers to, Chance Robinson, et cetera. And don't forget about SMU.

Nobody ever talks about him because we forget they're in the league. Yamir Knight had 55 catches last year. Yannick Smith had 44. He's 6-3-2-10. Then the guy that's coming up the ranks was highly recruited. Jalen Cooper, 6-2-180 pounds. He's going to be a sophomore. They got a really good group.

I think they're kind of the sleeper. And then just for a sweeper player, I don't know if the quarterback will work out. But Aiden Green, a senior over at Virginia Tech, those are just some of the guys. They're going to be really good. We know that JKS is going to throw it around at Cal. They'll have plenty of receivers. And I'm sure.

I am sure that Brom at Louisville will figure that out. There's never a year where Louisville can't throw the football. Hey, listen, don't mention Aiden Green around me. I still got nightmares of what he did to NC State last year. I'm still sitting up here at night. Where's it? Where's 15? But that's neither here nor there.

Obviously, Miami is the team to beat. I mean, oh, I'm returning to the top receivers in the league in terms of yardage last year. And one of them played with our quarterback last year. was a true freshman. Oh, we're so, everything's so good in Coral Gables. We don't need a stadium on campus because we're better than everybody else. I'm sick and tired of talking about Miami. But in this, Miami is the Crim Delacrim, right? Like there's no way around that. Whatever your third player is, who else is returning the type of talent that you're looking at with the Miami? It just has to be kind of acknowledged there. Clemson, with all of their

injuries last year at Rod Out, right? you get healthy and the best thing about those injuries is a silver lining out of last year for Clemson. Guys that were a little bit unherited had to step up. They had to step up at the bigger roles than they were expected to take. So you get some big time departures in Williams and Brown and company, but you have guys who have to play last year a lot. So you're looking at a situation where if that group can stay healthy, stay together,

and, you know, obviously get that quarterback situation figured out because you ain't going to have five different guys throwing you the ball for crying out loud. but when somebody establishes themselves as a quarterback there, they could be all right. And ultimately, I'm going to tell you something, man, there is no better guy that you would say he is a one man banned by himself than Deuce Robinson. I mean, give it to you however you want it.

He's a big, long guy, but his route running is fairly, I mean, it's advanced for a guy of that size. Normally when you think of a guy that big, you think, all right, jump ball, come back. That's all he's got in this play. Jump ball comeback, curl. If you see him run anything else, you're like, oh, let me sit up in my chair a little bit. But his rod running is definitely refined compared to other guys that fit that kind of archetype that he has.

This is a big body dude. Long strider. If he can't separate from you with the rod, he'll separate vertically. So who did you get in there to compliment him? And like Smitty alluded to, who throws him the ball? So I think that we could see some very high-level receiver play. Luckily for all of us, receiver is that position that ever. Every year, without fail, there's a bunch of guys that come out of nowhere.

We just look up and say a bunch of guys came out of nowhere. You know, if you think about Victor Snow, he started at Nevada as a walk-on, started as a walk-on. Then he balls out there, goes and there's a scholarship guy at Buffalo, is an all-conference performer there. Then he comes to NC State, and you're saying, man, he could be something special. Obviously, Chance, the guy that we, Chance to Jojo, both of them, a little bit of. unheralded at Miami, but you're thinking with Noah Rogers and Terrell Anderson going, there's going to be a lot more opportunity for them to get their deal going. And I'm going to tell you something. A guy that I talk about a lot on this show, as much as I don't want to talk

about the Dirty Foot Club, my boy, CJ Sattler, fellow cast technician. He is a dynamic playmaker wherever he gets the ball, be it out of the backfield, be it out wide, be it wherever. He's a true freshman that I've got my eye on, even though he's going to be a chap. He broke my heart. He broke my heart. I said, hold on. Now, if you go come down to the ACC, you go anywhere else. But they knew it was you, Fredo. But I knew it was you. I knew it was you.

But he's a dynamic playmaker. So that's going on all over the counter. We're seeing guys all over the campus. Speaking of two-way guys, we got one of those up in Syracuse as well. His name is alluded to me right now. But he played very high-level corner last year. Oh, yeah, the freshman last year. Yeah, expect to see him more receivers.

And they got Calvin Russell out of South Florida to join the group this year. Exactly. Exactly. And they won't have a lacrosse kid throwing the ball around the yard. You just wait. We didn't think that would be the case last March either, and they found a way. But they got a backup, too. They got a backup out of the portal.

So if Angelie ain't ready yet, but this is what I mean in that this conference is deep with receivers. There are guys, there are dudes all over the place. You can't throw a rock out of school in the conference without saying like, Oh, man, they got some guys out wide. There's only a few schools I could think of where I'm like, uh, hey, who are you going to throw the ball to? And so, I see, I didn't want to say it. I want to say it, Smithy.

