Locked On ACC - Daily College Football & Basketball Podcast - ACC SQUAD - The NCAA's New 5-in-5 rule GREATLY IMPACTS the ACC | What it means for the conference

Episode Date: July 2, 2026

ACC football faces a seismic shift as the NCAA’s new 5-in-5 eligibility rule promises major advantages for teams like Miami, NC State, and Duke. Could seasoned veterans and enhanced player development help the ACC challenge SEC dominance? The ACC Squad dissects the impact, spotlighting how standout programs can leverage senior-heavy rosters—including Miami’s Mark Fletcher Jr., Duke’s Nate Sheppard, and Florida State’s Ashton Daniels—to gain a competitive edge. Preview magazine rankings stir debate as Miami lands at No. 7, while questions swirl about Louisville, Clemson, and SMU’s standing. The crew tackles the Protect College Sports Act and explores how pending legislation—aimed at locking current Power 4 members in place—might reshape conference futures and Super League ambitions. With ACC Media Days on the horizon, which star players will represent their squads, and who could emerge as this season’s breakout? Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The NCAA's new 5-5 eligibility rule is polarizing, but it can be a huge benefit to the ACC. 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 ACC 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.

Welcome everydayers to the ACC squad. I am Alex Dono from Locked on Cains and Locked on ACC. We got Kent and Gibbs from Locked on Wolfpack and Locked on ACC, JJ Jackson from Locked on Blue Devils, Brian Smith from Locked on Seminoles. And on this episode, we'll talk about who's representing the teams we represent, which players will be at the ACC kickoff media days in just a couple of weeks. We'll talk Protect College Sports Act. It's not passed through Congress yet.

There's a lot of folks pushing for it, including most members inside the ACC and the Big 12 and the impact it's going to have on the Atlantic Coast Conference. We'll talk about whether the ACC is getting any respect or not in the college football preview magazines. But let's start with the new five and five eligibility rule that the NCAA is imposing. So there are no more red shirts. You get five years to play five seasons. And the clock is going to start at your high school graduation or your 19th birthday, whichever comes first. Before we talk about why certain people don't like this, Brian Smith, I'll let you buy the first round because you have told me, and I'll give you the floor on this one to explain why

you think five and five eligibility is going to benefit the ACC. You're muted. This is off to a great start because you're muted. Yes. There are always so many teams that do a good job of not only recruiting well, but having the money to recruit well in today's society. Your Miami Hurricanes are won. As soon you could join it if they really wanted to,

but they haven't done it yet. After that, we kind of think Clemson's doing a good job of recruiting, but they're still not a top 10 recruiting school. Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech are doing okay, like in the ACC. But Miami's the only one in the league that's just going out getting four and five-star guys left and right. And that's the way it is on most leagues. You either have to build through culture or you get stumped.

You're not going to be Virginia and go down to Miami and play a mono-a-mono in the trenches. You have to have older players. And the extra year of eligibility, I mean, Miami's not going to have a ton of fifth-year guys. Most of those guys have either figured it out and went to the NFL or they're gone. they're transferring somewhere else. Virginia, Virginia Tech, King's NC State Wolfpack, JJ's Duke Blue Devils, and sadly, Florida State's recruiting as it is,

those programs are going to have to be more developmental now with the way they're recruiting. That's okay. This rule will help most of the league. I'm not saying we're going to start bullying the SEC, but they will have at least a better chance with junior, seniors, and fifth year seniors to have good rosters.

And if you get the quarterback, still always the end all be all. That never changes. But if you've got better trench play, like last year, Virginia had some experience alignment, totally changed their running game. They could run downhill and they had like a six-year quarterback. That's the formula for Virginia and most of the teams of the league. You think Boston College is going to compete with Miami and the recruiting trail?

Probably not. But you can still do those things. I think NC State, honestly, ironically, that getting his ear probably benefits the most. They've got a pretty good fan base to say the least. They're always competitive, like offensively now. Some of those guys that are seniors that walk out the program, they get one more year. That starts this year. Yeah.

