Locked On ACC - Daily College Football & Basketball Podcast - BLOCKED: North Carolina Tar Heels LOSE Taron Dickens as Transfer Portal Drama UNFOLDS

Episode Date: May 29, 2026

North Carolina Tar Heels face a quarterback shakeup as transfer hopeful Taron Dickens departs due to academic issues, leaving Billy Edwards Jr. in the driver's seat for the starting job. Are roster setbacks and compliance snags jeopardizing UNC's chances in the ACC this season, or will Petrino’s system carry them through adversity? Alex Donno and Kenton Gibbs break down the Tar Heels’ quarterback room, highlight the rise of “shadow portal” maneuvers, and debate the NCAA’s looming legal tampering proposals. Hot-button topics include Carson Gordon’s attempt to leverage the track and field portal for college football, the risks of loosening transfer rules, and comparisons to major moves like Lincoln Riley’s Caleb Williams transfer. Don’t miss this revealing look at how shifting policies and creative transfers are reshaping ACC football’s competitive landscape. Everydayer ClubIf you never miss an episode, it’s time to make it official. Join the Locked On Everydayer Club and get ad-free audio, access to our members-only Discord, and more — all built for our most loyal fans. Click here to learn more and join your team’s community: https://lockedonpodcasts.com/everydayerclub   Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! Indeed Listeners of this show get a $75 Sponsored Job Credit to help give your job the premium placement it deserves at http://Indeed.com/podcast   RugietGet 15% off your treatment → https://rugiet.com/lockedonnhlRugiet. Performance medicine for men. FanDuel Today's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Right now new customers can bet just five dollars and get one-hundred and fifty dollars in bonus bets if your first bet wins. Visit https://FANDUEL.COM to get started — Play Your Game.   FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Something just happened in Chapel Hill and North Carolina is going to have one less quarterback in their competition this fall. You are Locked on ACC, your daily podcast on the Atlantic Coast Conference. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. Happy Friday. He is Kenton Gibbs from Locked on Wolfpack. I am Alex Dono from Locked on Caines. And on this loaded episode of Lockdown ACC, could legal tampering actually become a third? thing. Wherever Pete Golding is right now, he's rooting for this. Okay. You know, we've had those conversations with Brian Smith from the portal podcast. Could there be a shadow transfer portal

where guys, you know, illegally transfer because the NCAA no longer has a spring transfer portal, are guys going to transfer anyway? Well, it's actually happening. And let's start with North Carolina. So, Kent, and we came to find out today here on Friday. that former Western Carolina quarterback to Ron Dickens, who had, he had intended to transfer from Western Carolina to North Carolina to enter Bill Belichick's quarterback competition. He was going to enroll.

So he has not enrolled yet, which is really important, right? So he can now legally dip and go somewhere else. So he was going to enroll for summer classes at North Carolina. From what I have read, there was some kind of a hitch academically, transcripts or something. He was not able to actually enroll in North

Carolina, so UNC has granted him his release from his letter of intent. And since he hadn't matriculated yet at UNC, he is now not technically out of the transfer portal. So the transfer portal that he entered back in December or

January, probably January, he can now legally play for any other FBS or FCS school. But apparently Kenton, academic reasons at North Carolina. I guess that stuff happens, right? They are still student athletes after all. Hey, listen here. If you are, if you can hear the sound of my voice in Lubbock, Texas, boy, do I have a proposition for you? I don't think you are. Yeah, yeah, it's true. I may have a solution to a problem

that you have. Don't worry about it, Mr. Dickens. Get behind me. We going to get you some money. No, but in all seriousness, this is a moment where it's very intriguing to me because for years, Carolina was on the wrong end of transfers and, you know, who could pass the academic, you know, academic rigors going into their new school. For example, Caleb Love, who originally transferred to Michigan before Arizona, but was denied admissions into Michigan because of admissions requirements and transferable academic credits, right? I'm shocked by this because Caleb Love wasn't the only one. He's just the first one that came to mind in terms of UNC players.

that struggle to transfer out because of those things. So now to see that they're struggling to get players in, what the hell is their clearinghouse team doing? What is their compliance team doing over there? What's going on in Chapel Hill? Like, what's happening? This is a bad thing. I don't think it's the world's worst thing for them, though.

I really don't. I have a lot of faith in Patrino, but I don't care who you are. At some point in time, you need ball players to get it done. And, you know, if this was a team with high aspirations, I would be sitting here saying, you're not going to give me Billy Edwards Jr. minutes and say, hey, this is, this is the path to success.

