Locked On ACC - Daily College Football & Basketball Podcast - BOMBSHELL: Bill Belichick's Girlfriend BANNED OR NOT from UNC Football?? | 16 team CFP Chaos

Starting point is 00:00:00 Bill Belichick's girlfriend has been banned from all North Carolina football activities. Oh, wait, she wasn't banned. You are locked on ACCC, your daily podcast on the Atlantic Coast Conference. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. Shout out to the everydayers and thank you so much 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.

Starting point is 00:00:33 We're part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. He is Kenton Gibbs from Locked on Wolfpack. I am Alex Dono from Locked on Cains. Today's episode is brought to you by the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K. Turn any TV into your Xbox. No console needed. Head to Amazon.com slash FireTV Lockdown to learn more. As it turns out, we'll discuss today.

Starting point is 00:00:55 College football playoff is probably going to expand to 16, not 14. What does that mean for the ACC? And I know Kenton loves this, that we, again, we have to lead off with the Bill Belichick, Jordan Hudson drama. This story will not go away. So on Friday morning, and I had just watched this video and then Kenton sent me the link. It's like we were watching the same thing at the same time. Pablo Torre, formerly of ESPN, reported and, you know, saying he's got a number of good sources on this,

Starting point is 00:01:30 that North Carolina has banned Jordan Hudson, Belichick. 24-year-old girlfriend and publicist, apparently, and manager, she has been banned, he said, from all football activities, right, to take away the distraction, right? And that report, Kenton went spreading like wildfire this morning. North Carolina comes out and issues a statement saying, while Jordan Hudson is not an employee at the university or Carolina athletics, she is welcome to the Carolina football facilities. Jordan will continue to manage all activities related to Coach Belichick's personal brand outside of his responsibilities for Carolina football and the university. So North Carolina says she is not banned, Kenton.

Starting point is 00:02:14 Should she be banned? Well, in the words of the great Shakespeare and Hamlet, to be banned or not to be banned. But in all seriousness, this is, what a joke. What a joke we're looking at here, right? Donald knows my displeasure in talking about this. If we're having a conversation of should she be banned? I would argue no. She is a member of the, she's a member of Bill Belichick's very close personal circle. She is very clearly entangled with many of his business ventures and whatnot. I would argue she shouldn't be banned because she hasn't done anything to my knowledge that rises to the level of egregiousness to where I would say, hey, this person cannot be arrived your team. This is a legitimate cancer to your team. If you are to ban somebody, to me, they have to rise to that

Starting point is 00:03:02 level. But I will say this, the fact that we're even having this conversation makes it lean much closer to it, yes. Because without having played a single, without having coached a single snap of North Carolina football, without having a single ball kicked off for North Carolina football in terms of regulation, real time, live, or live game time is happening. In terms of having those things happen, we have had zero seconds of that. And yet, we are going back and forth with Pablo Torre here about, oh, is the old lady bad? Is she not bad? This is a moment where I, and I'm saying this, I'm a touch of shoulder when I say this, Jordan.

Starting point is 00:03:47 Everybody that's not Jordan, go away right now, okay, including you, Donald, go away. All right. Now, I'm saying this as 29-year-old who would be talking to a 24-year-old, okay? I too at 24 may not have had the self-awareness to know, you know what, it's probably best for me to pull back. It's probably best for me to pull out. Jordan, you need to have the self-awareness. Don't show up no more. Self-impose a ban.

Starting point is 00:04:13 Don't let them ban you. Just choose on your own to say, you know what, I love this man, this my man. He's doing his thing. I got to get out his way. Right now, I'm in his way of achieving his goals. Nobody is talking about what North Carolina is doing on a recruiting trail. Nobody in the national media is talking about top-rated portal clats. Nobody in the national media is talking about Bill Belichick could be building a legitimate contender over there.

