Locked On ACC - Daily College Football & Basketball Podcast - BOMBSHELL: ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips DEFENDS Conference Strength | Will ACC Officials Face MORE Scrutiny in 2025?

Episode Date: July 23, 2025

ACC Football Shakeup: New Rules, Revenue, and the Return of the Pony ExpressCommissioner Jim Phillips' bold statements signal a stronger ACC, with record revenues and rising football prowess. Alex Donno and Kenton Gibbs dissect the conference's positioning, including the Florida State and Clemson settlement. ACC head of officiating Al Riveron reveals groundbreaking transparency measures for reviews and clarifies targeting rules. Former SMU star Craig James discusses the enduring legacy of the "Pony Express" backfield and introduces the Pony Express Award, celebrating exceptional college football tandems. Tune in for insider perspectives on ACC's future, officiating intricacies, and the evolution of college football's running game.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!GametimeToday's episode is brought to you by Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONCOLLEGE for $20 off your first purchase. Terms and conditions apply.Monarch MoneyTake control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use code LOCKEDONCOLLEGE at www.monarchmoney.com/lockedoncollege for 50% off your first year.FanDuelRight now, new customers can get ONE HUNDRED FIFTY DOLLARS in BONUS BETS when your first FIVE DOLLAR BET WINS! Download the app or head to FANDUEL.COM to get started. Bet with FanDuel—Official Partner of the NBA.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.

ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips said today, quote, since March, I've not felt stronger about this league than I do right now. You are locked on ACC, your daily podcast on the Atlantic Coast Conference. Part of the Locked on podcast network, your team every day. He is Kenson Gibbs from Lockdown Wolfpack, former NC State defensive lineman. I am Alex Dono from Lockdown Canes. And thank you so much to the everydayers for making Lockdown ACC your first listen and your first watch. We're available free wherever you get your podcast. We're free on YouTube.

We're part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. On this loaded episode is we are in Charlotte, Hilton Uptown, Charlotte, on location, ACC kickoff media days. Our good pal, JJ Jackson from Lockdown Blue Devil, sat down with Craig James. Talk a little SMU with Craig James, little pony excess coming up. I sat down with Al Riveron, you know, former longtime NFL official. He's the head of officiating in the ACC. See, he's going to explain to me, Kenton, what targeting is. So we're going to get to the bottom of that today.

Finally. Finally. And guess what? It's like Indiari says, the more I know, the less I understand. Everything I thought I failed out, I had to learn again. So we're probably going to be back at square one with targeting. But hell, let's go. Still, it's a locked on ACC exclusive.

We will get the definitions of targeting coming up today. But it was a big day, Kenton, here in Charlotte, commissioners forum. Would you say, did we get seminar gym or did we get saucy gym? we got semi-sauce we got semi-sauce okay with certain points where i kid you're not i'm not even a coffee guy i'm sitting up here where's my expression where's what's going on but there were some moments where he gave you that glimpse of like ah there he is there's saucy uh phillips and you know at the end of the day i look at it and i say it was all of the sauciness was prompted none of it was unprompted

everything he had to be asked the right question that kind of goaded out of him. Yeah. But you know what? It's better than what I've seen in the past where regardless of what you asked in Philip sometimes, he's going to give you a very political end. Now, since March, there have been two significant settlements. Like back in March, it was the ACC settling

with Florida State and Clemson. A couple months later, you had the House versus NCAA settlement. But to us, I think, in our little ACC bubble, I would say the Florida State Clemson settlement, it may be a little bit more significant to what we're doing here on Lockout ACCC right now.

And Jim Phillips said, again, since March, I've not felt stronger about this league than I do right now. It's not hyperbole, he added, with record revenue distribution, national championships, and rising football success. We're in a great position moving forward. And, you know, he spent a lot of time today, Kenton, talking about the concessions that were made to Florida State, Clemson, insettling that lawsuit where, From where you and I said, it certainly seemed like the ACC gave up a lot more than the other side gave up. And, of course, part of that is the brand initiative, right?