I would imagine there will be a few guys at Kenton was thinking this could be their last year and Raleigh will come back in 27. It may not be a first round draft pick, but that guy was never going to be at Miami anyway, and he could play as a fifth year guy. System players like that are so important in college football. And again, Miami might have a couple of the middle linebacker this year for Miami's a great example of that. The transfer of the head from Rutgers, he came back. back for another year. Great player for college. Is he an NFL guy? Probably not. But that's the

exception. Do you want to know what this year is for him that he's heading into? How many years he's been in college? I think it's his seventh. Eight. Okay. Kenton, if you want to put your helmet back on, you can, according to this. I mean, this is ridiculous. Let me tell you how long it's been since I played college football. Recently, my mother went on to join the ancestors, but I was digging through her stuff. And I found the belt bowl, uh, belt bowl watch. Guess who the quarterback of the Mississippi State Bulldogs were in the belt bowl that I played in. Take a while, guys. Dak Prescott, Dakota Rayne Prescott.

And Durranya Wilson, God rest his soul as well, heck of a receiver was a guy who tore us up in that game. But you know, you're absolutely right, Smitty. NC State does benefit from this, not just from the standpoint of you get players who are developmental who could be great for college but may not be NFL players. NC State has a secret weapon that the rest of the country does. not know about. His name is Antonio Thunder Burnett. He is one of, if not

the best strength and conditioning coach in all of college football. And I know a lot of people would say that about their strength and conditioning coach, but here's the interesting thing about NC State. It is statistically proven they're one of the best schools in the nation that are taking three stars and tournament and draft things. That happens

because of that player development. The turnover in all of the position coaches and all of the coordinators, only two things have remained consistent. Antonio Burnett and Dave Dorn. That's it. So, you know, a program like NC State that does a great job with developing players, even outside of the conference, a program like Iowa that does a great job of developing players

and all that stuff. If you do a great job of developing players, five for five, that's your jelly, that's your jam, that's your butter. That's what you want to see because now you've got a shot. You may not be able to bring in an 18-year-old who could beat Jackson Cantwell. Your 23-year-old can.

Huh? He's been in the program. quite some time. He's been working that dip rip for quite some time. Let's see what you got at 23. So, you know, I had a thousand percent agree with you, Smitty, in terms of if you cannot get the high-end players, develop these guys over four to five years. Look at Will Anderson when he was 18. Look at him when he was 23. Those are two completely different human beings in terms of just physical profiles. So, again, this five-for-five does great things for the ACC. And the only thing that I worry about, about with it is yes, you will be able to retain players in terms of they'll be, have the eligibility come back.

Will you be able to retain them on the money from? Would you be able to pay? Right. And I was thinking that that's where maybe Miami can find their angle is like, hey, for some of you, you know, you go to the NFL, you may be taking a pay cut. So you stay here for an extra year. Miami, Donna, are you saying Miami solicits players from other teams? They've done that before?

Are you saying that's not what I'm saying? No, he's talking about Miami players because remember Miami went on the street of having all ACC guys who left early and went undrafted. They had a bunch of guys back to back to back. I don't even need to be here. Kenton is doing my show for me. It's 100% right. Yeah. It's the truth, though.

I think that Donnell's right in terms of if you think about what Miami suffered from through some of those dark years, they had players. Brother, if you were getting paid, you come back. Make more. Make more. You make a 500,000 here. you're going to get 80,000 to be a special team's demon if you make the team in the NFL. Come on back, brother. Come on. Come on. You're going to be playing safety and not gunner. I'll never forget. Sorry to cut you off, JJ. It's one thing. A few years ago,

you know, NIL wasn't the thing then than it is now. Like a very good defensive tackle, Leonard Taylor, left Miami a year early to be a UFA. It's like that stuff's not going to be happening as much anymore in the NIL era. people will some of them will be now malachi Tony's not going to be staying for five years but maybe some other guys will go ahead JJ no I was just so we're playing NBA jam kenton's got the hot icon going we got to keep feeding him the rock he's doing your job dono I was okay j take it over what's the Duke sales pitch in this well I'm going to tell you for Duke football this a very similar thing I mean you look at what Duke has done y'all have built the program you're not building

like a hey we bring in great one-year rentals even though that's what they're meant to turn out to be but systemically, Duke's defense was a bunch of guys who played together forever. So that five for five, I mean, especially if you push as much as people laugh at it, a Duke education is still a different ball game than most other schools and all that good stuff. So, you know, there's for all of the teams in the ACC, there is a potential upside here. And again, I think the only people that are meaningfully hurt by the five and five are the players who are already playing that are not grandfathered in. Yeah, it sucks for you, but brother, it's the way to cookie crumbles.