Starting point is 00:04:39 You know what everybody is talking about whether or not you are or are not bad. So, Ms. Hudson, I'm going to say to you very gently because I know, trust me, I've been 24 before. I'm not that much older now, not that much wiser, but I'm a little bit wise. Go ahead and exit stage left for yourself. You can still be in a relationship. you can still be his manager. They still see CEO and all the emails, all that good stuff. But in terms of the football operation side of it, it is clear that this is becoming a bigger story than what it should be. Go ahead and exit stage lab. As a self-imposed ban, not a university man.

Starting point is 00:05:14 Well, and you're right, because there's really only two people that can ban Jordan Hudson. It's Jordan herself, like you prescribed a self-imposed ban, or it's Bill Belichick. Because when I saw the report this morning and I heard what, Toray had to say, the part of it that made no sense to me at the time was, do you really think North Carolina, as in Bubba Cunningham, the AD, or any other hot staffer in the athletics department, do you really think they are going to decide, oh, you know this coach, we're paying $10 million a year to? You know this guy that we refer to, everyone refers to as the goat for his six Super Bowl

Starting point is 00:05:54 rings, all of the gravitas that he brings to our program. one of the best resumes in football history, we're really going to be the ones to decide. You think Bubba Cunningham, who's paying $10 million a year to Bill Belichick, is going to go behind Bill's back and say, yeah, by the way, hey, your girlfriend, there's photos of her all over the athletic department.

Starting point is 00:06:14 She will not be allowed in, the security guards. It makes no sense to me. Like if Bill Belichick, and it seems like Belichick family, by the way, because there's a number of, you know, relatives of his who are supposedly saying they don't seem to like Ms. Hudson very much. So if Bill Belichick were to decide, hey, Jordan, maybe it's best if you sit a few practices out, or if she decides, which is probably the right thing, because that would make things a lot less awkward between her and Bill. But I know Bubba Cunningham's not going to be the

Starting point is 00:06:41 one to make that decision. Like that, that makes no sense. You really want to create discord with your $10 million goat head coach before the season even freaking starts to tell him, yeah, your significant other is not welcome at our facilities. That made no sense to me. Not to mention, we talk a lot about the buyout with Clemson and with Florida State and with schools that are considering leaving the ACC. Let's talk about Bill Belichick's buyout for a second year. Bill Belichick's buyout drops from, I believe it's like $8 million or something like that to $1 million in about 22 days. In 22 days, his buyout drops significantly down to $1 million, which with all due respect, I know Bill has that laying around. Like that's not in the month that I'm like, oh, there's no way

Starting point is 00:07:26 under God's green earth bill could cough up that kind of change. Absolutely not. So, again, I'm trying to tell y'all folks as genuinely as I can, if anything has happened here, it needs to be a self-imposed, you know what, honey, I'll show up to the games. I'll be there, you know, I'll be in the little Rams Club or whatever their little deal is. I'll show up for that after the game and whatnot. I'll be there, you know, first person to hug you when you leave the tunnel. But it is clear to me that my presence, my being here alone is a massive distraction.

Starting point is 00:08:05 It's a massive distraction at this point. Because again, we are not talking about ball. We have talked about UNC a bunch of times on the show. And I hate to pat myself on the back, but I will give us credit. We have talked about their transfer portal class. We have talked about, hey, they're crushing it in the portal. Bill Belichick has added a ton of. of players in the portal.

Starting point is 00:08:28 So by, they added like 34, 34, 35 players in the portal. It had been very busy. We've talked about that, right? But even with us, when we lead the show with UNC, when we say,

Starting point is 00:08:41 this is why you need to go. What is it about? Jordan, why are you here? Hey, Jordan, is it okay for you to be? Hey, Jordan, why is he CC you on all the email? Why do they have to CC you

Starting point is 00:08:52 on every email to get to him? And it's, again, it's just a moment. where you've got to have just a smidge of introspection. I know that front of lobe, if you're an average human being, is one year away from being fully formed. I get it, but let's take a second. I'm talking to you, not as somebody that hates the dirty foot club,

Starting point is 00:09:10 not as a Tar Hill hater, not as a Bill Belichick hate. I'm talking to you as somebody that legitimately wants best for y'all in this moment, you need to have that self-awareness to say, I'm pull that. Well, this has been a crazy day to follow this story, because even after Pablo Torres' report was refuted by North Carolina, he's still standing in the paint. You want to keep it locked right here. We're only getting started unlocked on ACC.