Which, again, and I think it's important to pointing out because a lot of people will say, oh, well, now the ACC has agreed to pay Florida State and Clemson more money. I mean, not exactly, because every team in the ACC is going to have the same opportunity if you get higher TV ratings, if you generate more revenue to make more revenue. And I see the face you're making happy right now. So did Jim Phillips do a good enough job selling the idea that this is better for the entire league, not just better for Florida State-Clemson? I will say this.

Jim Phillips did a good job. And this is what I mean by we got semi-saucey Jim Phillips because this is one of the saucy moments. When he goes in and says, we need to move forward. We need to no longer look at what happened in the settlement and arrangement. and we need to kind of look forward at what's best for the conference at large. That to me means something in terms of, hey, it is what it is. Let's just move on at this point. Because if we are talking about this and we are trying to pretend, hey, this was in the best interest of all parties, I would ask this, right?

In theory, in theory, Wake Forest has a legal opportunity as Florida State to benefit off that, right? So clearly they will make as much revenue Wake Forest will as Florida State will. Exactly. But in reality, in reality, Wayforce is about as big as my high school. They're very close inside. If you Google CastTech and Wayforce in terms of Wake Forest undergrad enrollment, very close. So obviously, you don't, you realistically do not have the same chance to make the same money as a Florida State. So yes, this was a win by the major school, by the power schools, because success initiative isn't enough when you can go two and ten. Right. It's not enough.

Oh. But you know what it is enough? More people to watch us go 2 and 10 than watch you go 10 and 2. A lot of people watch them go 2 in 10 last year. Successful hate watches everywhere in Miami. Successful hate watches everywhere in Gainesville. And Jacksonville. Everywhere except Tallahassee, there were lots of successful hate watches. But in all seriousness, this was a moment where, you know, the part to me that I kind of sat with is him saying, just move on. I'm just move on. It is what it is. And I'm like, you know what? He's right.

Because we have acknowledged time and time again, ad nauseum even, hey, this was a terrible settlement for the A system. We've acknowledged it. We've talked about it. We've covered the angles of this thing from every which way. I'm fine with moving on from it. Just don't try to gaslight us like it's a good deal. It would be my only complaint, though, of the commission.

All right. So the other settlement was the House versus NCAA settlement and something. And Jim talked about this today. in our preview last night about, hey, what's going to come up in the commissioner's forum, the idea of identifying players as student athletes versus employees, right? We're coming out of Big 12 media days, seem to be a lot of high-ranking figures in the big both. They're like open to the idea that, hey, maybe they will be identified as employees someday. Jim Phillips spoke in no uncertain terms against the idea that they will ever be talking student

athletes, they will always be that. And he mentioned student athlete has never come up to me saying, I want to be an employee, which I don't know, I guess are people coming up to the commissioner talking about their employment status? I thought that was a little odd. But, you know, he really, and it seems like he's for the idea of federal preemption, whether that is from an executive order or from an act of Congress to make sure that players in college are strictly defined as student athletes and there isn't the opportunity to become quote unquote employees down the road. Do you hear that, Donald? It sounds like somebody just screamed blocked by James.

He was given a layup. Yeah. He was given a layup. This is my problem with this is we're talking about, oh, well, I've never had a student athlete come up to me and say they want to be an employee. Have they talked about unionizing? Yeah, that's a good point. Have student athletes, like we're not.

not just talking about did they say these specific words have student athletes told you things that would hint at or point in the direction of hey this is where we want to go because then we have to use our thinking caps we have to do the big boy thing of inferring from information that was given to us you know if you and i get invited to a uh acc media days after hours and you're like you know can i love to go i'm just a little tired and i got to out of FaceTime, my kid, I don't need you to specifically tell me I'm taking my tail to bed. Right. But when I hear that, I know, oh, that's what going on there.

I like to go to bed early. I know you do. I know you do, Donald. And that's not to say that Jim Phillips said they told that, but I think it could be potentially dishonest for him to say that. And again, take that with a grain of salt, because I tell you when I know something, I tell you when I'm speculating. Right now, I'm speculating.

