Locked On ACC - Daily College Football & Basketball Podcast - BOMBSHELL: President's Executive Order SHAKES College Sports | Will SMU Repeat Their Success?

Episode Date: July 25, 2025

College sports shaken by new executive order. What does it mean for student-athletes and NIL deals?Alex Donno and Kenton Gibbs analyze the President's recent action on collegiate athletics, exploring its impact on scholarships, women's sports, and third-party payments. SMU football's rise takes center stage as Grayson Singleton previews their upcoming season and key players like Dereon Coleman. Rich Clark, College Football Playoff Executive Director, shares insights on potential expansion and how ACC teams can boost their chances. The hosts debate the complexities of fair market value in NIL deals and potential enforcement challenges for private universities.Tune in for expert analysis on these game-changing developments in college sports and their far-reaching consequences.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.

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I am Alex Dono from Lockdown Canes. He is Kenton Gibbs from Lockdown Wolfpack, Kenton, a former NC State defensive lineman, keeps you covered on all things NC State. I keep you covered on all things Miami. And here on Locked on ACC, we keep you covered on all things, all things, including this new executive order that has been signed as of Thursday by the president of the United States called Saving College Sports. Also on this episode, we're going to welcome in Grayson Singleton, who's the new, he's in his third week, new host of Lod's, Locked on SMU to get a preview on the Mustangs. And then Kenton Gibbs, he had a chance to sit down with Rich Clark, who's the executive director of the college football playoff.

A lot of questions about, you know, where the ACC is going to be with all these CFP changes. Kenton is going to get the answers for you. But KG, I guess we're not surprised that this executive order got signed because, you know, for the last week or so, we did an episode about it last Friday. It felt like it was going to happen at any minute. Oh, hey, you're muted. It was something that we foresaw coming. You're absolutely right about that.

The swiftness with which it happened was a little bit surprising because normally when you think about big governmental changes or even executive orders, which is not exactly something that gets called up in red tape bureaucracy the way many things the government do, it still was like we heard about it in the middle of last week and before this week is over, boom, executive order written up and all that. And I really and truly want to get into this thing because I don't want to spend too much time gloviating on what our opinion could have been because that's what we're talking about before, Donald. We were looking at possibility last week.

So I'm going to let you go ahead and get into the nitty gritty of what the fact sheet from whitehouse.gov says. And then we'll comment on that. Yeah. So here, just what Kenton said, here is the fact sheet from the White House. today President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order to protect student athletes and collegiate athletic scholarships and opportunities, including in Olympic and non-revenue programs. I do think there is some good, just my side note on that. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, including in Olympic and non-revenue programs and the unique American institution of college sports.

The order requires the preservation and where possible expansion of opportunities for scholarships and collegiate. athletic competition in women's and non-revenue sports. The order prohibits third-party pay-for-play payments to collegiate athletes. This does not apply to legitimate fair market value compensation that a third party provides to an athlete, such as for a brand endorsement. The order provides that any revenue sharing permitted between universities and collegiate athletes should be implemented in a manner that protects women's and non-revenue sports. The order directs the Secretary of Labor and National Labor Relations Board to clarify the status of student athletes in order to preserve non-revenue sports and the irreplaceable educational and developmental opportunities the college sports

provide. The order directs the Attorney General and the Federal Trade Commission to take appropriate actions to protect student athletes' rights and safeguard the long-term stability of college athletics from endless debilitating antitrust and other legal challenges. And by the ironically, there are going to be legal challenges for this, I think. The order directs the assistant to the president for domestic policy and the director of the White House Office of Public Liaison to consult with the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic teams and other organizations to protect the role of college athletics in developing world-class American athletes. All right, so, all right, Kenton, and again, like, I think there's some good stuff in there when it comes to protecting women's sports, non-revenue sports, because it's not all about a billion-dollar sports. What part of this would you like to dissect when it comes to maybe some of the concerns that you have? Well, look, I do want to also acknowledge non-revenue sports and their protection is vital.

Let's be very honest about that, right? We talk about, you know, the things where America is exceptional and the things that America has traditionally been great at. Every Olympics, regardless of this, if it's the winter Olympics or the summer Olympics, when it comes around, when you look at that metal count, guess who's always going to be either at the top, or right near the top, right? What is a kilometer? USA, baby. That's where we are, right? It's important that we keep the system that allows us to dominate the net going.