Somebody has got to end up with the short end of the stick here. But in terms of all of the ACC schools, Smitty is 1,000% hitting the nail on the head. This is a great thing. All of these ACC coaches should be dancing in the streets, be at Cristobal, be at Diaz. Mike Norville, not going to be an ACC coach much longer, but be it Dave Doran. Go get out there, be it Brett Lashley with Gracie Singleton. They should be dancing in the streets celebrating, being able to. keep these guys for another year because Kevin Jennings what's his NFL prospect but what's he

going to make at at SMU plan another year good call good call exactly well it seems like kenton made most of our arguments for us but and I'll say one more thing about the five and five and we talked a lot about it last week as well but we didn't have you know Brian Smith has a great angle on it another thing about five and five guys you know now it used to be you had like unlimited amount of years to play four seasons, right? Now you've got five years to play five seasons. We're going to see some career records get shattered, like career passing, career receiving, career. I mean, in all fairness, some of those weren't where they were legit to begin with. Case Keenham had passed a record. Case Keenham played like six or seven seasons where he played

multiple games as a started, then got hurt. And then he came back the next year. And it was like, oh, yeah, Houston's air raid didn't rack him up that many yards, a thousand yards. in three games. So I mean, again, how reliable are these records? And it's the same thing with the NFL in terms of the total season records. Let's just break it down in per game. Sure, they got 18 games now. It's more than when O.J. Simpson rushed for 2,000 yards when they had 12 games going on. Like, yes, it's a very different lead. But you can still do per game basis to determine, hey, nobody ever did like Barry Sanders did at Oklahoma State because per game, nobody did like it. That's well said.

When we come back, how much respect is the ACC getting from Athlon, Phil Steele, Lindy's, the preview magazines. And folks, you put your kids to bed because this conversation is going to get a little not safe for work here with the disrespect. You want to keep it locked. We're only getting started on this brand new episode of the Lockdown ACCC Squad. My friends, I love this time of year. Well, this time every four years because the biggest stage in world soccer is. here right now. Every match feels like it has the potential for a memorable moment. One goal can completely change the energy of a game, shift momentum and alter the outcome in an instant.

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My friends, if you consume our content every day, we call you an everydayer. And if you want to make your status official, join that everydayer club. Go to locked on podcast.com slash every dayer. And you can join the everydayer club for locked on wolf pack, locked on blue devils, locked on Seminels, locked on canes, locked on ACC. And you get exclusive ad-free versions of our episodes and other great benefits like Discord chat access. go to Lockdownpodcast.com slash Everydayer to become an everydayer club member today. Thank you for making the Lockdown ACC Squad your first listen. I see Brian Smith is literally thumbing through his Lindy's preview magazine.

Now, I want to start with, I think, the preview mag that's given the most respect to the ACC, I believe is Phil Steele. So Phil, Phil has Miami number seven as all the magazine. It's like they colluded to all put Miami at number seven. But they have on Phil Steele, SMU at number 12, which I think is higher than any of the other preview magazines have SMU. And then also rounding out that top 25. They've got Clemson at number 17, which is higher than some places. and Louisville at number 18. I think that's it for the ACC.

I don't know, JJ, I'll let you buy the first round on this one. First on Phil Steele, again, everybody seems to have Miami at number seven, but how do you feel about the placement of those other teams and anyone else you think can crash the party? Yeah, it's just, it's a shame that we're in a spot where it is just Miami that's at the top of the world, right, in terms of ACC football and how they're being viewed from the outside. I think it is notable that SMU gets a big boost

with Kevin Jennings coming back at quarterback. Last week, we were taking a look at some of the coaches in the conference. And, you know, I was making the case for Louisville. Another season can this finally be the time in which Jeff Brom gets over the hump? But what we've learned if last season wasn't any indicator, with tiebreakers going all over the place and six and two records alike with where we ended up in. Duke and Virginia going head to head.

You know, tell me the teams in the ACC slotted 13, 14, 15 range. And maybe Duke's got another case again if last year is any indicator of what could possibly play out when the conference gets to it. I like Miami again this year. I think it's another big year for Clemson trying to write the ship of downtrend they've been on over the last few seasons. But don't be surprised, fellas, if it's teams coming out of nowhere again in the ACC. see if there is this much kind of distance between the teams within the league.