Yeah. But I do think that this idea that no student athlete would ever want to be known as employee, I think it's a little bit disingenuous at best because how many student athletes were represented in the student athlete commission? You know, like or the student athlete athletic, yeah, the, yes, the S-A-A-A-C. S-A-C. Yeah. How many of those were represented? How many athletes, you know?

Not many, what, 20, 15 if that? Even. So I think it's disingenuous to try to cover. I mean, you talk about we have 17 members, 18 members with football teams. Each one of our football team have 80-plus guys. Yeah. How do you represent that? with 20. How do you represent that without potentially having a delegate from each school that guys are voting on?

And women as well, because of women's basketball team and all the other sports with women as well. I just, you know, it feels like a layup that Jim Phillips missed, but there is the potential that he is right here and that the student athletes have come up to which they are being called now. And you know what? I'm sure that they're happy they have the opportunity to make money. Right. So maybe it's like, do we really need? a designation as an employee. The bottom line is, I mean, now, and the number is going to go up year by year, 20 and a half million, that's for entire athletic departments, but 20 and a half million revenue sharing, and it's not an equal piece of the pie.

If you're a bigger part of that equation, you're going to make more money, and that number's going to go. You still have NIL opportunities, third parties, although those are scrutinized a lot. So, I mean, maybe in the meantime, players are just happy that they're making money. Now, okay, big picture, Kenton, coming out of the commissioners forum, because I don't want to just sit here and break down all the potentially negative stuff. Because, I mean, I do feel that the ACC is definitely in a stronger position than it was a year ago. And even though are they behind the SEC and the Big Ten revenue wise? Of course they are.

They're clearly in third place right now. And they come off of record revenues. The revenues continue to go up. So it's not all bad in the ACC right now. No, not at all. And we would be remiss if we didn't mention the things that Jim Phillips did a great job of highlight. Yeah. Him highlighting that we're in third place in terms of revenue, him highlighting the fact that we have the toughest non-conference schedule.

Thank you, Notre Dame. Thank you, Notre Dame. The cheat code, but yeah. Thank you. You may dip a toe in and dip a toe out as you please, but you help us out here. Yeah. Did us a solid. So in all seriousness, I look at this and I say to myself, Jim Phillips gave a very Jim Phillips address.

Was this anything different than what I expected? No. No. It's Jim Phillips. There are going to be moments where you give Jim Phillips a layup and he blows it, but there are also going to be moments where Jim Phillips does a thing, and you're just like, you know what? He has points.

He has, this ain't the worst idea in the world there. And I'll tell you, there were so many interesting coaches today. It kind of makes it hard to even keep track of the commission of former. Because to me, yes, there are way more players here than coaches, but some of the coaches stole the show. Yeah. Well, we're going to hear from more of the coaches throughout the week here on locked on ACC. But when we come back, I'm going to have a conversation with Al Riveron, who's the head of ACC officiating. And color me fascinated, because I learned a lot from

Al about the preparation that goes into officiating on any given Saturday. And I think we finally learned what targeting is. So you want to keep it locked right here. We're on location. in Charlotte. We're only getting started on this brand new episode of Lockdown ACC. Guys, game time is the only ticket app that Kenton Gibbs and I use. And one thing that I love about game time is what you see is what you get. No hidden fees on the price. They don't pull off fake switch. You see the total price right up front on game time. And somehow game time is never sold out to the point where the prices even get better the closer you get to the event. And concert tickets can be tricky is they do all these pre-sales. They sell out before you get your spot in line.

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locked on college. All one word. Locked on college for $20 off. Download the GameTime app today. Last minute tickets. Lowest price guarantee. We were talking with a coordinator of ACC football officials, Al Riveron, or if I want to say it, like my Miami roots,

Al Riveron. Riveron. You have to roll the R. Roll the R. You got to roll the R. And Al, so many questions with a fishing. Let's talk about specific stuff for 2025 first. You know, we had ACC versus SEC game last year, Georgia, Georgia Tech, they went to eight overtimes. The timeouts, TV timeout situation was a mess.