Absolutely. So I do appreciate that. But now I'm going to speak to, you know, Mr. President and those who have the power to turn the levers here, as well as our listeners. I think that we're doing ourselves a great disservice by adding in red, tape for stopping pay for play and legitimate advertising purposes and all that, how do we determine that? How do we determine that?

I'll give you a prime example of how hard this is to determine. Dono, give me an estimate on how many celebrities you would guess right now get paid over $1.75 million per ad post. Just give me an estimate on how many you would assume fit in that category. well I know I'm not one of them I'm going to guess I don't know 3,000 celebrities fit into that category that is a wild that is a wildly larger number than I would have gone with but 10 according to maybe I just want to be one of those people so bad and here's the thing here's the thing actually when you look at it now mind you that number is very specific in terms of over 1.75 million and I'm sorry the number is actually 11 for 1.75 million and I'm sorry the number is actually 11 for 1.75 million. but if you lower the threshold to 1.5 million,

the number expands even larger. What's the purpose of me saying that? What's the purpose of me saying? I'm talking about this is how much they get paid per post. So if we wanted them to post about locked on ACC, let's say our people, let's say David Locke said, hey, we love what Ken and Dono are doing. We love them so much.

And we know that Beyonce has a connection to Megastine. the kitten really loves negative value we're going to pay diana to post about locked on wolf pack just three times that would run up that would run david lock in this company a little under six million dollars for three polls three pose what do we do to determine this is your value yeah what do we do because even if even if hypothetically even if bianca sent all of the beehive which we know is one of the most ravenous fan bases there is, who locked on Wolfpack? Do you think that there's enough overlap for them to stick on with us

and for us to generate a return $6 million out of that deal? But nobody is going to go to be honest and say, it's not legitimate that you're getting paid that much by these people. It's not legitimate. If these universities, if these collectives want to pay players, who are we to stop them? This is America, the land of opportunity. And one thing that I hear so often about players is, well, you know, and stick with me here because I'm going to get back to this in a roundabout way.

But one thing I hear a lot when people talk about an NFL player, NBA player getting divorced. They say, oh, yeah, the wife, they played 10 years in the NBA. And the wife just got half of 10 years worth of work. And I always laugh at that. And I think, y'all don't understand what it takes to get to these leagues. You don't understand what it takes to get to that level. if you think just the years that they were professional was the work. This work starts for most of us, most of us, at like 10-11.

It's rare to hear the story. Yeah, I never touched the football until I was 14 years old, and I turned myself into an All-American. That's rare. You don't see that often. This starts when we are small, small children. I started playing when I was four. The league I played in had a weight limit when I was six.

meaning I had to run around a field and wearing a trash bag to get under the weight for hours a day. We have played this game. We have competed at this game. We have done that for forever. Don't get me started on the basketball AAU circuit and how many games those kids are playing per weekend to get to this level. The work that it takes to get to this level, it is specialized and unique. even if you want to argue, oh, well, how specialized and unique can it be

if there are thousands of athletes? The same way, and this is why I wish everybody was the athlete that was like near my caliber so that they could hear the stuff that we heard when we were kids. Everybody said, you're never going to play in league. 1% goes to college. And then 1% of that 1% goes to a professional. Now, let's go back at level.

You just said that 1% go to college. So 1% go to college on the full scholarship to play a sport. That means that you are objectively, you have something in terms of skill or talent. You have put in the work to put you above 99%. Now, if your argument is the 1% never deserve more than everybody else, I'm okay with hearing that. But don't stop at sports. Don't you stop at sports. Don't you stop at college sports.

Go to the NBA and tell LeBron, you need to be making as much as Patrick McCall. go to the NFL and tell Pat Mahomes, hey, the backup, the third string tackle for the New York Jets needs to be making as much as you. That's what this is because we no longer delineate between those who have worked and grinded as something that got them paid to a certain degree and those who have. I'm just hopeful that this get,

like when it comes to legitimate business purposes or fair market value, which I hope. that whoever is in charge of interpreting what that means does it in a way that's fair to the athletes because I can understand what like what they're trying to cut out here, which I think is kind of understandable are basically collectives that just exist for the sole purpose of paying for play, which is not what you're supposed to be doing. Right. And now we do have revenue sharing that comes with the new house settlement.

