Locked On ACC - Daily College Football & Basketball Podcast - Miami Hurricanes vs. Virginia Tech: The Hail Mary Debate

Episode Date: September 30, 2024

Controversy strikes as the Miami Hurricanes face off against Virginia Tech, with a game-ending Hail Mary touchdown overturned on review. Did Virginia Tech's coach Brent Pry's decision-making cost them the game? Dive into the drama of college football as Duke's Blue Devils achieve a 5-0 start for the first time since 1994 under the leadership of Manny Diaz, following a victory over North Carolina. Meanwhile, SMU stuns the college football world by dominating Florida State 42-16, leaving fans questioning the preseason top 10 ranking of the Seminoles.Explore the implications of the SEC and Big Ten's push for four automatic bids each in the upcoming expanded College Football Playoff. This episode unpacks the potential impact on other conferences and the future of college football. Don't miss out on these compelling discussions and insights into the evolving landscape of college football. Listen now for a deep dive into the week's most exciting matchups and strategic plays.For your next listen, check out the Locked On College Football podcast! From NIL deals to never ending conference realignment rumors, Spencer McLaughlin gets you ready for an exciting season on the gridiron! Click HERE to listen now. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network. Your Team. Every Day.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!ROYDownload Roy for iOS or Android and enter referral code LOCKED ON and you’ll automatically be entered into a sweepstakes to win $5,000 cash. Visit JoinRoy.com for additional details. No purchase necessary, void where prohibited. Get off the sidelines and into the NIL game with Roy. GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONCOLLEGE for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Download Gametime today. What time is it? Gametime.FanDuelYou can start the season with a big return on FanDuel. Place your first FIVE DOLLAR bet and you’ll get started with TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS in BONUS BETS - guaranteed ! Visit FANDUEL.COM to get started. 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.

Florida State loses again. Miami almost goes down. Here's what we learn from ACC football in week five. You are locked on ACC, your daily podcast on the Atlantic Coast Conference. Part of the locked on podcast network, your team every day. Shout out to the everydayers. We are locked on ACC. Make sure you make us your first listen to your first watch each and every day. 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. Today's episode is brought to you by Fanduel. Place your first $5 bet and you'll get started with $200 in bonus bets guaranteed. Visit Fandual.com to get started on this loaded episode. We will talk about how the ACC and the Big 12 for that matter might be about to lose some college football playoff bids because the SEC and the Big 10, they're getting a little greedy out there.

They're getting greedy. We'll talk about the ACC players of the week. but Kent and Gibbs, we got to talk about some games over the weekend. What was the outcome or the game that either shocked you most or just plain old captivated you the most? Obviously, it has to be Miami, Virginia Tech. I mean, it didn't shock me, but that game was as entertaining as we have seen from college football. And it was pretty much everything that we love about college football baked down into one football game. I mean, what more could you really ask for than to see, you know,

I constantly kept making a joke, hey, Miami's going to have to play a power for a team that's going to have their head coach at the end of the season. And lo and behold, that's their first struggle of the season. That's the first time that they look human all season. But in all seriousness, you had that, you had the intrigue of the final play and all that went into that. We'll get into that a little later. but that one was one that it was such a captivated game.

I would be, you know, remiss if I didn't say that the most shocking was the utter dismantling of Florida State down there in Dallas. I would be lying to you if I said, yeah, I saw the Pony Express not even beating them, making it fairly non-competitive. I think we can both agree to that, Donald. I don't think that game was competitive for a majority of it. and you sit here and you say to yourself, the defensive line that was supposed to be world beaters look human. You say to yourself, the offensive line

that was supposed to be the bullies of the block, they have been bullied. They have been dominated. And you say to yourself, how long does the DJU experience truly last? So all in all, I mean, those two games are the two that I look at as most entertaining and the one that I was just like,

what am I seeing? We knew Florida State was bad. we did not know that they were the pits and depths of hell. By the way, to stay on that for a second, the DJU experience, it may now be over because he suffered a hand injury in that game. And I'm starting to see some articles being written coming out of Tallahassee that they, and I love the word that they used is concern. There is concern that DJU's hand injury might be a long-term thing.

I don't know if the concern is that they might lose him for the rest of the year or if the concern is they might not lose him for the rest of the season with how he's played this year. But I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you, whenever I see a backup, or whenever I see a started playing this poorly and not being benched, I know the backup is probably worse. Because anytime you have a backup that's even near the level, if you're playing this bad, throw the backup in there, man. We got to get somebody in there. I don't know what they're seeing in practice.

