Locked On ACC - Daily College Football & Basketball Podcast - ACC SQUAD - Transfer Portal MAYHEM Leaves ACC Football Teams Scrambling for Talent

Episode Date: April 24, 2025

Chaos reigns in the college football transfer portal, with the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) at the heart of the storm. As the Florida State Seminoles and Miami Hurricanes navigate this turbulent landscape, questions arise about the impact on ACC basketball's resurgence and the NFL draft prospects of stars like Cam Ward and Donovan Ezraku.Join hosts Alex Donno, Jackson Holzer, and Isaac Shade as they dissect the transfer portal's influence on college football, the potential comeback of ACC basketball, and the draft futures of standout players. With insights from Grayson Boone, Kenton Gibbs, and JJ Jackson, the discussion covers the strategic moves of teams like North Carolina and Syracuse, and the evolving dynamics of the ACC.Discover how these developments could reshape the ACC's future. Tune in for expert analysis and insider perspectives on the shifting college sports landscape. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The transfer portal era has brought us extra drama, extra excitement, extra disappointment, and sometimes extra anger. But has the transfer portal gotten completely out of control now? Let's assemble the squad. You're talking ball with the ACC squad, sponsored by GameTime. 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. Shout out to the everydayers and welcome into the ACC squad. Your team every day. Today's episode is proudly brought to you by Fanduel. Right now new customers can get $250 in bonus bets when your first $5 bet wins. On this episode, first round of the NFL draft is a

approaching. The ACC could have anywhere between one to three players take it in the first round. If it's less than three, is that a reflection poorly on the conference? We will discuss college basketball. Are we about to have an ACC renaissance next year after a really tough year in men's basketball this past season? But my friends, I'm Alex Dono, by the way, from Locked on Caines. We got Jackson Holzer from Locked on Syracuse. We got Isaac Shade from Locked on Tar Heels. They're having a fun transfer portal We got Grayson Boone and Kenton Kibbs from Locked on Wolfpack. We got JJ Jackson from Locked on Blue Devils. Who wants to buy the first round on this one, guys?

As we're seeing, you know, some teams are suffering pretty bad losses here in April in the football transfer portal, which really doesn't give you a chance to respond before fall practices and summer training camp starts in a few months time. We're seeing guys renegotiating deals, sometimes getting kicked off the teams that that they're on other times withdrawing their names and staying on the team that they're on. Is it too much now? Who wants to buy the first round on this one? Don't everybody all go at once, but I'll tell you what, I look at this and I say to myself,

this is absolutely too much. And I am as much pro player empowerment as anybody. This has gone to a ridiculous level. We're not just talking about guys committing to NIL collectives and then deciding to back out and transfer a couple weeks later. which, you know, whatever. It's annoying, but it is what it is. We're talking about situations where guys are transferring.

Like you said, Donald, it's putting teams behind eight ball in essence. Because, again, you don't know that you have to replace some of these positions. And the worst part, sorry, Jackson, you can't replace a Treber Pena. They just don't grow on trees. They just aren't laying around and say, like, hey, I've got another one else in the truck. You can't replace a Bo Atkinson. Those guys like that do not grow on trees. So I think the portal still needs to exist,

but I think with some very heavy amendments. Because to be honest, what change for a lot of these guys from December to right now? What changed? Did Ricky Collins become worse than you thought he was all of a sudden? Did the Chapel Bill experience where on you that tough, that quick? You're like, hey, I'm not doing it anymore. Come on, Bonner.

The new defensive coordinator was here for NC State. And I hate to call these young men out by name, but there are plenty of other examples. It's just like at this point, it's too much. And even these guys who are seeming to leave for the right reasons, even the ones who are leaving for the wrong reason, it's still just too much that there's a spring portal, winter portal, basically transfer whenever for it.

Well, Kenton, don't tell the Syracuse fans that Trevor Pena is really good and that he was second team all ACC. Because if you read my comment section, And Trevor Pena is just a slot receiver. He's, he's all right. He was made by the system, yada, yada, yada, yada. Reality is he was second team all ACC. Good luck trying to replace that.

But actually, what would they have said if he had stayed? Tell me what the comments would have been flipped to. Oh, he's a dark horse to be an All-American. There it is. Yeah. You know, that's what you do. When you lose a player, you start trashing him saying, ah, he's not very good.