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Starting point is 00:10:42 Xbox GamePass Ultimate subscription and compatible controller required. Available on select devices including Fire TV Stick 4K, Fire TV Stick 4K, Fire TV, Q. Thank you for making Locked on ACC your first listen and your first watch. For your next listen, make sure you check out our, other shows. Kenton and Grayson Boone do an awesome job on Locked on Wolfpack. I host Locked on Canes. We're available free wherever you get your podcasts and available free on YouTube. So after the North Carolina statement came out and it's like I'm going to give Pablo Torre some

Starting point is 00:11:18 benefit of the doubt here because I don't know if North Carolina might have like pivoted and you know sort of said, oh, maybe we were going to ban her but now we can't because the cat's out of the bag. So Pablo Torre released a statement where he says, the University of North Carolina can choose to describe or change its position on Jordan Hudson's involvement, however it wishes, following the publication of our episode. We requested comment and filed dozens of freedom of information act requests that were not satisfied. And we stand by the specific reporting in our episode, which came from the highest levels of the football program. So, I mean, he's not backing down, Kenton. He says he's got high sources. He had this on good authority.

Starting point is 00:12:02 I mean, I guess it is possible because like after this comes out, what's North Carolina is supposed to do? Like, do they ignore it and let the story fester? Or did they come out and say, of course, she's welcome to all football activities? I could understand his statement in response to the North Carolina statement. Here's the thing. Pablo Torre keeps putting himself in these compromising situations journalistically to where like you end up in these weird spaces where it's either an indictment of your your journalistic

Starting point is 00:12:32 integrity or it's not. Either your right or your wrong. This same situation came up. Donnell, you and I talked about this before we got on the show about the was LeBron at Kobe's Memorial or not. These types of situations, they don't need to be brought up on a national

Starting point is 00:12:49 scale. This story and this is what I mean in general when I say like, hey, even though I'm part of sports media, there's a reason why Donno knows it irks my soul to talk about stuff like this. Because to me, while this is somewhat tangential to like, hey, this is related. This is adjacent to the sport. We need to stick to covering the sport.

Starting point is 00:13:11 And the reality is Pablo has now put himself in multiple situations where it's like, who's right, who's wrong? And then here's the biggest question about all this. What the hell doesn't matter to the average consumer and viewer? What does it matter if Jordan Hudson was told, hey, you can't be around anymore or you can, right? Like, this is very high school drama. You know, this is very gossip girl to me. And that's not me.

Starting point is 00:13:37 I've never watched gossip girl. I've never seen a single episode of that show ever. Neither of I, probably. So it's a very strange situation. Now, one tree hill, that's a different story. You know, I don't want to be. No, no, we're not going to put it. But in all seriousness, this is a moment where we've got to.

Starting point is 00:13:55 I aged myself for a second. Dawson's Creek. That was my name. Dawson's Creek. I got you. You probably, maybe you've seen some reruns, but you're probably too young.

Starting point is 00:14:03 We all know that. I don't want to wait for my life to be over. We all know that. Come on, man. But, no, seriously, this is a moment where again, we are asking, we are asking very specific things about stuff.

Starting point is 00:14:14 And my question will always be, what does it matter to the game? And this is why I said, Jordan Hudson needs to remove herself, because now everybody's talking about you, but what does it matter to the game? What does it bring to you and see? What does it bring to your man? What does it bring? Is it bringing anything positive? We're working under the assumption that all publicity is good publicity if you see any positive

Starting point is 00:14:43 out of this. Anything else, it's a negative. Players are looking at this. Recruits are looking at this. Parents of recruits are looking at this and saying, wait a minute, that may not be a serious program over there. And Lord forbid if we get into the administrators who have now had to be called into making public statements or potentially adjusting things or having to answer FOIA requests. For those of you who don't know, FOIA is Freedom of Information Act, which means any public institution that is dealing with anybody, any entity, any person, you can do a FOIA request and they have to answer that. So if somebody was to say, I want a FOIA request, NC State and Ken gives, any communication about them, any communication to them, I want to know about it.