But Dono, before this announcement was made, how many, if you had to place the underover at what you think would be like a, I don't know, I might take that action on over. where would you place it for UNC before this was announced? Four and a half. After this was announced, where would you put that under over where you're like, I'm comfortable going here. I stay the same because I don't think Dickens was going to start there this year.

I think because he's got multiple years of eligibility left. I think it was going to be Billy Edwards anyway, and then Dickens would have been an option for 2027 and probably the option. And that's the option. And that's my point exactly. That's my point exactly. Like, yes, you know, we say like, hey, this is an unfortunate thing that happened in UNC could not happen to a better school. But we do acknowledge that this is an unfortunate thing to happen.

But the reality is, even with this happening, I don't see a drastic change in outlook for this season. No. And let's be very honest. Let's be very honest about this situation, Donnell, because I'm not going to give my input on this. Because, again, I'm the NC State guy. But, Dono, you tell me. Do you believe that Bill Belichick coaches this team in the 2027, 2028 football season?

No, I think this is the Swan song. I'm surprised he's made it this long, if we're being honest. I think 2026 and we're done. So you think that he's done here, and we believe that Theron Dixon was going to be the quarterback of the future. Those two things don't really, they don't jive with reality, because as we've seen from all of these coaches taking their quarterbacks with them, a la Byron Brown or Byron Brown,

Riley Kidd going from USF to Auburn. All of, you know, all of these coaches who get new jobs and take their guys with him. One of the first to do it was Lincoln Riley, taking Caleb Williams, hey, Norman, Oklahoma ain't really your thing. They don't like guys to take their nails there. How about L.A.?

How about it? He was the OG when it came to take it as quarterbacks with them. I don't remember it happening a lot before that. And that's my point, exactly. If Lane Kiff, it could have, we know he would have. Hey, come on, Trinidad. Come on. I don't think he stopped calling.

I think he's still calling Trinidad every day. You see what I'm saying? You're sure about that. You want to stay there. He's probably talking to it like boss, man Delo. Your coach is going to get suspended. You want to boss up your life? All you got to do is get in with me.

So you're looking at a situation where this has been a tell as old as time where the new coach brings in his guy, quarterback, who can know his system, who runs his system. And we're counting on a player who was a year away on a team that we're like, I'm pretty sure that head coach, he's going to be someone. somewhere on the beach with his feet up, getting a massage by his 24-year-old girlfriend. That's what he's going to be doing this time next year. He's not going to be thinking, what are they saying down there in Amelia Island?

It won't mean the damn thing to him. That's well said. So now remaining in North Carolina's quarterback room, which they do have a lot of guys. I don't know how good they are, but they have a lot of quarterbacks. They've got no less than four competing for the starting job. We expect it's going to be Billy Edwards, the Wisconsin transfer graduate student. He's got a ton of experience compared to the rest. Miles O'Neill, Redshirt sophomore, is also there.

And they have a couple of freshmen. Travis Burgess is a true freshman. And Tori Newkirk is a redshirt freshman. So that seems to be the primary four. We think Billy Edwards is going to be the guy. Now, you know, so in terms of Tron Dickens, get ready to learn Texas Tech, buddy. But I don't know, maybe there's another option out there at quarterback because the Shadow Portal It's becoming a thing now, Kenton.

We wondered if this day would come, and here it is. You want to keep it locked right here. We're only getting started on this brand new episode of Locked on ACC. My friends, the NHL playoffs are here where every shift matters, every moment is intense and the pressure is at its highest. And just like performance matters on the ice, it matters off the ice too. That's where Ruggiet comes in. Ruggiet offers treatments designed to help you get ready and stay ready when it matters. You know when that matters.

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Locked-on NHL for 15% off. Ruggiette, performance medicine for men. Folks, if you consume our content every day, you are an everydayer, and you should really join the Everydayer Club. That's where you get ad-free episodes of Locked-on-ACC. You get Discord chat access, so many other great benefits.

Go to Lockdownpodcast.com slash Everydayer, and you can try it free for a week, become a Locked-O-C-V-Dayer Club member today. I think someone's ready for the shadow portal. Oh, the shadow portal. You thought you could run from the shadow portal, but it arrives all the same, ladies and gentlemen.