We'll be fine without him. We can replace him. But when you get a player or he stays with you, oh my goodness, this guy's amazing. you get the all Americans. We are so bad. We are so bad. Team captain.

You say all the great things about a player, right? It is insane. And what's funny is that it's insane for us as podcast hosts. I can only imagine what it's like for the actual decision makers behind this. But as much as we want to blame the players for out of control, the transfer portal is, this is also on coaches. This is also on decision makers. Because oftentimes what happens is the coaches either nudge someone out the door

or they quite literally kick them out the door. They'll be like, hey, man, we're not going to pay you NIL this year. Or hey, we know you were a starter last year. You're not going to be a starter this year. You're done. We don't want you anymore. You can be 13 now. So you might want to go into the portal.

So you see all these players enter the portal. It's a complete mess. I don't know why we have a spring portal window. Like, I think that thing can just be closed. Why do we have it? Just do it in December. You want to leave it open for more days for the bowl games. Fine.

It's insane. The only way to correct it is what we talked about last week. There has to be some sort of collective bargaining agreement. Otherwise, I don't see how any of this changes. It's only going to get worse. You got players now entering the portal with phantom eligibility. That's what's going on here right now. The spring portal to me is really interesting because I guess like in the last year or so,

if a player were to enter the spring portal, you could read between the lines and understand, okay, they're probably sliding down the depth chart. They're on to greener pastures. It is what it is. But I mean, we'll keep this in the ACC. Look at Cal. They lose not one, not two, but five different running backs in the span of like, what was it, like 48 hours?

That is ridiculous. Like how do you manage something? like that if you're Cal, you know, at this point of the spring. I'm assuming they've already played their spring game. We're looking at May here and they're trying to literally puzzle piece back together an entire running back room. That in itself is chaos. So what you are seeing is, you know, the players holding out and I mean, Jade Knott, for example, who was signing autographs and saying, yeah, I'll be here next year and then like the next day he's off to Oklahoma. Chaos. I feel awful for Cal. And I hope I don't put my foot in my mouth that something

like this happens to NC State, but who knows? It's completely unpredictable. Oh, it can happen to you. Oh, it can happen to you and you and all your favorite schools. It can happen. So literally last week on the show, we were talking about Carolina's quarterback situation with like the Nico of it all and then Gio Lopez ends up committing. Well, one of the guys we talked about was Ryan Brown, who transferred to Carolina from Purdue

in December and is now literally going back to Purdue having never, played a down for Carolina. You've also got a guy who literally on the same day that he signed the contract with North Carolina decided to commit to Texas. And like, are there going to be legal ramifications? Will he owe Carolina? Like, there's just, there's so much new territory that we're crossing every day. It's so impossible to know. Literally on Monday of this week, switching to the basketball side really quick, North Carolina presumed a backup center, Van Allen Lubin, entered the transfer portal because of the pending house settlement case with every intention of staying in North Carolina, but because of the nature of his NIL deals, not knowing if they would

be approved under the new agreement, he did that to maintain some flexibility so that he could still figure out what to do with his NIA. I mean, there's just all of this new territory that we have no idea what to do it. I'll say for the second straight week, Jackson Hulzer is my spirit animal because I wholeheartedly agree that I don't think we really need this April transfer portal. And I can understand that there are pros and cons. I think the cons outweigh the pros. Like the pros would be, hey, this is kind of a cool opportunity you have when you finish up your spring football to do a final assessment on what your roster needs are or, God forbid, somebody got hurt during the spring. So this gives you another opportunity to bring in some talent in depth.

Like I get why there is an argument for the April transfer portal to exist. I just think the cons outweigh the pros. And I've talked a lot about this with the host of not only locked on Seminoles, but locked on the portal podcast, Brian Smith. And, you know, he predicted this before the April portal open that there was going to be, there were going to be so many accusations of tampering. I mean, people like Dion Sanders have been really open about that. there's going to be a lot of bad blood going on.

And yeah, there are a lot of players that are being enticed financially and tampered with my programs to enter the portal. It's going to leave a lot of hard feelings. So I think Jackson is a thousand percent right. I mean, I think, you know, moving forward, I think it would be best where, and I'm not saying like tampering and enticements wouldn't happen and don't happen in December and January. I'm sure it does.