I understand there's going to be some kind of a change taking place there. What are we looking at? So there is actually, and probably because of that game in a couple of games in years past, what the new rule now says that each team will be afforded a timeout after the first, second and third periods and then it stops. And there's no carryover except for the last one. So basically you go the first OT period and use it or lose it. Second OT period, use it or lose it.

Then you have the third OT period. That one, if you have another overtime period, you can keep that one and use it later on. What we don't want because it just doesn't play well. It doesn't play well. And basically we're having eight seconds of action. We're having a timeout. Another eight seconds of action.

Another timeout. So there has to be a certain flow that's maintained in the game in order to not break up the entertainment value of it. And that's important in our game. Another issue that's pretty prevalent among fans are the whole faking injuries for a timeout. I think there were maybe some changes last year, but is there something additional happening this year

to safeguard against that? Yes, there is. And people refer to it as the feigning rule, but it's really not. Basically what it is now, if we determine or if a player goes down on the ground, after the ball has been spotted, that team will be charged with a timeout. So now, the player is trying to get off the field and limping and we stop the game, or we see a player that maybe we don't think should participate in the next play, that's how else we'll stop the game and they can leave. But if the ball is spotted, we spot the ball for the offense.

clearly the ball is on the ground. An offensive player goes to the ground. We will stop the game. The player has to leave for at least one play, and then that team will be charged with a timeout. If they don't have any timeouts remaining, they will be charged with a five-yard penalty. I respect the officiating world.

I know a lot of fans are like, oh, these referees. I know that there's so much that goes into this. In terms of preparation and the standards for ACC officials, Like, how does one become an ACC football official in 2025? Well, number one, to get there, you have to be one of the best in the country. We have the best staff in the country. Other people might not agree with me, but we have the best supervisors, the best teachers in our program.

And that's what it is. It's about teaching, training, and developing. We also have an alliance of about 300 officials for all the conferences that work with us and have privileged information as to what our supervisors and our teachers and our evaluators. educators teach. So you develop an official. And I'm not going to tell you it takes 10, 12, 13 years to get to this level, but you just don't say, ah, I want to be an ACC official. You have to prove yourself in the same way you prove yourself as an athlete. You go from 85 pounds to 95 pounds to 100 pounds to 140 pounds. And then you play in high school. And if you're good enough, then you get to

play in college at a certain level. And then very, very select few get to be at this level and maybe the next level. So it's a process and it's a long process. Now, you know, in terms of if there is a game where there are, you know, critical officiating mistakes, how does the process go in your department when it comes to reviewing that, finding out not only like how to address that and clarify that, but if, you know, there is any sort of discipline that needs to come into play for an official who makes, you know, a tragically bad call? Well, let's talk about what a tragicly. logically back call or a mistake is. First of all, if you are reviewing the people that work for you and they consistently rate grade out above 98 percent, they're doing pretty good.

Yes, and mistakes happen. And mistakes happen. As long as coach is coach, you just saw that I had a great conversation with Ron. Ron Rivera would know each other for a very long time. So, and he will be the first one to tell you, as long as coach is coach, players play and officials officiate, we're going to make mistakes. A coach will never put their team in the right scheme for 177 plays, a quarterback is not going to go 25 for 25, and we're going to have fumbles. It's going to happen. We're going to make mistakes. Some of those by rule are reviewable. Some are not. The ones that are reviewable, then we have to get right based on the video evidence provided to us. And it's the same thing as you sit in the jury box. If you do not have

indisputable evidence to overturn the ruling on the field, then you cannot change the ruling. Now, you also talked about penalties. If we have an official, and remember these officials, we sit down after the season, we look at our staff, all 105 of them, and we evaluate them, we train them throughout the year, and then we have a process. What do we bring back? How much do we bring back? Where do we go?

They're reviewed every single play of every single game, and that all at the end comes out to fruition and whether we hire them again. there are those situations and not so much about a holding or a judgment. Judgment calls really are at a different level. If we have an administrative situation where we just don't get correct, now we're looking into maybe there's other things we need to do after the game. Fortunately, in the ACC, we did not have one of those last year. So we did well.