And like I believe NIL absolutely should exist and needs to exist. So like to your point, you know, if there's an athlete out there who's like big enough that Coca-Cola wants to sponsor them, I highly doubt Coca-Cola is like disguising, advertising money as a pay-for-play deal. So like who am I to say, hey, Coca-Cola, I know you want to pay such and such athlete, you know, half million for a campaign. You shouldn't pay them more than $600. I hope I hope that's not where the enforcement goes. I was reading a summary of this from Ross Dellinger at Yahoo Sports, who's been excellent covering this stuff. He says that, you know, the president suggests in the order that members of his cabinet,

as well as the Federal Trade Commission, have 30 days. That's 30 days from Thursday to create a plan on the enforcement of such, including potentially withholding federal funding for violators opening up Title IX, So then you talk with holding funding. Like how does that affect private university? Like I cover a private university in Miami. So they're not getting funding anyway. So does that mean they're exempt?

I don't know what it means. Exactly. Exactly. And again, when you look at the other causes that kind of go hand in hand with this, people arguing what the WNBA does deserve to make more because they don't make enough money. Well, now you're looking at the groups that are making the money, the groups that are extremely profitable and you're telling them

you don't deserve the money either. So who the hell deserves the money, Donald? The money makers don't deserve the money. The people who are subsidized don't deserve the money. Who deserves the money? The administrators? Is that what you're telling me? With all the respect. I adored the

administrators at NC State, the ones that I knew of course. The ones that I knew well, I still have great relationship with it. The ones that did the work behind the scenes still have a great relationship with many of them. Shout out to Annabelle Myers, Joe McKillow. Pete Roley, Country and smoke and all those guys.

Love all of them. Love them down. But to me, and those are operations people, not administrators, there's some other administrators I get into. I keep going all day. But the reality is,

I want to see a situation where as long as the players are being paid fairly, because this idea that pay for play is bad, I want to know why. Why? If they did anything else, if those players were podcast,

If it turned out that C.J. Bailey wanted to run Locked on Wolfpack and David Locke was like, hey, Ken, you got to go. This is the guy now. What's the amount? How do we determine, hey, this is fair. This is not fair. You know, it's, it gets to a point. It gets to a point where you have to pick apart so many details. You got to shuck in job and dip and duck through all of these different loopholes to where you say, is it worth the effort to stop this? I think, that it would be worth it to curve this. I think it'd be worth it to put in some common sense guardrails. But one thing that I will never see as a, hey, this makes sense is to sit up here and say, oh yeah, we are good where we're at. But we need to come in with all of these restrictions because college sports is breaking. And the only restrictions we're going to see is a reduction on the labor force that produces all of these billions of dollars. Production or reduction on the pay of the guys and the girls who go out there and make it happen that people actually want to watch. Well, you know, we go from an NIL conversation to a conversation with

the school that was one of the first to do NIL long before it was legal. We're going to get a preview on the SMU Mustangs. Grayson Singleton is the newest host, one of the newest hosts on the Lockdown Podcast Network. He's going to join us next a little bit later on. Kenson's going to sit down with the director of the college football playoff. You want to keep it locked right here on this brand new episode of Locked on ACC. I already know you're keeping it locked to Fandul. Folks, summer sports have been getting us through,

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Yes, we have SMU now on the Lockdown Network, which honestly, after the season they had last year, long overdue and the new host of Lockdown SMU, Grayson Singleton, is nice enough to join us. Grayson, how are you? What's going on, fellas? How are we doing? Do a well, man. And Gray's, yeah, he's been on about three weeks, and the shows are already looking great and doing really well. And, you know, Grace, first things first about SMU, they caught Kenton and I a little unprepared last year with just how good they were. You know, the 11 and one regular season, ACC championship game appearance.