But limit that to one transfer portal window. And at least that way, you're not getting it. It's a lot better to have players. poached in December and January than it is to have players poached in April. So let's leave it to one transfer portal, extend it a little bit if you need to be fair to the players. And let's move forward that way because the craziness of this April portal, it's going to leave some programs decimated. Like is Cal going to have enough time to replace five scholarship running backs? It's pure madness out there, guys.

It's been chaos for me to just see, you know, these players that are supposed to be high school seniors and they're an early enrollee and they've already made the decision to leave without ever playing a single football game at their school. Their taste of this new university was just spring practice and they said, you know what, I'm good. I'm going to go somewhere else. Those have been kind of the crazy headlines for me to try and follow them. And I don't know if there's stopping it. Yeah. Unless there's a collective bargain agreement because again, the NCAA gets slammed in court every time they try to go to court. Yeah.

I mean, I respect the players that enter the portal with phantom eligibility. I really do. I completely understand it. You know, why? Because it's the NCAA. They can't really do anything anymore. Like, they deny a waiver? All right, I'm going to go to court.

Go update your link in. Get off. You are 24 years old. Stop going to them house parties. Get off that campus. Go learn some enterprise. rental car but everybody else by all me do what you need to do in the treasure protocol but the venom eligibility guys wag of a finger to you for shame to you but if they

do get the fifth year after reconsider rally but i am shaming you all i am shaming all of you surprise has never been challenged at least not successfully is so the SEC has a rule where in april you can't transfer from SEC to SEC like they're not stopping you from transferring but they are stopping you from you know you can't go from old miss to alabama if you're going to leave an cc school you have to leave the conference like i'm actually surprised that nobody has tried to challenge that that's my thing yes that's going to challenge that's going to be challenged that's how to be challenged and guess what it ain't going to hold up cc and the ncdbola is going to lose that challenge because you know what you're doing

you are restricting someone's ability to profit off their name image and likeness if you will not let them transfer to any school in the country. Do people understand that? Like, if someone is willing to pay me a certain amount of money to be on the cover of a cereal box, there is nothing that you can do to stop it. Like, period. It can't, you can't do it. So someone eventually will probably challenge it and they will probably win because you cannot restrict someone's ability to profit off their name, image, and likeness. And then do we just start laughing at the SEC like we do the NCAA all the time is that how this works no i mean the SEC gets a free pass there's a concept in raleigh that whenever dave doran feels wronged or he feels spited by something

he has an alter ego called salty dave one of his best quotes he's ever given he said the NCAA stands for no clue at all that's exactly he hit the nail on the head there i like that well listen I hope people stop dogging the ACC next year in football and basketball. And I'm wondering if we're in store for a bounce back year in hoops, right? Only four teams made the NCAA tournament this year. Only one of them had success. And they let us down in the final four. I'm looking at you, JJ.

Are we going to have a bounce back year coming up? The athletic in the New York Times seemed to think so. You guys want to keep it locked right here. We're only getting started on the squad. Guys, this is the time to get in on all of the action at Fanduel. The NBA playoffs are here, and Fandual is giving new customers an incredible way to get in on the action. Right now, when you join Fandual and place your first $5 bet, you'll get $250 in bonus bets if your first bet wins. You want to take a big money line winner for your first bet, $5 and get $250 and get $250.

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Head to Fandual.com and claim your $250 in bonus. bonus bets today. Thank you for making this episode of the Lockdown ACC Squad, your first listen and your first watch. We got Kenton and Grayson from Lockdown Wolfpack. We got Jackson from Lockdown Syracuse. I love how he changes his background to hoops knowing what we're about to talk about. We got Isaac Shade from Lockdown Tar Heels. We got JJ Jackson from Lockdown Blue Devils. JJ, shout out to you, by the way, because Miami earlier this week with Jay Lucas, formerly top assistant coach of Duke, now Miami's head basketball coach. just landed the second highest ranked signee in Miami Hoops history

with Shelton Henderson from Duke, a huge five-star landing, a former Duke commit. And JJ, we got the scoop more than a month ago. I had JJ on Locked on Cains to talk about Jay Lucas. And he was like, hey, I don't know about the boozer twins, but the guy you want to watch out for is Shelton Henderson because of his relationship with Jay Lucas. And JJ, you were spot on with that, my friend.