Not that we were perfect and we're not going to be perfect, but we're getting better all the time. But those are far and few between that happened sometimes. times where other things you have to take care of after the game. You know, one of the most common things, I'm sure you hear, because it comes up a lot and football's a dangerous game, there's a car crash on every play, targeting, right? Where sometimes fans will say, all that was clear targeting wasn't called or that wasn't clear target.

Like, I'm not even sure what clear targeting is. Like, how difficult is it for you guys to even define that? So number one, health and safety is number one. We have to make sure our student athletes are healthy and are safe. And we are the gatekeepers of the game. We have to make sure that when we look at the lower levels at the 75-pounders and the 85-pounders and the 100-pounders, that those parents are going to let Johnny and Sally play football. Because if we don't have that at the grassroots level, we lose this wonderful game.

Targeting, there's two forms of targeting. There is targeting on a defenseless player, and that is forcible contact to the neck or head area of a defenseless player. That's one aspect of it. The other aspect is forcible contact to an opponent with the crown of the helmet. And that is strictly defined to the six inch radius at the top of the helmet. And again, if you're going to disqualify a player for that, you need to have indisputable visual evidence to do that. See, this is the stuff fans want to know.

And Al Riveron is nice enough to provide these answers. And of course, you're a veteran official in your own right. What was the craziest thing that ever happened on the field out? Do you ever get run over? Like, did you ever find yourself wrong place, wrong time? I did. I got run over a couple of times because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

But fortunately, I survived enough to stay in there. But the craziest things don't happen usually on Saturdays or Sunday. They happen at the level I referred to earlier. The Youth League game, the 100-pound game. When a kid takes a bond runs in the wrong direction or a parent comes on the field,

or the lights go out, that's where all the crazy stuff, and if you get by that stuff and conquer that, then you have a shot at the next level. Al, you know, if you, you know, back in your officiating days in the NFL, you get assigned a specific game for a Sunday or one of your ACC officials gets assigned a certain game for a Saturday. Look, what kind of preparation goes into that? Is there any, like, sort of team-specific preparation, or is it just kind of the rules of the rules,

you know, and there's not really any difference depending on which teams are on the field? this is where technology has really helped. We scout our teams. Yeah, that's what I was wondering. We do, we do. We scout our teams and not because we're looking at 62 for holding and that he has six or seven thousand or eight. No, no, no.

We want to make sure on third and four, when the score is at such a point, and we get a three receiver set on our side, that we have some kind of idea of what patterns are going to run. So we can get to that mesh point before they get there. The key to our success is right place, right time. And you can't do that by going out there on Saturday afternoon and figuring that out. You have to be aware of certain tendencies, certain situations by certain teams at certain times.

So that takes a lot of scouting. If you don't put in 30 or 35 hours during the week, it's going to show up eventually. Those three and a half hours on Saturday, that's the easy part. The hard part is the 30 or 35 hours you put in a film work, meetings, Zoom calls, evaluations, critiquing, that is the preparation for the game itself. The three and a half hours are the easy part, the fun part. See, that's fascinating. So you really have to prepare like your coach with these games.

Yes, we do. I love that. Anything else, Al, before we let you run, that we should know specifically for the upcoming season. We talked about a couple of tweaks and rule changes. Is there anything else? Maybe I didn't cover that might be different in 2025 from 2024. Well, this year with the ACC, we're going to do something that no. conference is done or

will be doing this year, we're going to allow full transparency when it comes to our review process. In other words, I don't know if I'm excited or not, but yeah, we are. You don't have to be excited. I got you. I got you. No, we are. And I think this is great because last year, we

crawled and what we did was we offered in certain games the network analyst, the opportunity to listen in to our conversation between Charlotte, the referee, and the replay official. And then he went on the air and kind of explained the process. This year, in addition to seeing the video, you're going to have the audio.

So America will be able to listen to it. And then we're not asking America to agree at the end. We're just asking, listen to the process, make sure we did or do diligence to achieve the outcome. And then make sure we know the rule. Make sure before we get critique, for lack of better term, that we take the rule into place. It'll be interesting, but I think it's a great opportunity for the AC. to show America that we are pulling back the curtain showing that we are very good at what we do. And Bravo, I think people love transparency.