Starting point is 00:15:26 They would be obliged to respond to that in a decent amount of time. They are doing that for you. They're not doing it for his recruits. We're not doing it for Lombardy. They're not doing it for, oh, well, how's the quarterback from how's Gio Lopez looking? They're not doing it for that. They're doing it for you. It's a shame.

Starting point is 00:15:47 Let me ask you as a former ACC football player. You talked about, you know, the distraction element of this. And I was looking at it from like a recruiting standpoint, it's a little harder, I think, to distance from that. But the players who were already at North Carolina, right, the roster. How much of a distraction is this? Like, I mean, how easy is it to block something like this out? Do you lose a little respect for your coach with all this stuff going on? How do you think it impacts the locker room?

Starting point is 00:16:19 Oh, it absolutely will impact the locker room. And again, it's naive to say, I had the mentality of a soldier, go out there and do a job, so everybody else is going to have that. It's not real. It's not real. We're humans. There are going to be some people who are already looking at. I'm like, I didn't know your girlfriend was a third of your age.

Starting point is 00:16:37 I didn't know your girlfriend was so young that, like, her dating one of your sons would have people looking at your son weird. Like, hey, Steve, I hear you like him young. What's going on there? You know, I didn't know that. But now it's being publicized. So now here's the other part about it. Players do a good job of focusing. Players camps do not.

Starting point is 00:16:58 Every player's camp looks a little different. Some people, my camp when I played, it was me, my head coach from high school, Thomas Wilcher. I love you, Coach Wilcher. I know you listen to. My DC from high school, Jermaine Crowell. Love you too, Coach Crowell. I know you listening as well.

Starting point is 00:17:14 And it was my mom. That was it. That was my, you know, fortress of solitude whenever things were going on there. I know for a fact, in my camp alone, my mom would have called me, what's going on with this, the coach's girlfriend? What's going on with that? And I don't even want to answer it. I don't even want to talk about stuff like that. But now I got to.

Starting point is 00:17:34 Lord forbid if somebody else's camp is even more invested in family and younger people and people who enjoy talking about this type of stuff. Now you're getting into the weeds of, well, what's, what's. up with this? What's going on with that? And you have to explain this to multiple people. And even if you try to say, man, I don't know nothing about it. I'm just a player. I don't know what he doing this bedroom, not between them and them. Well, it's out of your bedroom now. It's out of your bedroom because now we're talking about, is she banned, does she not? Is she allowed to be there? Is she not? I know the next question. My mom like to ask follow-up question. You know, I'll tell a story. I'll tell it like a man. But she asked me what happened? This thing happened. I don't know. Well, why? Well, how? Well, who was involved?

Starting point is 00:18:16 Well, did she do something? And it's like, I don't want to talk about this. So there may be situations where some players do a good job of avoiding it, blocking out the noise and all that. But we cannot pretend like the camps of these players, like the people who matter to these players, won't be calling and asking questions or making jokes about it off rip because I know my big sister would definitely call me,

Starting point is 00:18:35 what's up with your coach and this girl that's young enough to be in grad school? Really, undergrad. What's going on with them? I don't know. I don't know. So that's just the situation, as I see. it. You can do your best to avoid it. Some players will do a good job. Some players, the amount of questions it generates from the people around will be overwhelmed.