And I know Miami is not the only team in the 8th. that's hoping for a big turnaround next season in basketball. But I think the future can be bright with some of the coaching moves and some of the player development going on in the ACC right now. Yeah, Miami's been killing it, man, and the transfer portal alone. And then Shelton Henderson there, who by the way, yeah, you just kind of connect the family ties, it felt like that was going to add up with him being a hurricane at one point. He's the only composite five-star player who didn't make the McDonald's All-American game.

That's a shame in itself for Shelton Henderson there. excited to see what he can do. But then other team, like NC State, what Will Wade's doing, he's trying his best to steal and poach every other player across the conference. He's been lucky sometimes unsuccessful in other regards. But guys, I do feel like as the representative who actually carried his weight and did his own this basketball season, I won't have as much tension and stress on these shoulders going into next season, thanks to the work you guys have been doing. So thank you there. Thank you very, very much. You know, of all the teams that people are need to be talking about more going in the next season, Jackson Hoosiers boys up there. You want to talk about family ties. Who's this Anthony kid that guy coming? I've heard his dad was pretty good there back in the day. But no, seriously, they've got a massive class coming in themselves that, you know, regardless of how you feel about Altry in basketball more than almost any other sport is like, how much does coaching really matter? If you've got dudes, it's like,

kind of go out there and figure it out and you'll be okay. And last time I said, this is what, their third or fourth best recruiting class as a whole of all time? All time for Syracuse? I think it was up there. I could be wrong, but I heard that this class was pretty good for them. I mean, it is a pretty good class. I mean, I haven't checked in about a few days,

but last time I checked, it was around top 10 in the country when you combined transfer portal and also high school recruiting. So by the rankings, they are doing pretty well. I don't know about ever. I mean, Syracuse used to get the number one or number two class in the country on almost an annual basis. Either way, you cut or slice it, this is a massive, this is a massive class that people are not talking about in terms of like, hey, Syracuse and team to watch out for. Everybody's talking about Will Wade and Riley. Everybody's talking about Oldham the UBA saying, hey, that guy was so close to UBA.

He didn't even need a flight tracker. You had the track a U-Ha truck to figure out where he was moving. And lo and behold, these are now, you know, teams that. people are or that is now a team that is all of a sudden blown under the radar who like jackson said now oh my god this is a team that normally put in top two classes on a regular basis and now people are like what are they over there what are they going to do so they deserve some love as well and a potential renaissance for the acc next year i'm also i think i i i want to pick your brain and what i when i referenced uh athletic in new york times so there was an athletic piece that

ran in the new york times this week pointing out that listen there are ebbs and flows and college basketball. These things can be cyclical. We shouldn't read too much into the ACC's lack of regular season and outside of Duke, lack of postseason success. It seems like the ACC is poised for a bounce back. Do you agree? 100%. And I think it starts with, yes, the coaches and getting successful, but as Kenton said, so much of it is we had to do, we as a conference, had to do better in the transfer portal this off season. And it seems like that. is happening. Obviously, we're not going to find out until we get into the regular season and start winning or losing basketball games. But part of it, too, is like teams stepping up that didn't do it

last year and then teams that did perform well last year continuing to do so. And by that, I mean, like Louisville, right, had an unexpectedly really, really strong first year under Pat Kelsey. They got to do it again. Well, it seems like they're going to. Isaac McNeely is a great get coming over from Virginia. Ryan Conwell comes in, excuse me, from Xavier. And then on Tuesday afternoon, they announced Kaysen Pryor who got injured last year that I thought was Louisville's best or second best player last year, got injured. He announced he's going to be returning as well. So that's another thing is the consistency of staying good. And so I think Louisville is going to be able to string together a second straight great year under Pat Kelsey. So that's another aspect

of this too. I think when you look at the scope of the conference, the top end of the conference has definitely improved because you got Duke who's always going to remain Duke, right? They're Duke. Shout out JJ. I mean, they're the premier basketball program in the country. Carolina, you would expect, is going to be better next year. That's the North Carolina Tar Heels. They had a down year, which for them is being an 11 seed play in team. So you got to figure they're going to go up a little bit. Then you got Louisville. Louisville might enter the season the highest ranked ACC team.