Let me explain something to you all very, very plain. The AP gets the most respect as a preseason poll. And as a poll in general, right, throughout the year, it's the only one that starts the season and ends the season, right? Last year, this was the top 10. Texas, Penn State, Ohio State, Clemson, Georgia, Notre Dame, Oregon, Alabama, LSU, Miami coming into the season. Do you hear how many of those teams, not only were not playoff teams, just were not good.

Multiple teams in that top 10, their coaches are no longer their coaches. Penn State fired them. Penn State and LSU, both of them, gone. New guys bought in the boat. So this is a perception problem. There are times where I say this is an ACC legitimately does not have the horses in the stable, or we have not done our part for whatever. reason, be it the financial part of it, where other teams are just making more money or their

boosters give more, whatever the case may be. There's times where we go out on the field to get our behinds kick, and we've got to own that. But in this instance in particular, of preseason rankings, be it Lindy, be it still, be it whoever, I'm looking here and I'm saying, now wait a minute, you mean to tell me that we've got three ACC teams ranked in the top 25. And after Miami, the next one is where now, Smitty? And Wednesday's, it's not until number 18 with Louisville, then 20 SMU, 24 is Clemson. By the way, you're Wolfpacker 47th. Just as a reminder, everybody, just as a slight little reminder here, the team that was rated

the second highest in ACC made the playoffs last year. So what are we doing? Made the national championship last year. So again, I don't get too worked up about these polls. At the end of the day, it's a lot like what. to Dabo Sweeney said about his quarterback race and how Vazina is in pole position. Did that inspire confidence in any of you gentlemen

in Vizina because they said it was in pole position? Now, granted, those are two different types of polls, but I'm using them in the exact same way here to say it don't mean diddley, it don't mean squat, it don't mean Jack till you put the ball down and you're lined up front of you. Here. I hope that the Wendy's poll

is not indicative of how this season goes. They've only got four teams in the ACC in the top 25 and three of them are from number 18 to 24. I mean, I hear what Kenton's saying, but it's not good from a perception standpoint to help recruiting down the line and all that stuff. It's not. I also think Miami's a little well. I think they're top five, but that's just my opinion.

Difference between five and seven is not a big deal, but whatever. Yeah, there's not much respect for the lead, to put it mildly. It's bad. And by the way, my seminals are 48th. they're like 11th. It's just hilarious. 48 seems a little high. Oh, here we go. 48 being high is, you know, thinking about where Florida State came from is crazy.

But I want to ask you this, Minnie. When you talk about this is how it affects recruiting, I would a thousand percent agree if we had a signing day that came in August. Because the early, the earliest signing day is what, October or November now, something like that? It's early December. Early December. Thursday in December.

Hey, listen, ACC teams. ACC fans. Your team may not be much now, but you'll have your opportunity. The Wolfpack are ranked 47 right now. Guess what? You'll have your opportunity to take on an SEC team in Vanderbilt. What you're going to do about.

Miami may be number seven now. They're going to have the opportunity to take on Notre Dame, who everybody in the world is super high on at the moment, and once again, make them say the ACC treated us so unfairly. Those hurricanes, they're not nice guys. It was supposed to be a win and a win, and it just didn't work out. But again, this has to be, I do agree, Smitty, if we go 500 or so, or if we go below 500, it definitely will be a moment where that perception is very much so,

you know, ruined a lot like how this miscellaneous fly is trying to ruin my shot here by flying across at random. But if the ACC does what they have to do on the field, all will be, you know, We'll be looking back at this saying we may not have the resources, but you put it on the line and our guys do what they're supposed to do. So, yeah, I want to get into one of the aspects of this Protect College Sports Act that they're trying to pass through it, it passed through a committee in the Senate, but the Senate still has to vote on it, and then the House has to vote on it, and then the president has to sign it. So there's still a lot of moving parts, and I'm sure there are going to be deals that get cut. And this thing, the final version of it may not look the way it looks today. But one of the parts of this Protect College Sports Act that I don't think the SEC and the Big Ten are too happy about this part.