I, you know, but there's, there's only a few teams that I'm looking at like, y'all don't really have the talent out wide. And so for the most part, I'm expecting to see some fireworks from a lot of teams on the firm. When we come back, has spending on college football and college basketball as well, Has it gotten so out of control that, like, we actually need the government to step in because there are college administrations and certain college coaches who are pretty desperate for some help. You want to keep it locked right here.

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making the Lockdown ACCC Squad your first listen. All right, so, you know, there's a lot of different talk out there, fellows about possible congressional oversight. You know, last week, the president had a committee of 50 different, you know, various figures in the, college sports world. And some of these people that are in that college sports space, like the Louisville administration has been very vocal about just wanting some sort of federal oversight for relief, that there are now allegedly $40 million football rosters out there with LSU of being accused of having that and other big spenders out there. And I guess the big concern that some folks have is if the spending gets so out of control, it's not sustainable to be able to

keep your other sports, right? Your women's sports, your non-revenue sports, if you're spending this much on football, and I would assume basketball as well as getting up there. So, I mean, is the free market going to correct itself, Kenton, or at some point does there need to be some form of government oversight? Because you don't, players are not employees, and we don't have collective bargaining. Maybe that's the answer if we can figure out a way to do that. So when Pete Golding sent the of the check over to the linebacker. Yeah, Luke Forelli. Luke Forelli.

When Luke Forelli received that picture, what was that for? Just out of curiosity. Some sort of aboveboard NIL venture, I'm sure. So, so, so I just because I want to be clear, I want to shoot this thing straight. Because it feels to me a lot like what Bama did when Nick Saban was with the Dolphrine. or what the Dolphins did when Nick Saban was at LSU. It feels very similar to me and that they said, hey, you got a good setup over there. Just won the national championship.

Got the number one overall pick. You got all the things. You know, you got to Mark and Russell, Glenn Dorsey, all that. What does Baton Rouge compare to Miami? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. What do you think? And I feel like he exercised his option as somebody with a certain set of skills that people were willing to pay.

he exercised his option to go get that paycheck, to go get that opportunity to go do those things. Then when he left for Alabama after screaming at the media, I'm not going nowhere, quit asking and all that, you know, in his very Nick Saban way, because Nick Saban was in the room while they were having the same college sports talk. It seemed to me like he did a very similar thing

where he saw things were souring in Miami. I can't really get this team going in the direction that I wanted to. so I'm going to take an exit ramp where I go and make what I make in lieu of whatever these players got going on. So my question is, why is everybody else a professional? Why is everybody else allow free movement? Nobody is saying anything about the fact that Norville makes so much the university cannot afford to fire him, despite the fact that his high school recruiting has been so bad. High school recruiting at Florida State has not been this bad in decades.

And even toward the end of Jimbo, it was never this bad. I was even small when that happened. That's saying a lot. That's my point. That's my point. And so I'm confused as to how we never talk about how much the coaches are making. They're making so much you can't fire them. Yeah, it's a great point.

They're elected their duties. We never talk about how much certain teams stay injured and their training staff is all professionals. We never talk about that. But somehow, when it comes to the players, the government has to step. step in. Well, I'm fine with the government stepping in and regulating this thing, but you can't do it from the bottom up. You got to do it from the top down.

When the administrators start taking those pay cuts, when the head coaches start taking those pay cuts, when the assistant coaches start taking those pay cuts, I'll be a thousand percent fine with, all right, now let's get to the players. You raise a great point because it's a great point because nobody talks about the fact

that it's not just players making sometimes millions of dollars. It's coaches, Like, I mean, Brian, how many, how many years? Mike Norvell will be in what, year three of his new contract next year? And it would still be almost 50 million to buy him out at the end of next season. Like, how is that okay? It's 46.9 from what one of the guys on, I think it was NACO said at the end of this season.

At the end of 2026. And that'll be his third year on his new extension that he saw. I believe it's a 10-year gig, if I remember. Like, it's just, and in Florida States defense. anytime you go 13 and no in a major league, you're getting an extension. Oh, sure. That's, this is crazy. 10 years feels insane.

Even if it's eight, it's a lot. You know what I mean? I guess it's just, but every deal is a problem because there's only about this many guys that everybody wants and it's supply and demand. And those contracts are guaranteed. Ryan Day's contract. I don't care if it's Marcus Freeman.

I don't care if it's Mario Cristobiles. If they do something, something to get themselves in a whole bunch of trouble. They got to be fired. They get paint. Yeah. It is what it is. But that's my point. There's the same way that there's only so many Mike Norvelles, there's only so many

Bryce Underwoods in the world. There's only so many Malachi Tonys in the world. There's only, but so many Ruben Baines in the world. They don't grow on trees. You don't just find, I don't just walk in Walmart. Hey, let me get a, a CC Maui Noah back there. As a matter of fact, let me get two of those. Let me get two of those.