That team might be top five in the country in the preseason rankings. So you got three teams at the top of your head that you can very easily make an argument are top. top 10, maybe 15, you want to stretch it that far in the country. So the top end is definitely improved in the ACC because last year they had one team like that. That was Duke. Now it looks like they might have three. The question is the middle ground.

And that is something that we'll have to sort out as the rest of the all. I mean, I like what Miami's doing. I like what NC State's doing. I mean, Syracuse is making a lot of moves. But the middle ground, I don't know. I want to see it to believe it. Well, and it's not just the middle ground. It's also the bottom end, right?

Like in the SEC, 14 of the 16 made the NCAA tournament. There were three teams in all of the power conference structure outside the top 200 in the net. Two of them were from our conference. That alone is what weighs us down in conference perception and in quad one and quad two opportunities. And so we really need the Boston colleges to not suck. We need Dono. Jay Lucas has to do work. Like it's wild, right?

Well, the good news is Miami can't get any worse. Like, they can only get better from last year. But I think there will be probably a team in there that might replace Miami as the stinky team. And I don't think Boston College is going to be good next year either. I think it really comes down to that middle class of teams where, you know, can the eighth best ACC team this time in the SEC ACC challenge actually win it? Can they do that? Because we stunk last year against the SEC in that challenge. I guess just one game for everyone, but that is another reason why nobody believed the ACC was good.

You need these middle class teams start beating these other middle class teams. And you can't have a conversation about the bottom. Every conference is going to have a bottom that's terrible. They're going to have like, you know, three to four teams that are just like, ew, P, you, what's happening there? What the SEC did last year was an exception, not the rule. Even some of the strongest conferences that we've ever seen, it's like, wow, six teams made the tournament. Those bottom three were not close.

That is what happened. It's not, you know, how it's going to work out. And even beyond that, I'll say this, again, there is an unfair and unjust bias against the ACC because of our top two brands and football trying to leave. Again, it is one of the most general ways that you can determine privilege in life is the privilege of individuality versus everybody being collected. Hold on. Bias against ACC basketball. What?

I am saying there's a bias against anything the ACC does, yes, including basketball. Didn't you say that there was a bias to get North Carolina in the tournament? Okay. So do we not understand that there's a difference between this one brand and the conference as a whole? Well, they're in the conference. Oh, my God. Okay, Jackson, there's a fun thing in life called nuance where sometimes everything swings one way. And then there's like, wait, there's this one thing that goes against the thing that's swinging that way.

I'm sorry that they did not teach you that in Syracuse. We will work on getting that. We will work on doing that. I'm just pointing out. I mean, you're saying there's a bias against the ACC and then you tried to. As a whole. And you were saying there's a bias for North Carolina. So who are the teams that get the exception to the rule?

Duke and North Carolina. Is that it? Louisville gets nothing? No. Not as much. We've seen it. Yeah. Okay.

Okay. 2021 was the last time Syracuse made the tournament. You don't think there was ACC bias towards getting them that 11 seed? This feels like trying to explain object permanence to a child after playing people I'm just trying to point out how bias. Okay. Yes, the bias exists, and it existed for UNC in that case. But as a whole, the national perception, everything we do is wrong.

Look at the way people talk about Jim Phillips. When he tries to do something radical and says, you know what, we may have a tournament instead of just a conference championship. People said it was stupid and dumb. Whenever Jim Phillips is quiet about it. It kind of was dumb. And I agree. Hey, listen, I agree.

Whenever Jim Phillips stays quiet about things that are happening around the conference, people say he's stupid and dumb. Either way it goes, if you cannot win or if you are judged by your worst, y'all are a collective, as opposed to other conferences where it's like, oh, our worst don't count. Oh, that just is not part of this. It's a bias against that group. Fair. Let me say this, though, about our stinky bottom against everybody else's stinky bottom, which is hilarious because I'm probably going to go need to wipe my daughter's stinky bottom in a minute. Carolina, or excuse me, the ACC, nine of our 18 teams finished outside the top 100 in the net last year. Big 12, their worst team in the net was 96th.

Big East had three teams outside the top 100. Big 10 had one team outside the top 100. And SEC's worst team in the net was standby, 89. So our stinky bottom is wildly worse than everyone else's stinky bottom. Everyone has to contribute. Our middle class is stinky bottom. is the bunch of biased. The team stunk last year.