The ACC and the Big 12 seem to be, they essentially, and Brian, I'll start with you on this, they want to lock the Power 4 conferences essentially into the teams and the programs they have right now. And obviously if you're the SEC and the Big Ten, that would take away your option of expanding and creating a Super League and achieving world domination, whereas, you know, the Big 12 and the ACC seem to support this idea that, you know, the conferences that are already stronger than them can't get any stronger than they are already. But is there anything you could say, though, from an ACC and Big 12 point of view, though, that with the fact that this also keeps them from adding.

more members? Are you kind of making a deal with the devil here that you're also taking away any expansion options that you might have moving forward? Yeah, I think that's part of it because the ACC needs more money. They need another big blue blood. And right now, obviously the one that's failing the most in the league is obvious. It's in Tallahassee. Those numbers are eventually going to go down if they, you know, they won seven games in two years. Nothing against SMU, like they're a good program, but they don't have a huge following, especially nationally. Like there's no blue blood that's really holding their end of the bargain other than Miami. That's it.

Clemson, I mean, I don't know what that was last year for Clemson. They still get a lot of eyeballs because it's Clemson. So it's hard to attract anyway, but they need to find a way to do that or they got to come up with something. And I still think it would be better for the ACC to jump in with the Super League. I think most of the teachers get there personally. but here's the problem. It's always the same answer. The problem in society starts with an M and it ends with a Y.

The teams that are elite like Ohio State, Texas, et cetera, don't want to share the kitty the same from what I'm told about the Super League. And that's a problem. You know, the NC states, the teams kind of in the middle, Virginia Tech, et cetera, they're not going to agree. They're never going to agree on that either. eventually somebody's going to lose, but the short answer is like get somebody else to come into the ACC.

I don't know who that would be. But if not, they're going to have to go to the Super League because the money difference between the Big Ten and the SEC and everybody else is just massive. They're in a bit of a pickle. You know, when you... Oh, go ahead, JJ. I was just going to say, I thought we were promised no conference

realignment for a while. I thought we hit the quota for a few years. Didn't have to worry about any of the end. stuff. But, no, you're right, Brian. I feel like money is going to drive everything, man. You know, when I look at this, I'm simply saying, of course, the ACC wants this because you always don't just weigh out your best possible scenario.

You also have to weigh out your worst possible scenario. Bingo. Right? When you talk about, oh, this will prohibit the ACC from gaming teams, sure. But let's work out a best case scenario. For whatever reason, some team that is a group of, of six superpower in our regions says they want to come on out, right? Like Memphis keeps winning and all of a sudden they're like, hey, we want to bring another

tiger to the ACC, you know, that's when you know you're a real conference, when you've got two tigers in your mist. That's, that's when you know, right? The SEC's got two tigers, Big Ten got two. They got three. Exactly. You need more. You need more, right?

Auburn, Missouri, LSU. Exactly. So if that were to happen, that'd be great. But what if along with that you lose your first tiger in Clemson? Then what? Was that trade off worth it? As opposed to a guarantee of locking people in place? I'm not saying that it's right.

I'm not saying that it's legal because that's my biggest drawback from this. I don't know how you're going to keep these teams in these conferences. Very seriously. I don't know, even if everybody agrees to this, I still don't know how you stop a Miami, a Clemson, Florida State, if they ever get good again from saying, or when they ever get good again, rather, from saying, hey, we make too much money.

We put it in too much. You know, I'm tired of getting a similar split to Boston College, who is okay bringing the coach back after two-win season, three-win season. I don't like that. We're out of here. How do you stop it? What are your legal grounds to say,

hey, we're stopping you because of this? Because, again, even if you say that the universities have collectively agreed, what's going to happen with the players and say, oh, well, you're hurting my earning potential because I'm not playing in as many nationally televised games because every time we play UNC, we're on ESPN-A-P-O-cho. This is just what's happening. So ultimately, I think that there's a lot of different things going here,

but it's very clear to see the ACC is like, if we hold the status quo, that's better than almost 90% of the alternatives to it. The only thing that I'll add to that, I'm sure you know this kitten. I don't agree with this notion. They're trying to give the NCAA to antitrust, which between me and you is about like trying to give a Coke dealer, an extra pound of cocaine and expect him not to sell.