And this one, this is an interesting case because it's not completely cut and dry, all right? So it's not what happened with Xavier Lucas last year to Miami. And by the way, you know, there were not rules explicitly against what Lucas did last year. year. They do have rules against that this year where you cannot enter the football transfer portal when it doesn't exist in the spring, right? You only have it in December and January. You cannot enter the portal outside of the portal. But in this case, UCLA quarterback Carson Gordon

plans to enter the NCAA transfer portal confirmed by Pete NACos-Zvon-3. But he will enter the track and field transfer portal, which is open now, but he will play football. So, all right, first thing that comes to mind, you know, Kenton, you know, I'm a Miami guy. So, you know, a little less than 30 years ago, receiver by the name of Santana Moss, went to Miami, late 90s, on a track and field scholarship because Miami was on probation at that time, very short on scholarships. They were able to find the loophole of Santana Moss. You run track, you're on your track scholarship, but also play a little football on the side.

And that worked out pretty well for him. However, and I think the NCAA did this because of the Santana Moss loophole, all the rules are made because of Miami, as you know. Of course. You are no longer allowed to play football with a scholarship for another sport. So I don't know exactly how Carson Gordon plans to do this, or if the NCAA, will they allow it? Do they have any power?

Because I don't think the NCAA has any power. Can they keep him from playing football? Would they punish the head coach that puts him on their football team if he's technically a track athlete? And from what I understand, I had never heard of this player before this report came out last night. And there's a reason why, because I don't think he's anywhere near a first stringer.

So he is a better track and field athlete than he is a football player. But Kenton, if he plans to try to play football somewhere else, I don't know if the NCAA is going to let him. First thing first, you put some respect on his name. That is in college football 26 legend Carson Gordon to you. For those of you who don't know, it's almost like a cheat code. If you play with UCLA and you move him to running back, he turns into one of the best running backs in the nation.

So, okay, he's better than I thought. Well, because he's fast, right? Yeah, he's got, yep, he's got 96 speed and like 95 acceleration and all that. The rest of it figures itself out on that game. But in real life, the real life repercussions of this, I think it's going to be very interesting to see because the reality is we all know what's going on here, right? Like, who's leaving to go run track when, let's be honest. And this is one of the very real side effects of college football players finally getting paid.

Track scholarships are not just being cut. Some entire track programs gone overnight, right? So what young man would naturally want to shrink his opportunities in that way, in such a meaningful way? We know this is about football, but everybody wants to find a loophole. Everybody wants to find a way. And the thing is, you don't even have to win with these loopholes. You know what you do need? An emergency restraining order.

Oh, yeah. Even if you lose on the back end, that emergency restraining order that says, well, You know, Santana Moss was years and years and years ago. And his hundred time wasn't as fast as Carson Gordon's. He wasn't a serious track guy. Santana Moss went on to play in the NFL for multiple years. Carson Gordon, on the other hand, hasn't stepped on a football field as a meaningful contributor outside of video games in quite some time.

By the way, I'm going to try this out because I have that video game. I've never played with UCLA before, but I'm firing that up with Carson Gordon. Oh, yeah. If you go into Dynasty on the offseason where it lets you, you switch players positions, make him a running back, and you are good. I don't know if he's on 26, actually, because the 26 is the most reasoned one. But I know on 25, he was, he won the highs before me. You know, it's weird because, like, in that report, they call him a quarterback.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. He's a quarterback, but his speed and his acceleration were through the roof. So you move him to running back. Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you meant move him from running and then run. No, no, no, no. No, no, it's like Hoss Hedney from TCU. Same thing.

You move him to running back. You've now got a running back with 96 speed and 98 juke move and all that. And it's like, but to leave my quarterback, you're going to have like a 75 overall quarterback who can run a little bit. Yeah, I mean, how valuable is that to me? I don't know. Well, so, all right, let me ask you, if this young man is allowed to play football at his next school along with running track, does this open the floodgates to suddenly some really good football players out there? be like, you know what, I played baseball in high school.

I'll get me a baseball scholarship and I'll hit the transfer portal during the baseball portal. Like is this a one-off? Because this is, again, this is unique because he's a better track athlete than football player. But if they allow him to play football, can other players use this loophole? And that to me has to be where the NCAA really dials in right now, right? They really have to dial into the fact, if you are going to accept this, that, hey, he is. a better track athlete than football player at this point in time. Like he does have more of a reputation as a track runner than as a football player at this very

moment. And so you kind of got to live with that. I mean, sure, maybe the backup from Syracuse last year could use this loophole. Like, ah, I'm a lacrosse guy. I'm not really a quarterback. But if you saw him attempt a forward pass and you want him on your team, I don't know what to tell you, son. I don't, if you want to throw a, way money. Give it to me. I promise you. Me and Donna will make better use of it. We'll improve the production of this thing by a lot. But in all seriousness, I don't think that this would open up the floodgates unless the NCAA does this in a very wanton way where it's like, you know what, we're not going to place any additional kind of parameters around this. We're not going to

make sure that this isn't violated because while we know almost every skill position is, you know, eligible to run track and would not would likely not be the worst guy on a track team I still struggle with that because you kind of leave who gets left out of that Dono who's the least likely group of guys to not play a second sport

or not have a thing that they could do outside of football the big fellas that's it that's it nobody's about to sit up here and say oh you're a 300 ponder it's never wrestled in your life Yeah, sure.