Starting point is 00:18:54 By the way, and I was just thinking, oh, I can't wait to see, you know, when Hard Knocks, North Carolina comes out. But I think they scrapped. They scrapped it, right? And that, and that also, that allegedly had to do with Jordan Hudson, why they scrapped it. So, I mean, I can tell you, as somebody with boots on the ground close to that situation, I have heard multiple sources say the same thing that she did have something to do with it. They are good sources. I'm not going to sit here and say, I will put my life on that information. I have heard the same thing from multiple people who are close to program, and I'm going to leave it at that. Oh, I don't get the reality show, which is a disappointment. The college football playoff

Starting point is 00:19:35 committee has been like a reality show. So we're now trending towards not 14, but 16. And the ACC is absolutely going to get hosed. You want to keep it locked right here. We're not done yet on locked on ACCC. Do you ever check your bank account and wonder, where did all my money go? We've all been there, right? Between dining out, online shopping, entertainment, it's easy to lose track. And that's where Monarch Money comes in, your personal CFO, giving you full visibility and control over your finances. Monarch Money isn't just a budgeting app. It's a complete financial command center. You can track all of your accounts, investments, and spending in one place. So you stop just managing your money and you start building wealth. When I started using

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Starting point is 00:21:06 up in New Orleans. They're pulling all the strings with this thing. It was looking like Kenton, there was momentum for the CFP, which just got to 12 teams. The momentum was looking like expansion from 12 to 14. Now they seem to be all in on 16. So the way the 16 team format would look, and this is something that upsets people from the ACC and the Big 12, especially is a bunch of automatic bids, Kenton. The SEC would get four auto bids, Big 10, four, ACC and Big 12, just two automatic bids apiece, one auto bid for the G6 and then three at large.

Starting point is 00:21:48 And you could imagine, you know, SEC and Big Tens would be fighting for those at large bids as well. And, you know, it's something that ACC commissioner, Jim Phillips, told Yahoo earlier this week that there needs to be fairness and access to the championship, he said. It needs to be a true championship, not artificial and not an invitational. That's his worry about the auto bids. And I have some worries as well, Kenton, because again, I know the ACC and Big 12 have no leverage, but if you actually, are forced to agree to this format where you get half the number of auto bids as the Big 10 and the SEC, you lose even more ground. If we are going to do the guaranteed four and four and you're moving to 16, what I see as the

Starting point is 00:22:35 Big 12 and the ACC's push, I just want one more of those. Let's natch up some of those at large. Let's make it not three at largest. Let's go four for the Big 12 or four for the Big 10, four for the SEC. three for the ACC, three for the Big 12, one for the group of five, or group of six now, I guess it is. Because Pac-12, Pac-12 is not in there. So one for the group of six and then leave one more at large bid.

Starting point is 00:23:05 Because to me, I look at this thing and I'm simply saying to myself, you are giving up way, way, way too much leverage. If you're guaranteeing them two times the amount of teams as you are. to be in there. And then I want to also look at something from last year on how ridiculous four teams would have been. So the SEC got in, Texas, Georgia, Tennessee, right? The fourth team, these teams were all tied at nine and three at the end of the regular

Starting point is 00:23:37 season last year. Alabama, LSU, O'Miss, Missouri, and South Carolina, all tied at nine wins. to end the regular season last year. Where do you go from there? Who's getting in? How do you even decide that type of stuff? And then we know because of the circular motion of it. Well, I just got to say one more thing on the past three,

Starting point is 00:24:05 but the circular motion of it, some of those teams that have no good business being there, like an Alabama team that could only score three points against Oklahoma, got beat by a Michigan team that could not throw the ball more than five yards down, field, those teams are now going to get in on an automatic basis when you did not earn it. So there are multiple avenues by which you can say, hey, this is not, this ain't fair, this ain't right. This ain't what it should be.