It's a terrible idea because how many people in this conversation think the NCAA overall does a good job? Yeah. Some people know zero hands went up just in the audio listeners. The fossil watches were quite nice, but I think they were provided by belt. I think they were provided by belt. Yeah, that's the point. Nobody wants the NCAA that has the right-mindedness to have antitrust.

And because of what Kenton said, players could sue, certain schools could sue. Don't forget, collectives could sue. We invested our money to see this. Warriors are going to make a lot of bill of hours out of this if they don't get to the antitrust. and they know it. That's the only option they have. And they're well aware of that. That's why they're pushing for it. But I don't understand the game because the Super League could technically work if you take like pretty much the power forward. And just add like kids at Memphis, Boise State, San Diego's, you could make that work.

It's just that the whole money thing on the TV stuff. That's, I'm not going to touch that one. I let you guys go. That's the only way that could work. But until that point, we're kind of in no man's land. And the ACC's in the middle of no man's way. The next contract, correct me from Ron Dono, 2030 to 2031 is when all that starts, right? We're four years away. Yeah, except for the ACCC is locked into their crappy deal until 2036.

Let's not talk about that. What I'm saying is if you're going to go Super League, it would be then and that contract would get dumped in. That's the only way the ACC, they would probably be for it because even the commissioner's office, like they're tired of getting blasted. They'd be happy to just rip that up and ESPN renegotiated. Yeah, probably. Well, when we come back, speaking of the ACC, we're less than two weeks away from ACC kickoff media days starting. And one of my favorite things about that event are the players we get access to, right? Every ACC University is going to send three players along with their head coach. We'll talk about who's going to be representing Florida State, NC State Duke in Miami when we come back. Do you want to keep it locked right here? We're not done yet on the ACC squad. you for making the locked on ACC squad your first listen for your next listen. Make sure you check us out on locked on Cains, locked on Wolfpack, Locked on Blue Devils, locked on Seminoles, and Locked on ACC.

We're available free wherever you get your podcast and available free on YouTube. All right. So looking over for the teams that we have represented here. And I'll start when it comes to Miami. It's always nice to be able to chat with Mark Fletcher Jr., who's going to be Miami star running back will be in attendance. Now, as most programs do, Miami usually always sends their starting quarterback, and then a couple of other either seniors or draft eligible players who probably won't be back.

Like they sent Francis Maui Noah last year, even though he wasn't technically a senior. So Miami this year, they're sending Mark Fletcher, Jr., who's a senior running back. They're sending their new quarterback, Darien Mensa, who I think was there wearing different colors last year. So he's an ACC kickoff veteran at this point. And they're sending Brian's favorite eighth-year senior linebacker, Mohamed Torre, will be there as well. They're all really good talkers.

Mentsa does a great job. And again, Mark Fletcher Jr. is one of my favorite human beings on planet Earth. So anytime I can spend some time with him is great. What about for Duke, JJ? Who are you looking forward to chatting with? Yeah, excited to see Dary and Mince. It's just he's going to be wearing the wrong colors when we see him, right? It's going to be a lapel pin that has the Miami logo as opposed to a Duke like we saw a year ago.

So this year accompanying head coach Manny Diaz is going to be running back Nate Shepard, who like Mark Fletcher Jr. will be one of the top backs in all of the country. This time a year ago, he was the third or fourth string guy that we were all talking about. Then he put together an unbelievable freshman season. So really excited to get a chance to hear from him. Senior tight end, Jeremiah Hazley, has been. in there has been a part of so many winning seasons for Duke football and absolute one of the best guys to listen and chat with. And then Luke Margot out of the linebacker core for the Stoop team's

going to be there. He is Mr. Game winner, had the game sealing interception in the ACC championship game against Virginia and did the very same thing in the Tony the Tiger Bowl to make sure Duke won that game against Arizona State came away with the big time game ceiling pick. The Tony the Tiger Bowl counts, fellas. That's all I'm saying here. Hell yeah. That's the trio that's going to be there in Charlotte representing Duke. Brian, you got some good players going for

Florida. Well, some good players and your quarterback will be going. I think Ashton Daniels is being sold a little short, but he's not with Florida State needs to get to where they need to go. There's an in between there. Deuce Robinson and Jarrell's are going, and those are NFL players.