Have you heard a shot put, though? Yeah, but that's the thing. Most of us, bro, I threw shot put like four times in my life and I did not like it at all. I was like, oh, this sucks. And then when I found out they didn't get like full scholarship either, I said, oh, no, no, no, coach, put me on the big man relay. I'm not doing this no more. I'd rather run. I'm going to go do something else, buddy.

So, you know, I think that this is a situation where ultimately the NCAA can do this a right way, but it's got to be a very fine, delicate dance that stands here. And by the way, I want to, I say, because when you reminded me of the Syracuse quarterback who was on a lacrosse scholarship, I screwed up my interpretation of the Santana Moss rule. You can play football, but you count towards the football program scholarship limits. So that was where the Santana Moss thing came in, where at that point he did not count for a football scholarship,

but now if you do have a scholarship for a scholarship for a scholarship, another sport if you play football so you don't manipulate the numbers. You also count against the scholarship count for football. So that is the clarification on that rule. Now, Pete Golding is going to want to listen to what we have to say next because tampering could actually become legal. And maybe he'll get grandfathered in. And it's no longer tampering if you did it in the past. You want to keep it locked right here.

We're not done yet on this brand new episode of Lockdown ACCC. Thank you for making Lockdown ACC your first listen. For your next listen, make sure you check out our other shows. Kenton Gibbs and his co-host, Grayson Boone, do a fantastic job covering all things. NC State on Locked-on Wolfpack. I cover all things Miami on Locked-on Cains. Our shows are available free, wherever you get your podcast, free on YouTube, part of the number one sports podcast network, the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Big 12 are having their meetings today, Kenton.

starting today. And this is an interesting post by Brandon Marcello from CBS Sports. He says the NCAA could allow contract negotiations among players and schools before the portal opens as it looks to reform tampering rules, says Big 12 commissioner, Brett Yormark. So if I understand this correctly, Kenton, the best way to reform tampering is by allowing tampering. You're not tampering if it's legal. But, you know, You know, the NBA does have that legal tampering period. I think the NFL does as well where you can start negotiating before free agency or in this case the transfer portal, which is really free agency opens.

But what do you feel about this? Maybe you get a few days to start contacting players before they hit the portal. I hate this. I hate everything about this. I hate everything about this because there already are not long-term contracts in college, right? Like there already is no guarantee of, you know, anything beyond a year, whether or not a player stays or goals or any of that good stuff to begin with. Why are we allowing tampering from these universities? And I get it.

Hey, listen, I'm a recruiter, right? Most of the people I reach out to them a daily basis say, hey, come be our, you know, our back-in engineer, whatever the case may be. They're probably employed elsewhere. Some people will say, Ken, your entire job, your entire existence is tamper. to which I would reply, sure, but that's a very different scenario than what college football is. And again, bit by bit by bit, we continue to walk back more and more and more of what college football is. It's in essence turning into not just professional football, but a crappier version of professional football. Because at least with professional football, you know, your stars, hey, he just left his rookie contract,

or before he left his rookie contract, we got him extended for however many years. You can sit out all he wants. He can do whatever he wants. He'll be sitting right there. He'll be sitting right there waiting for us when he's done sitting out or whatever the case may be. We're not seeing that with college football.

It's just year-to-year, jump, jump, jump, jump, jump. And some of the players who are very marquee players that have not left have only done so because their team signed him the multi-year deal. So it puts a lot of folks in very precarious situations. And then we include, oh, well, the way to solve tempering is just get rid of it all together. No, man. No.