Starting point is 00:24:34 Well, in terms of like deciding tiebreakers, part of the proposal that Yahoo reported on were season ending inner league play in games where like third place in the conference takes on six place, fourth place takes on fifth. And I'm trying to find clarity on this, but I'm pretty sure that, which seems pretty exciting to me actually to have play in playoff games, but it looks like that would only happen for the SEC and the Big Ten for the four bid conferences and not for the two bid ones. So it's like, we're missing out

Starting point is 00:25:06 on that as well. And here's the other part of it that is going to have, you know, not only are you, you get chaffed on half the number of automatic bids, but here's the other impact that it's going to have on the ACC. So if this gets ratified and they go up to the 16 teams and the four auto bids, what's going to happen is the SEC is going to up their conference schedule to nine conference games because you now have less incentive to play out of conference games because you got the auto bids.

Starting point is 00:25:38 So if the SEC, which is currently at, I think everyone else has this format of eight conference games, if they move up to nine, that means, you know, know, we enjoy all of these ACC versus SEC non-conference football games. You're going to have less of those because they're going to have one fewer non-con game. And they're probably going to load up their non-con with easier teams because the conference schedule matters so much more. Just means more in the SEC, right? With auto bids, the conference schedule is everything.

Starting point is 00:26:05 So this is going to take away opportunities for, you know, Florida State plays Alabama this year. You know, Clemson has played SEC opponents in the recent past. state with Tennessee, you know, Miami's been playing Florida home and home with them. Like, you're going to take away a lot of these opportunities when the SEC goes up to nine. Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, at the end of the day, this thing should be about fairness.

Starting point is 00:26:30 This thing should be about who earns it. And I'm a big proponent of the way that we do our ranking system to begin with is flawed in terms of this whole strength of schedule metric that's based on preseason belief. That's based on, oh, this is what we do. thought this team would be. We have seen this all around the nation every year. Every year, there's a top 10 team that finishes unranged. Every single year we see it. And yet, we're going to sit here and say, well, it just means, well, I mean, look at the straightened schedule. Well, look at who puts who in the draft. I want to make this argument to you. Either Dono was right or I am right. One of us has to be wrong in terms of Georgia's offensive line. And either the offensive

Starting point is 00:27:15 line was good because they had a lot of players drafted, or they just had talented players, but they can never mesh as a team, and that actually means something. I don't care at the NFL thinks you're good. I have seen how the NFL evaluates talent. I just watched a guy with four and a half career sacks as an edge rusher go in the first round. So don't tell me about, oh, there's the most players drafted, and this is that, sure, I want to see when you line it up on a lot of it. that field and make it happen, what actually happens. And again, Donald and I talked about this last

Starting point is 00:27:50 year, in terms of lining up on the field and making it happen, all of those teams from the SEC that were supposed to be indefatible. Oh, man, you know, that South Carolina team. They should be right there in consideration for the playoff, lost Illinois. Oh, man, that Alabama team, you know, that's basically a playoff team. Alex Orgy was a quarterback on a rival. I stir that beat you. Like, what are we doing here? At some point in time, we have to realize the games matter, and they happen for a reason. We cannot sit here and say, oh, putting up three points against Oklahoma does not.

Starting point is 00:28:31 We can't sit here and say it. We can't sit here and say, oh, well, you know, it's okay because you're in the right conference for the protection. No, it doesn't matter what conference you're in. If you're a four-loss team, get away from the playoffs, Lou. you should not be, we shouldn't be sitting here talking about you to the playoffs. Yeah, well, get ready for a 16 team playoff. And then I guess we can examine this on a future episode.

Starting point is 00:28:56 Does expanding to four more teams, does that just not only dilute the playoff? Because you talked about some of the teams that would have been in with four extra, but then it also does it dilute the regular season? Because it makes the regular season less important. So we have so much more to get to on this ever-evolving story. We'll talk about it next time. He is Kenton Gibbs from Lockdown Wolfpack. I am Alex Dono from Lockdown Canes.

Starting point is 00:29:19 We'll talk to you again next time on another episode of Lockdown ACC. We are part of the Lockdown Podcast Network. Your team every day.

Locked On ACC - Daily College Football & Basketball Podcast - BOMBSHELL: Bill Belichick's Girlfriend BANNED OR NOT from UNC Football?? | 16 team CFP Chaos

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