Straight up, no ifs, no hands, no bumps. Both those guys are NFL players. And I've been around both of them. They're great guys. I've been around Ashton as well. Really great guys. So, Florida State will be represented well.

I am curious. Dono, since you bring up Ashton, he's going to be the quarterback. So whether he likes it or not, he's probably going to get more questions than anybody. How comfortable he already is with that wide receiver group. They got pretty good receivers.

Yeah. Got some talented tight ends, running back rooms good, all that stuff. Are they ready to go because the defense? Eh, I'm not sold. I'm not sold. I'm not saying that their bottom of the lead talent-wise or something, but I don't think they got the depth they need. They're going to need to score something.

If they can't throw it around, it's going to be interesting. And for those who don't know, I assume most do. But Norval has taken over play calling again this year. I think it's the one thing he does pretty well, to be honest, but I still need to see him do it again. That'll be an interesting conversation because I'm sure all the players are going to get asked about that. Now, Smitty, I think that that's, very unfair what you just said in terms of

Ashton ain't what Florida State needs to get to where they got to go. Anything short of Jesus himself. Anything short of Vince Young or Reggie Bush in their primes is short of what this team needs to get where they're going. I mean, that's a defense that lost their big fella in the middle in Jackson going to the NFL, Earl Little Jr., not playing his ball up in Columbus. You know how bad you got to be to make a young man say,

I'm leaving Florida for Columbus, Ohio? Oh, have you ever been to Columbus? It's a terrible, terrible place. Nobody should ever want to go there, but that's neither here nor there. As far as NC State goes, obviously we follow the standard tradition. You bring your quarterback, C.J. Bailey. You bring the guy who wears number one because number one is a bestowed honor at NC State. Nobody just gets number one.

You have to earn number one, which is our running back, Duke Scott. And the master of the thick six, Isaiah Shirley, big fella in the middle, going to ACC Media Days. All three of those gentlemen, extremely well-spoken. All of them are guys that you can tell. They've been media trained. They know what to say. They're not going to give you that CBO answer

like the guy from Texas A&M did a few years ago. Yeah, I remember that one. Yeah. Media training is important. And listen, you know, that answer was so bad, I thought to myself, let me start a company where I just do media training because everybody knows me at ACC Media Days

because I asked very particular and intense questions. I said, I need to go around of these teams charge about $5,000 a pop and say, listen, I'm a pretend to be me at Media Days ask you all tough questions. You just got to answer without saying something that's going to make your head coach loose some more hairs on top of his head.

Oh, man. I've seen a lot of quarterbacks at ACC Media Days when we just look up and down, you know. We mentioned Mintsa from one team a year ago to another this season. How about Gia Lopez? He's there with North Carolina, wearing different shade of blue lat.

Now he's going to be the Wake Forest quarterback that we see in Charlotte. Yeah. And you know what I think is interesting about the quarterback position at ACC Media Days this year? There's a glut of teams not bringing their quarterbacks.

Traditionally, everybody bought their quarterback, even if it was a guy that wasn't going to be starting at the end of the year. I remember Clemson bringing Kelly Bryant to ACC Media Days. I remember SMU bringing Preston Stone. to ACC Media Day. You just bring a quarterback, even if he's dogwater.

You bring him just to bring him, and then you replace him during the season. Come on now, buck up and have some gumption, coaches. That's why Minza is showing up for dear. I mean, it's going to be a last-minute ploy. Are you sure you don't want to come back to, you know, we're not going to bring the quarterback. We left it open for you.

Are you sure you still want to go through with this? Oh, man, that's great. Well, we'll, some of us, including JJ and Kenton and myself and Jarvis Davis from Locked on Georgia Tech, we're going to have a contingent out there at the ACC kickoff. So we'll be bringing you content from out there in a couple of weeks in Charlotte. A huge thank you and shout out to the Everydayers for making us your first list. And make sure you join the Everydayer Club. Make sure you support all of our shows, locked on Blue Devils with JJ,

Locked on Seminels with Brian, locked on Wolfpack with Kenton and his co-host, Grayson Boone, locked on Keynes with me, locked on ACC with me and Kenton. We've given you homework to listen to like 10 shows. We expect all of this and book reports do next week. We'll talk to you next time on another episode of the ACC Squad. We are part of the number one sports podcast network,

which just turned 10 years old, the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day.