No, let's do this thing in a way where tempering is already so fast and loose. You have to be an absolute idiot like Pete Golding to get caught doing it. Again, Donald, we've run through the scenario of Locked on Hurricanes being a major booster for the University of Miami's programs, right? And just for kicks and giggles, all of a sudden, Locked on Hurricanes is a nationally syndicated TV show, and every day you're on TV in front of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, right? You could legally tell any player from any school,

hey, man, come on over to Miami. You know, I'll make sure you get taken care of personally. And guess what? Is that tampering? No. No. No. People who have a very vested interest in the,

university succeeding can already tell these guys, come on, come on, change the light by getting with us. And we need the rules to be looser. Loser. Come on, man. Let's knock it off. Here's why I actually support this, but I understand that there are problems that Miami's never beaten the tempering allegations. Y'all not beating them. Go ahead, Donald. Here's why. Here's why I support this, though, because like, okay, we both admit that tampering, it happens. It's already happening, right? I just think that the idea that you expect a player not to enter the transfer portal, or sorry, you expect a player to enter the transfer portal having no idea who might be interested and how many schools might be interested.

Like it's laughable. And maybe some players have done that because there have been some players who enter the transfer portal. And then they realized they thought their phone would be ringing off the hook. And it's like, wait, why is nobody calling me? But, you know, for the most part, the really good players, they have an idea who wants them where they're wanted before they enter the world. So this is already happening. And I think the idea of anyone thinking that players are going to enter the transfer portal site unseen, having no idea who might be interested. Obviously tampering is happening. And it's logical that a certain amount of tampering would happen. And if you allow it maybe a few days prior to the transfer portal opening, that actually seems reasonable to me. because you're not going to hit the portal,

you shouldn't hit the portal, without knowing who might be interested. So it just seems logical to me. Now, hold on, the slippery slope part of it, though, Kenton, is, if you make a new rule where you can contact somebody, let's say, up to 72 hours before the portal, then, you know, the next wave of tampering will be, well, you want to try to sneak into their inbox even before that,

and that's going to be this. So there is a slippery slope here, but I support this because I think it's unfair, to expect these players to enter the portal site unseen? They should have a guide or commission that I have talked about multiple times of former coaches, former players, former GMs who evaluate a player's film,

evaluate their measurables, evaluate their injury history, and say, hey, this is very likely what the transfer market will look like for. That should be a thing. The NCAA could come up with an easy win for themselves that way players are not jumping in sight unseen. You could say, hey, Xavier Lucas, you played very well last year in the limited time you did play.

I think that if you jump in the portal, you'd have this level of schools after you in no time, right? And then he sees, hmm, top tier ACC school, well, I think I might want to go back closer to home. I'm from that area. Let's see if Miami wants to bite here. It's a very easy win for the NCAA that they're refusing to take. You could throw in about 100 people or so to evaluate the thousands of players that are coming in, because if you break down, let's say, a thousand players are getting in the portal, or 3,000 players or whatever are getting in the portal in terms of FBS, FCS,

just those two, if you're Division III, NAA, Juco, A, brother, you got to figure that on your own. But for those two levels, you may. make it very easy, very clear, very plain, hey, this is, this is what your tape says, this is what your measure will say, this is what your injury history says. This is what I think that you could get, and you go from there. You go from there. You make it double blind so that you don't know who's evaluating that film and who's not, and they get to evaluate the film, and then you go from there.

And if any of those film evaluators or the people who are supposed to be given the grades break their, you know, neutrality and reach out to their university and say, oh, I'm Ken Gill's. I saw this guy play. Coach Doran, you need to go get them. You're off. You're off the commission and you got to pay restitution to the NCAA. Boom.

That's just that simple. But again, the NCAA refuses to do common sense stuff that would make themselves be much more viable. Yeah, that is their MO. Common sense is not a friend of the NCAA. No clue at all. No clue at all. I don't mind.

your idea. I mean, I feel like the idea of allowing tampering for a few days is easier, but maybe your idea is better, but they're going to choose the path of least resistance. Oh, absolutely. It's easy. There's no guarantee this happens, though. There's no guarantee this actually happens. I agree. And it's easy, but like you said, normally when I hear slippery slope, I'm like, all right, you got to take it to a very extreme place. That slippery slope is not extreme at all. We've seen it already. We've seen it. We saw the thing of players, coaches reaching out the players after they sign with another school. Oh, yeah.

We've seen all of this. We have played these games before. And yet we're going to walk ourselves closer to the line of what we've already been seeing, the debauchery and the degeneracy that we've already seen spreading through our college football. We want to take it a step further. It's foolishness. It's foolishness.

We're doubling down on debauchery. Huge thank you to the everydayers. Make sure you check Kenton out at TGIF underscore. Gork-Kenton on X and on Locked-on Wolfpack. You can listen to me on Locked-on Canes and follow me at Alex Dono on X. And we'll talk to everyone next time on another episode of Lockdown ACC. We are part of the number one sports podcast network, the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day.