I wish it were that easy, right? You got buy one, get one half off, right? Yeah, let me get, let me get. I mean, we did have two Maui Noah's on the team at one point. So, I mean, what was a Bogo? But they weren't both Cici. You know what I mean? That is a different, there's a different ball game.

That man, he got hands the size of frying pads. You know, he looked like if they put hands on his different type of experience. So the same way that these coaches don't grow on trees, and that's how they demand what they demand. The exact same thing is happening with. these athletes. Same thing with basketball. There's only but so many, Bada Sanchez and all that. There's only so many Darren Peterson's. There's only so many Caleb Wilson's. You don't just walk out and say, oh yeah, you six, eight,

jump out the gym, great timing. Yeah, let me get three of those, man. I need about three of them on my squad. It just doesn't, it doesn't happen. So I, I'm very leery of all the things that we have going on in the world. The government feels like it's their place to come in and relegate the pay. But Again, you're not starting from the top because no players making more than Lane Kiffin. No player is making more than Mike Norvell. Not a single player on any roster is making more than those guys. But we're talking about the players in that being unsustainable because there's so many of them.

But meanwhile, you know, coaches are getting paid out of the behind. And some of them, like Coach Orgeron, he said he got five, they came and told me 28 million. Never come back. I said, Bubba, what don't you need me to leave out of him? that's what we're looking at. And that seemed like a huge buyout at the time, not so much anymore. That's hilarious, by the way. He gets a ring and he gets $28 million out the door.

The other problem, let's use LSU. I don't know if you two are familiar with this, but Nike, obviously, major sponsor for a lot of teams, probably the most. LSU's a Nike school. They have a new initiative at certain schools, LSU being won. They pick 10 athletes in some of them are Olympic sports and women's, where they pay, too, on top of what else they're getting. it. So certain schools have a massive advantage. How are you going to regulate that? You're not going to

put the genie back in the bottle that is Reebok, Adidas, Nike, any of those kinds of brands, definitely not under Armour. They're massive in the space. If you tell them they can't do it, they're just going to do it under the table. Yeah. There's no way to eliminate advantage. College football has always been very tilted. That, though, is awkward. I'm sure that Alabama's probably got something similar either already in the books or soon well because they're Nike and they are rivals with LSU. They ain't going to be Nike very long unless they get that deal. So I'm sure Nike is going to accommodate them. These kinds of situations, I don't know what Congress does because you can only do so much with the NIL because of that what is the NIL clearinghouse.

By the way, that is garbage. It's even worse than I thought it would be. They can't keep up with all the requests. I've heard they have like an algorithm to accept or reject because you don't have enough like human beings who can go through all those requests. That's the thing. It's still supply and demand. We're a capitalist country. It's very awkward.

The biggest problem is still the same one. You've got to say it every show. They don't want to pay the players because they don't want to make them employees because they don't worry about the injuries. They have and all that later and getting sued and all that. That's the biggest problem. but I don't know how that Congress is going to do anything besides give college football antitrust

exemption. Right. To like force it, that'll still be touching. And then like those elite schools, they're all going to look for the Nikes and stuff like that to do all the ban. And it's already going to the Supreme Court. These cases, the reason NIL is here, this ain't because

somebody went to some local circuit court in like the middle of Nowheresville, Kansas and won their case and that was it. This thing went to the highest court in the land and the highest court in the land. I said, wait a minute. They're not, they can't get paid because of what? Oh, no, no, no, no. Let these folks get paid.

So now you're undermining the highest court there is to ensure that people don't get paid. That is, you know, me and, me and Jackson Hosier had a back and forth about this month ago where I said at the end of the day, the money's going to keep going up until it can't anymore. And when it can't anymore, we'll deal with the repercussions. But it's unfortunate that people are exponentially spending more where, The top quarterback last year was like $4 million. Now it was like $8 million, if you include, the buy off the Duke allegedly and all that.

The year after that, we're probably looking at 10 to 12. Maybe 10. Maybe it might be 10 already. But the thing is, the thing is we can't. At some point, you hit the upper limits. At some point, you're, okay, $40 million squad this year, $20 million, Ohio State squad two years ago. If we say it doubles every two years, that means in 2028, we'll have an $80 million squad.

That means in 2030, we're looking at $160 million squad. It can't keep going in that way. At some point in time, the donors are going to say, all right, enough. I can't do more. I physically can't. I think what we've learned today is Congress can't fix college sports. Only Kent and Gibbs, Brian Smith, and Alex Dono can. Huge shout out and thank you to the squad.

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