They got to the college football playoff. They snuck under everybody's radar last year. The secret is out, though. And they're going to have that bullseye on their. backs this coming season. How do you think that changes the mentality from Rett Lashley and company? Well, the coach didn't make it any better going after the SEC at ACC kickoff. So that target just got even bigger. But their mindset is, and Kevin Jennings, the quarterback talked about this at media day, they're on a revenge tour. They're not just

sitting there with a bullseye on their back for the nation to just shoot at them. They're trying to go back because in their mind, they have unfinished business. They lost the ACC championship game, even though they were within a 56-yard field goal of taking it to overtime. And then they get Mollywopped at Happy Valley in Penn State in the first round of a college football playoffs. So they are taking those two losses really, really hard. And they did. And they did so.

But now over the off season, they've developed the mentality that, yeah, everybody's coming for us because they want to put us back down in the dirt where we've been for the last three decades. Nobody wants this upstart team to continue to be. the team that everybody talks about, the national media darling and whatever. But they also have an attacker's mindset too because in their eyes, we still have a lot more that we can't accomplish. And they believe that they have the team and they've got the staff and they've got all the schematics and everything like that to where they can accomplish even more than what they did last year, winning 11 games.

You know, I want to talk about how the feeling is outside of the facility, right? I get it inside the facility, humble, hungry, all those things. But let's just be very frank about this thing. Post-death penalty, the best football team in the Dallas Metroplex area that was wearing that powder blue was the Duncanville Panthers. Right. So now you're looking at a very different situation where you're coming off back-to-back 11 win seasons, back-to-back conference championship appearances, and an appearance in the first ever college football playoff that was expanded, beyond the four teams.

So what is the feeling like around the fan base and around the Dallas area, Dallas, Fort Worth area? Estatic. It's absolutely ecstatic because DFW has been waiting for a prime college football team for the longest time. And you can say, well, Baylor's there. Well, Baylor's in Waco. That's on the outskirts. TCU is not, it's just not that college that can encapsulate and galvanize the entirety of DFW. SMU is that, though.

SMU is not very far off from downtown Dallas. It just is a better reflection in terms of a football program of DFW. So in one vein, Dallas has been waiting for exactly this. And the recent changes in college football and the way that you can use your resources to attract players and whatnot, it's almost been the perfect storm that has allowed SMU to rise from the dead in the last couple of year. You mentioned Duncanville. one of the reasons why SMU is on this ascent is because they're getting these recruits like a Duncanville Panther, Zachary Turner, who they beat out Oklahoma and Alex your Miami Hurricanes for a couple of weeks ago.

So it's things like that that is priming SMU for this ascent that they're on. They needed to hop into a bigger conference. They got that. They needed to be able to use the resources that we all know SMU has. That is now allowed. So when you pair that with the coaching mastermind that is ret lap, Ashley, they've been developing guys. And now all of a sudden, they're getting recruiting classes that we never thought were possible with SMU.

They didn't sign a four-star up until 2021 since God knows whenever. So all of those things being married together has resulted in what we're seeing now. And it just makes it even better that they're in the DFW Metroplex because that is a top six market in the country that has been starving for a college football power. Absolutely. And so let's let's build upon something you said there. coaching Mastermind. I love me some red lastly. I love me some red last.

He's intense. He goes after whoever he feels like going after, when he feels like going after him. But more important than all that, he wins football games. Are you or the fan base at all concerned that, hey, we're going to struggle to keep this guy because, again, he's shown now the last two seasons,

22 wins, conference championship appearances, doing this while jumping up a level from group of five to power four. is there at all concerned like, hey, we're not going to be able to keep him for long? Or is this a situation where it seems like Lashley's happy, we're happy. It wouldn't, you know, we're not worried at all about him leaving because we can take care of whatever he needs here. There's a couple of things that go into that because number one, here's the more important thing going into this season if we want to just isolate it to now. They kept both their coordinators. Casey Woods and Scott Simmons didn't go anywhere, which usually after a team pops like SMU did, you'll start to.

to see those coaching staffs be picked off by bigger schools. So that's point number one. That is not a question to answer your original question that I think has been broached enough because it's just somewhere that we just haven't gone yet. But give it another double digit year, give it another double digit win year, give it another college football playoff birth. You look at all the programs around the country whose coaches are on the hot seats, Oklahoma and Brent Venables, they've got to win this year.