The whole conference was bad aside from like three teams. When we come back, we'll move on from stinky bottoms. I know Isaac's going to have a diaper to change pretty soon. First round of the NFL draft is coming up. Who's going to be selected out of the ACC? I can only say one for sure on night one. Who else is going to join Cam Ward? You want to keep it locked right here, my friends.

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slash Fire TV locked on to get started. Xbox Xbox GamePass Ultimate subscription and compatible controller are required. Available on select devices including Fire TV Stick 4K, Fire TV Stick 4K Max, and Fire TV Cube. Thank you for making the ACC squad your first Listen, for your next, listen, check out Locked on NFL draft. Cram, get your mock drafts ready. Get ready for the NFL draft in the first round. So, guys, the first round coming up, you know, obviously, Cam Ward, widely expected to go number one to the Tennessee Titans. It's like the worst kept secret at this point, Cam Ward quarterback out of Miami.

Outside of that, there are some uncertainties heading into this first round. You see Donovan Ezorak who stud edge rusher out of Boston College. widely projected be a first round pick. I feel like Amari and Hampton should be a first round pick. I don't see him come up in as many first round mocks. But I mean, you guys, yeah. I mean, are there any, I mean, you can wax poetic on that, Isaac, if you want to. But I think we're looking at probably up to three taken in the first round.

Should there be more? I was just because I can't, I've seen like, I can't think of any mocks where I haven't seen him in the first round. Maybe one. Maybe I'm looking at bad mocks. I've been looking CBS, NFL.com. I got to check out the tar heels wire moths. That's probably what you're not looking at.

Amari and he's going first overall. I'm going to tell you this, and I mean this very genuinely. These mock drafts are always incredibly wrong, but even still, even still, some of these predictions and some of the way that we talk about some of these players, it's absolutely terrible cases of people overthinking it. It's absolutely terrible cases. The fact that people are like, is Donovan Azaraku really a first rounder?

Baby, you have not watched this film if you're asking that question. He has the most developed pass rush plan I have literally ever seen on a guy coming out. I've never seen it. And granted, I've only been watching all 22 for like five or six years now. I've never seen anything close to what he can do. and then you think, oh, a guy like that, he must be terrible against the run. No, no, he may be undersized or whatever the case may be,

but he can get under attack with chin and say, hey, I'm a bitchpressure, buddy. I think that we're good on this outside contain here. So that, the idea that we're even debating somebody's got. And, of course, Omari, Hampton, I mean, come on now, a three down back, a big guy with long speed like him. Brother, we are watching if Earl Campbell played in today's, game and had a little bit more wiggle too.

By the way, shout out to Isaac, because I just pulled up a Yahoo Mock, and they've got Hampton going 20th to Denver. So I found another one. The guys are freak of nature. And again, who has some soft heads on them, too. I don't understand why those, why these three are not for Sherlock.

Now, anybody else, hey, a little bit of scary hours, you know, there are a few guys that are friends and you could make an argument for them, but I think all three of our guys that we know should be For sure, first round. I just did some research and trying to look at this number one pick.

I want to talk about Cam Ward for just a second. How many number one picks from the ACC have there been since 2000? Anybody know off the top of their head? Overall pick. Mario Williams, James, James Winston. Who else we got? Michael Vic. Michael Vic, yes.

They were in the big east at the top, but I'll take it. I'll come. I mean, that counts. Oh, that's what I was wondering. No, no, no. fathered in, though. We'll count it. We'll count it. Come on. That's not. Is it the SEC counted or were they not count it? It would be three. Yeah, if it was, I don't care, like an Oklahoma or a Longhorn, they would count it. They would count it.

They were going to count it, then we're going to count it too. 2001 Michael Vic, 06, Mario Williams, and NC State. Then you had James Winston in 2015 and most recently Trevor Lawrence in 2021. We just forgot Trevor Lawrence. haven't had much success with the number one overall pick. So go ACC. I know I know this isn't an ACC tie-in, but I'm going to be extra happy for Cam Ward because he is about to become the first ever, at least since 2000, the first ever zero-star recruit to become a number one overall pick. Wow. And before 2000, the recruiting services, you know, there weren't as many of them as there are now and stuff. But for at least the past 25 years,

he would become the first zero-star who he was running. know, wingtie offense at Columbia High School in Columbia, Texas, and just, you know, the only team that really gave him an offer was incarnate word in the FCS. And, you know, he was able to prove himself as a passer from that point on. I mean, listen, Cam Ward is the system. He is the offense. Like when you look at him, you know, you didn't ask, what does Miami run? They got that guy back there.