Al Riveron, thank you so much for taking the time here on Lockdown ACC. Enjoy the rest of your media junket. I know you're making the rounds out here. Enjoy the rest of your day. This is fun. Thank you very much for having me. Thank you. Thanks so much to ACC head of officiating Al Riveron.

And coming up next, Kenton, our guy, J.J. Jackson from Lockdown Blue Devils, he caught up with Craig James. is you finally get your SMU talk. You've been starving for some pony excess, a little SMU. So how excited are you, Ken? I'm extremely excited, and I got to learn about the Pony Express Award for best duos in college. That's right. Love it. Love everything about it.

I caught up with Craig James myself, just not on camera, and we had a good old time. I love that. So Craig James is coming up next right here on the Lockdown Podcast Network. Welcome back on Locked-on ACC, J-J Jackson, spending some time with Craig James here on behalf. of the Pony Express Award, ACC kickoff. Craig, how are you? I'm doing great. Thanks for having me. Doing things like this, events like this, does it make you feel like football seasons right around the corner?

It really does. And being an old guy who used to play, I feel like my body is saying, okay, get ready for training camp, but I don't have enough Tylenol to go to camp. All right, well, so here we are. We're getting set for another ACC season. Obviously, you had quite the career there at SMU, and we're getting set for the second season that SMU gets to participate here within the ACC. What did you think of the run that they had a season ago? Well, it was a surprise.

I mean, I thought we would probably go 50-50 last season, but there were some teams like Florida State that were down, and we caught a great season to have the kind of defense and the offense that we did. And Retlashley's team, we won games we were supposed to win. It's going to be different this year. You know, it's a tougher schedule. The players know that.

The coaches know that. Now everyone's expecting that SMU is going to be a good program. So we're excited about being a part of this conference and having a chance to come back and repeat what we did last year. A 12-team playoff in SMU gets the benefit of getting in there playing in the conference championship game. The ball bounced their ways a couple of different times. I can think back through the ACC games last year, a game like Duke where SMU turns the football over six times and finds a way to win. Those little things keeps your playoff hopes a lot. In order to make the playoffs or to win any championship, a team has.

has to have luck. And it's three, four, five breaks. You don't know where those breaks are within a season. And SMU had those breaks last year and took advantage of them. Okay, as we take a look at college football as a whole, all the conference alignment that's taking place. It feels as though maybe we're kind of settled on these conference structures and that sort of thing, but it's so difficult to keep track of where these teams are going.

Your just overall thoughts on the state of college football right now. Well, it's changed significantly over the last three years, obviously. And I think for the good in many ways and challenging in some, the freedom for the players, the movement to leave if they need to. I think that's good and bad. It almost discourages the competition part of it. You know what? Hang in there and figure it out if it's not a good situation. But the freedom for the players being compensated is also something I believe in strongly for the players.

The playoff scenario itself, you know what, the top 12 teams or top 16 teams, I don't care. what conference you're in. If you're one of the best teams, you ought to be in the playoffs. And I know that we're trying to give some inclusion for these lesser conferences, but in fairness to a system, the top 12 or 16 teams, whoever and whatever conference combination that comes from, that's the way it should be. Which is the way I think it will continue to play out in the years to come here.

Craig James, joining us here on Locked-on-ACC on behalf of the Pony Express Award. Kind of give me a little overview of what this is. So Eric Dickerson and I were the Pony Express. And Eric and I marvel at over 40 years how many people still call. I get mailed by the droves each week on the Pony Express. Eric and I can't believe that. So we've created the award that recognizes the nation's most outstanding tandem. That could be two corners, two linebackers, it could be two runners, quarterback tied in.

It's a we award versus just a me award. And it's voted on by players around the country. So it's an award by the players for the players, which we believe to be something that's unique. And we're excited about having it. Last year's winners were Shadur Sanders and Travis Hunter. Great tandem. And so we look forward this year to finding out who those tandums are going to be. I like that.