Billy Napier could find himself right back on the hot seat. like he was last year. What's going to go on with Lincoln Riley at USC if they fall short of expectations? So there are programs that could be making coaching changes. But I think this one change in college football works in SMU's favor. The fact that you now have to pay $15, $20 million for a roster kind of handicaps you when it comes to paying buyouts for these coaches. So I think we're going to be seeing less big ticket coaches fired

because it's going to be so much more financially difficult. to do so. That could work in SMU's favor in terms of keeping Lashley because you're not going to have another school that's at least as many schools that are going to be paying a buyout and then have to give Red Lashley an exponential raise to leave Dallas. Well, I absolutely love what you said there. And I know a certain fan base may be disgusted by hearing teams don't want to do big ticket bouts because their team is desperate to maintain some wins and some coaches there. not going to point any fingers.

One more question, then I'll hand it over to Dono here. In terms of, you know, how Locked on SMU got started, we know about the viral tweet and all that and how that kind of played into things. But what is a big goal that you have for the show where you can say, if I have achieved this, if I have bought this, be it a tangible metric,

be it something that's just like, I just do this for the fan base, what is it for you that you will chronify as? If I can bring this to Locked on SMU, I've made this show a success. The other point, that as well. We talked about the viral tweet is that I'm actually a DFW kid. So I grew up in DFW, went to college at Oklahoma State, and I've been in the state of Oklahoma ever since. But I think

measuring success would be, do I put out a product that galvanizes my hometown in my city of DFW as a representative of the city? So, I mean, you can obviously, we want to have high numbers and whatnot. And, you know, there's ways that you have to tweak certain things and just figure out how you're going to fit into the lives of those people, right? But man, if I can just be somebody who's talking about DFW's team, and that's the relationship that you have, the symbiotic relationship that you have between media and the team because the team's success and lack they're up can affect that in positive or negative ways.

So, man, if they're successful and that I can just create successful, entertaining, informative content, man, that's success right there because that would just be me putting out for where I'm from. That's well said. We're joined here by Grayson Singleton, who's the new host of Lockdown SMU here on the Lockdown Podcast Network. Now, Grayson, when I wonder, what's it going to take for SMU to build on their success from last year? Part of that question you've already answered when you talk about not only Ret Lashley being back, but both coordinators being back, Kevin Jennings, another year in a full season for him at quarterback. I think it's going to be

important. But there are other important players. SMU is going to have to replace. Like I was looking at, you know, some of the losses from last year. Last season, the Mustangs had 17 players that were either all ACC or honorable mention all ACC. Out of those 17, 11 of them are gone. So tell me in your eyes, so maybe under the radar players who are going to be taken on bigger roles that fans should watch out for this year. Well, it's an astute point you made that Kevin Jennings is now in his first season as the unquestioned starter because he took over after the BYU game. last year for Preston Stone, who's now at Northwestern. But I think the list starts with Derek McFall.

He's a rising sophomore, registered last year, and he's a running back that's going to be tasked with replacing Burchard Smith, who was one of the best running backs in the ACC last year, got drafted in the seventh round by the Kansas City Chiefs, and all reports out of theirs that they're pretty excited about him. So that backfield, I think, is going to be the first thing to watch is, does McFall emerge as the clear number one? How do they work in a guy like a teacher?

Jay Hardin who comes over from UCLA, a Chris Johnson, who you're familiar with, Dono, who comes over from Miami. So how do they deploy those three running backs? The other thing that you're having to watch for is SMU lost both of its linebackers from last year. Colby Wilson and Amar Walker. There's the name. Kobe Wilson and Amar Walker are no longer there. They were the leaders and the captains of that defense. Now, Alex Kilgore, who was further down the depth chart on SMU's defense, he's going to ascend

to a starter. They also bring in from East Carolina transfer linebacker Zaki Barker, who was a really good player in the American conference. Again, SMU familiarity there with them in the former conference. So those are guys are going to have to rely on, but really the leader of that defense, you could imagine is going to be the safety Isaiah Wakobia. He's a projected first team all-ACC guy at safety. He's going to be, I think, the heart and soul leader. He was there at ACC Media Day as well, part of the SMU contingent. So those are the names right. off rip that you're going to have to get familiar with. Here's another name that SMU fans are already familiar with that I think the country should. And that's RJ Maryland, the tight end.