They got somebody out wide. They'll figure out the rest. I mean, he's an absolutely fantastic quarterback. that rocket arm. Of course he can do it on the ground as well, but he knows when to pick his spots and do it on the ground as opposed to when to let that thing fly. So I mean, again, no surprise here. And you know what I think is rare here? I don't think that we've had any debate about who should be the number one pick. When's the last time we saw this? Where it was like, hey, that's, he's just the guy and like anybody else, you know, it's not, not even particularly

close. Do you mean like the last time here or like last? Last. time in years. I mean, last time, well, that's what I was saying. Last time, the ACC consensus. Yeah. And it was Trevor Lawrence. He was consensus one. Yeah.

That's what. Well, how about we grandfather in Andrew Luck? I mean, he's ACC. Oh, that's a good point. Hey, we got fun. We can't forget Stanford. I got another one for you.

Jared golf. Oh, God. Oh, God. Yeah. We're a number of. That number up. You know what? Yes, he's going to count it.

We're going to count it too. I wanted to talk a little bit about Hampton. The guy's going round one. There's no way he doesn't. You look at his production, 1600 yards. That's pretty good. He can also catch passes.

That's pretty important. He's six foot 221. That's what he was listed at the combine. That's definitely big enough to be a three down back. And he runs a 4-4-6. That guy's going in round one. He might even go top 15. So if he doesn't go round one, then every team should be calling to get picked 33 to go and take him.

Honestly. And it's like, I think the thing for me, like besides all that, all the numbers, this is a dude that like literally just wants to win. Like not not flashy, not like look at me. He's out there like, what do we got to do to win? How many carries do I need to tote? How much pass pro do I need to do? Like, that's the kind of guy you want in every locker room you've ever been in. Yeah, again, even with this argument about, oh, there's all of the positional value and whatnot,

you can't tell me that even with positional value out there, you're going to find a bunch of better players who will more positively impact your team right away than him. Well, the positional value is the reason why Hampton isn't going to go third overall like this would have been 25 years ago. Now, the first or second best running back, if they have the size. and they have the speed and they have the past catching ability, they go top 10 if they're really, really exceptional, like the Bejan Robinson type of player or if they're maybe a step below of Bijjan Robinson, they start going top 20.

Hey, Dono, Kenton, I know you guys are looking at this because of locked on ACC a lot more than the rest of us. Maybe this is the get out question. After those top three dudes, who's the next ACC player off the board? Ooh. Ketton, I'll defer to you because I don't know. I, you know, I'm not even going to lie to you and say I for sure got a guy. Maybe Elijah Arroyo, tight end out of Miami. I've seen him getting some relatively high bucks. He's a huge riser. He's a huge riser. He was one of the biggest risers in the in the postseason draft process.

What, what, so round two, I'm assuming he's where in round two? Yeah. I see I see L.F. I O'O. Manor in round three. I see Joshua Farmer from Florida State in round three. Every circus fan wants me to mention Kyle McFord. So I'll throw them in the hat and that's about it. I mean, I'm telling you, once you get past round two, it's really, I mean, yeah, it really and truly is. Because at that point in time, nobody's really picking for big names. That's actual scouts doing their jobs type of deal in there. And, you know, if we're talking about who our fans want us to mention, Davin Van is going to be somebody's day two still.

I have no doubt about it. That guy can play everything from a three through a five. And, you know, he's exceptional at it. So I think that type of scheme versus Tilly was past rest of juice, somebody's going to be getting to go. As a Ray Thomas, Florida State is another guy who should be drafted relatively high. And listen, between Thursday night, Friday night, I hope, Saturday as well, I hope we have a lot of guys taken.

and the ACC can have a good showing. Huge thank you and shout out to everyone for making the Locked on ACC Squad. Your first listen and your first watch, make sure you subscribe on all the channels. We're on every ACC channel, guys, from Locked on ACC to Locked on Cains, Locked on Syracuse, Locked on Wolfpack, Tar Heels, and all the others. We'll talk to you guys again next time on another episode of the squad right here on the awesome Lockdown Podcast Network. Your team every day.