Obviously, thinking about dynamic tandoms within the sport, the fact that it's not just out of the backfield like you and Eric back, that you're able to have a quarterback and a receiver, even as you said, a couple of defensive players. I'll give an example. Last year, two of our finalists were from the University of Buffalo. Two linebackers. They were number one and two in total tackles in the country.

Unbelievable. I mean, and they did get a first place vote by one of the committee guys. So if you're a great tandem, you're going to be recognized. It's really cool to think about how far the game has come and obviously being able to look back on your career and the run that you and Eric Dickerson were able to have. What are some of those memories that come to mind when you think back on your playing days? Eric and I, we grew up about 40 minutes from each other. We never played against each other in high school, but we became friends when we were 18. We played in a high school all-star game together. Then we played four years together.

And my memories are of competing with their area and being a friend at the same time. At the same position at Telback, you know, you've got to be a friend or you're a foe. We were friends. And we just knew that during the course of a game, that every series the defense had to be fresh. And by the third quarter on many games, we would look at each other and say, they're tired. We got them. And we would wear them out. And the fourth quarter was ours.

And so it was a unique situation. How do you look at the running back position today in 2025? because it just feels like, man, it's changed so much. As a former non-player myself, I'd love to hear kind of your perspective on the position. Well, you look at the teams who win. And if you win, you can run the football. If you win in football, you can block and you can tackle. The game has changed in the sense that it's got different terminology,

but it's still running and blocking and tackling, running a flag, running a post, covering in zone or a man or a combination. And if you don't have a running back, Derek Henry, look, what does he do for a team, right? And if you've got a, not everybody has a Derek Kennedy, but if you can't run the football, you've got a real deficit there. You may score 40 points, but you're going to give up 42 or 44. You've got to be able to run the ball.

When you look at the ACCC this upcoming season, are there any running backs that really jump out to you that folks should have their eyes on? Well, we don't know. And I'll give you an example like last year, Rashard Smith at SMU. It wasn't even a running back. He was like a number three guy.

He was going to get some carries. He was a returner and a wide receiver. And the runners got hurt, and he becomes the running back and runs for over 1,000 yards. And that's the new uniqueness of college football. What school is going to produce a guy that shows up and all of a sudden runs for 1,000 yards? Craig James here with us on Locked on ACC on behalf of the Pony Express Award, the Pony Express Huddle Foundation. How can people get involved?

How can they support everything that the Pony Express Awards trying to do? Well, thanks for asking. We have a website. The Pony Express Award. and we're going to be releasing content as we go through the season, who our list is, and some information along the way. And Eric and I are brothers in Christ. We love the Lord. We want to be able to share our story and our testimony of our friendship of 50 years and how it can be done. Thanks for being here today. Craig. Really appreciate it. Thank you for having me.

Huge shout out and thank you to everyone for taking in our fun content today from Charlotte. So what do we got, Kenton? I know NC State is coming up on Thursday. along with old Bill Belichick on Thursday for North Carolina. Now, tomorrow, tomorrow is Florida State Day. It'll be a lot different than last year. Last year coming off 13 and 0. This year coming off from 2 and 10, there's going to be a lot of questions about what the heck happened last year.

Do you know how I know that the ACC knows Florida States? Don't be excited. How? They're the first team up tomorrow. Yeah. They want everybody right out of Bushetail talking to Novell and talking to Costalanos and talking to. and talking to that group.

Because I'm telling you, there is so many different angles to come at this thing with, you know, if you've been keeping very close tabs on all the coverage here, everybody knows I ask way too many questions and they're probably way too detailed. But I'm not going to have to say a word for Florida State. And there's still going to be, you know, more space than, or more people asking than we can imagine because there are so many questions surrounding a program that saw the highest of highs. and ever since the playoffs nub have hit absolute rock bottom.

Well, huge thank you to Craig James, Al Riveron. He's Kenton Gibbs from Lockdown Wolfpack. I'm Alex Dono from Lockdown. Cainz, by the way, shout out to JJ Jackson from Lockdown, Blue Devils, for helping us out with some content as well. We'll talk to everyone tomorrow on another episode of Lockdown ACCC. We are part of the awesome Lockdown Podcast Network. Your team, every day.