They signed him out of South Lake Carroll as a wide receiver when he's coming out of high school. He's now a tight end who missed the back half of last year with a knee injury. So having him back, he looks good. His recovery's been good. And he's looked good so far in the spring and summer workouts. That can be a guy who could be a factor in the all-ACC conversations that tied in, and that could really elevate the ceiling for SMU this year. By the way, I'm glad you brought up RJ because, like, the Miami connections are never ending with SMU. Like, he's the son of Russell Maryland, the former all-time Miami grades. That's right. Yes, he is. It's like, half of their roster, it's like, wait, that guy?

Oh, my gosh. So this is awesome stuff here from Grace and Singleton. I want to make sure you check out. I mean, Locked on SMU, the show is surging, and I want to keep showing them some love. Make sure you check out Locked on SMU available free, wherever you get your pods, and make sure you follow Gray at Gray underscore Singleton 2 on X. Gray, thank you so much for spending some time,

and we'll be hitting you up a lot throughout the year. Much love, fellas. Peace, man. Appreciate you guys. Good seven. When we come back, Kenton Gibbs is going to sit down with College Football Playoff Executive Director, Rich Clark. We'll get to the bottom of all these ACs,

shenanigans and the CFP. You want to keep it locked right here on this brand new episode of Locked on ACC. Hey, everybody. I'm Kenson Gibbs. We're here with the CFP director, Rich Clark. So, Rich, what I wanted to get into today is a little bit of your background, how you got to this position, and what your role is? Because let's be honest, ACC fans right now, they're a little upset about everything to

do with the playoff, from Florida State getting miffed, up to potential expansion possibilities that may limit how many. ACC teams get in. So let's talk about who you are, what you do, and what the ACC can do to kind of give more teams in and protect us out. Sure. Well, first I'll say thanks for having me. But also, ACC fans shouldn't be mad. They did pretty well last year. That was good season and good playoff representation. But my role at CFP, I'm the executive director. So I have kind of, I would say three roles. My first role is to help gather our conference commissioners, attend FBS commissioners, us, the Notre Dame athletic director, to make decisions about the college football playoff.

And they're the ones that make the decisions. They vote on what the format's going to look like. They vote on where we're going to have our games, you know, every aspect of it. We bring them together to make those decisions. So that's one. The second thing I do is I convene the selection committee. So that's the 13 people, the five sitting athletic directors, plus coaches, former players, journalists, they're the 13 that actually do the ranking. So we meet week seven and meet all the way

through the end of the season right to the conference championship weekend and we will rank them every week to the final ranking. And that's how we place everybody into the playoff. So they rank them 1 to 25 and then the top 12, if that's where we stay, we'll get into the playoff and go compete for the championship. That's another one. The other role that I have is to put on the 11 games. So there's 11 games in the playoff. So we work with the institutions in the first round that have those games on their campuses. We work with our six New Year, six bowl partners for the quarterfinals and the semifinals. And then we work with the host city to have the championship game. Last year, it was in Atlanta. This year will be in Miami. So our team puts on

those 11 games. So work with the conference commissioners doing the selection process and then putting the games on my main three roles and i have the privilege of leading our team to do that so it seems like and correct me if i'm wrong here it seems like you have much more of a a jurisdictional role than a a kind of opinion and i put my thumb on the scale to make it go one way to other type of role yes thank you for saying that oh yeah i had to protect you know you're protected mom mom you're safe i know you're watching this love you but you know you protect my mom so i got look out for you so you you have these three things that you do Let's talk about the locations of the games a little bit here,

because that's been a very big part of this discussion for a lot of people. ACC fans generally are happy with where the games are because they're normally either out west or in the southeast or anything like that. Are you planning on moving any potential sites from home games and New Year 6 bowls, or is that currently something that's going to stay? Right now we're in a good place with that. We're still talking and haven't 100% finalized everything, but we like the campus games.

Those are very good. Some of our games will be in bowls, in our New Year 6 bowls, and we're still working through that issue. And then every year, we will choose the city that it's going to be. And we choose it years ahead, though. Like we already know this year it's going to be in Miami.

Next year it's going to be in Las Vegas. And then we're in the process right now deciding for the next couple of years after that. So we really do, the campus games are spectacular. door this year. They were energized. Oh my gosh. It was so good. And to have the first ever one be at Notre Dame,

a team that's ACC-ish, you know, ACC and J-Inty. Dip a toe in, pull-a-toe out. There you know, all right. But it was great. It was amazing. I was at the game. All of them were fantastic. And then our bowl partners did a great job with the quarterfinals in the semi-file. That's

the tradition, you know, of college football, the Rose Bowl, Orange Cotton, Piesta, you know, all of them. I Oh, gosh, I think I only named five. Who'd I leave out? I'm getting troubled. Don't worry about it.

We know you love all the New Year 6. We know. We know. And then the cities that host our championship game, Atlanta was amazing. I mean, you know, they know how to host big events. And they're a great city. They do it well.

Miami is a destination city. People just like to go to Miami, let alone go for a champ game. It's going to be killer. So let me ask you one more. thing. I know you're busy. I know you're on the go here. But let me get into the situation of playoff expansion. It's a two-prong question here. We're looking at expansion. How likely is it to expand from 12? Because it feels like it's all but a foregoing conclusion at this point,

that expansion, even from the 12 that we're expanding to is coming as well. So how likely is that number one? And number two, what can the ACC do to continue having, like you referred to in the beginning of this, good years in terms of representation? So how, how, Likely is it? I would say right now we're looking at at 12, 14, and 60. And there's there's a good likelihood that we would expand, but there's also a likelihood that if the commissioners agree to disagree on the number that we'd expand to, then we stay the same. We stick with status quo, which is 12.

You need quorum and everybody going forward on a certain amount to get changed. And so, yeah, so if the commissioners don't come to the appropriate level of agreement on it, then we just stay at 12. So, and honestly, I have looked at this every which way you can, which is best, and whatever they decide, it's going to be good. And we can do it. We're in a space that we know we can make a good playoff. So whichever one it is, it's going to be good. It just, there's more access, obviously, with more games.

But we'll just see where they land. And I think it's going to be just a fantastic play. This year will be at 12, obviously. And so we're talking about next year and so forth. What can the ACC do? In a short word, win. When? You heard it.

You heard it here first. That's it. Win the game. Yeah. But I will also say building a competitive schedule. ACC is already a competitive conference. Lots of great teams, lots of strength within the conference. But also building a competitive out-of-conference schedule.

It's also helped. obviously one that you can succeed in and do well in, but that's not lower than maybe your standard of play. I would say continue to challenge yourself with a good schedule, but most important is go out there and win the game. You know, win a great schedule. That's how you get in. And you know what?

Teams like FSU and scheduling Alabama, teams like Clemson and the Tiger off, you know, got LSU going on there. The teams are scheduling those tough. games. So I think that your message is being heard. I think it's being received by the people that matter. And again, thank you so very much for your time, Rich. You know, we protected you and my mom all the book and the ancestors are proud of it. I don't know. You didn't protect your mama. You protected yourself.

She didn't ever come back in you like you don't want to know. So we're not wrong. We took care of each other. So I appreciate it. Hey, I appreciate you. We'll be right back on this episode of Block on ACC. We have so much more that we can still use from ACC Media Days. It's like the content is like produced faster than we can use it. So we're going to have a lot more coming up in the coming days. Oh yeah. It'll be a ton from ACC Media Days.

You'll see some of this come out in shorts. You'll see some of it used in episodes. We've talked to every team. So if you think that your team hasn't been talked about, guess what? We've talked to them. Okay. The coaches who see as cold as ice like Dabo Sweeney, the brand new coaches that are trying to usher in the new era like a Dickert

or the interim coach in Frank Wright. We've talked to him. We've talked to, you know, the coaches who the relationships may have gone on. We are still right there. We even talk to Mr. Desperation himself. You'll figure out who that is in a few days. But we've talked to them all. So we'll be sure to bring y'all great content from ACC Media.

In our next episode, we're going to talk about North Carolina and a bunch of new rumors about them maybe leaving for the SEC. So we'll talk to again. He's Kenton. He's Kenton. He's Kenton at Tjif underscore Kenton. I'm Alex Dono from Lockdowne canes. Follow me at Alex Dono. We'll talk to you next time on another episode of Lockdown ACC.

We are part of the awesome Lockdown Podcast Network. Your team every day.