I don't know if DJ is just a walk-through All-American or something. something. But this is, oh, this is nasty. This is, you know, in the words of the Grinch, stink, stunk, because that's what Florida State has done all season long so far. I mean, I will tell you that the timing would stink. Like if DJ, you can't go this week. And he, Mike Norvell has him as an or on the depth chart for the first time this year. It's DJ Weungaunga or Brock Lenn as the starting quarterback. But you would figure if DJ has one really good game him this year. Wouldn't it be the game against Clemson, his former team? Right? That if there was one opportunity for him to go out there and play with 10,000 percent

motivation, it would be to stick it to his old team. And now, you know, it's so early in the week, we're not going to know for sure. But it seems like there's a legit chance that Uyungalai cannot go this week. So that would be unfortunate. Now, you know, going back to the Miami versus Virginia Tech game, you know, I watched it, you know, with my orange and green colored glasses on. But I was I was incredibly disappointed in almost everyone, with the exceptions being Cam Ward. You know, he made three mistakes in that game, but he put his Superman cape on in the fourth quarter. And so rarely do you see a quarterback commit three turnovers and somehow raise his stock in the same game. Ward managed to do that

with the way he finished that game. That was one player who for me is exempt from criticism. Another player exempt from criticism is tight end Elijah Arroyo who had a couple of big catches in the game including a long touchdown. But he also, Elijah Roy, I don't know if you saw the play, Kenton, on a throw.

Cam Ward basically through what would have been a pick six to a former Miami Packer to Caleb Spencer. Of course it was Caleb Spencer, who was about to waltz into the end zone. And Elijah Arroyo, who was on the other corner of the field, ran about 22 miles an hour, from one end of the field to the other, one corner to the other to track down the play and save the touchdown on the interception.

That was incredible. And then Malik Bryant, the Miami defensive end, who was also in on special teams and blew up the ridiculous call that Brent Pry made for a fake field goal, which was absolutely absurd. Now, Kenton, before we talk about that final play and, you know, whether the officials got it right or not, I want to say something here. And I said this on Locked on Cains as well. You know, I know that when people, a lot of people are upset about the way the game ended, right? You didn't, you know, you wanted Virginia Tech to win on the Hail Mary. You didn't think there was enough evidence to overturn the call. I really feel like Brent Pry is escaping a lot of criticism. Yes.

Yes. Everyone's focused on the final play. And listen, I say this as someone who was cheering for Miami to win the game. If Brent Pry had made one less dumb decision, Miami loses that game. The field goal. Why would you fake it there? All of the momentum is on your side. You do not need.

And this is the problem with today's coaches in a lot of regards. Everybody's always wanting the knockout punch. When sometimes death by a thousand cuts, it's the way to get it done. When you're playing a team like Miami, your goal should never be, I'm going to hit them with the knockout punch. You know what your goal should be? we're up by a good amount. Let's just keep demoralizing them a little bit more.

Let's see if they have the countenance to come back on us without us giving something to them. Let's see if they can come take it. I don't think they take it if you just take the three points there, which would have put them up, what was it? It would have been like 20 to 7? That would have put them up 13. And if they had been up an extra three points, Kenton,

they wouldn't have needed a touchdown on that final drive. they would have just needed a field goal. So that Hail Mary's situation would have never happened. And that's my point, exactly. If you don't do buffoonery and clownery, you come away with wins. Why did you need to go for it then? What did you gain? Hypothetically, right?

Even if you go for it to succeed, do you still not have to gain, what was it, 15 yards or so to get a touchdown? Kick the damn field goal. What is this? That's not Beamer ball. that's not to bring your lunch pail to work mentality that Virginia Tech is known for, and the clock management at the end of the game. What are we doing? Can your players not in just two plays at once?

What is happening there? There are many, many moments where I look at this game and pride starts to come into question in a meaningful way that he did not before. Because there was, again, there were just so many moments where and the worst part about it is this. Normally I say, you know, you only look dumb because it didn't work. If it works, you look great. Even if that fake field goal works, if you still have to take a field goal later in that drive,

you just look like an idiot because you wasted a fake. You put a fake on tape when it didn't guarantee you a touchdown. Why? For what reason? The clock management situation, again, you are running the ball effectively. league all game on. Miami defenders, I don't know what's going on, but they were slipping and sliding off guys.

Like Johnson and Johnson figured their main buyer of baby oil was out of business. So they had to make up the bridge somehow. They were slipping and sliding off by, y'all, too. You go away from them late. Why? What are we doing here? Again, I like Chiron Drones. I had much higher hopes for him than he has played this season.

I think this game, he played fine. He played well enough to win a game. well, I thought. Yeah, he played well enough to win the game. I wouldn't say it was a superstar better performing. But again, there was just a lot of things in that game where I'm just like, pride, this is on you. Because your players did more than enough to win. If you just make, like you said, one less boneheaded decision, you leave Miami with a win, you take the air out of Cam Ward's Heisman campaign, you take the air out of Coach Cristobal, but instead you'll have to, oh, well, we're going to get cute. See, we're Virginia Tech.

We do special teams. So we're going to get cute on special teams. Yeah, and I feel like Brent Pry, like he gets bailed out by the controversy because the only thing anybody's talking about is the Hail Mary. We're like, I'm sure a lot of people didn't watch the game. They just saw that play and they're reacting to it. But I do, I want to get Kenton's take on that play when we come back. We're also on this episode. We're going to talk about the ACC players of the week because we got another strong batch this week. And we'll talk about the SEC and the Big Ten trying to snatch up more and more automatic college football playoff bids and where this leaves the ACC and the Big 12.

You want to keep it locked right here, my friends. We're only getting started on this brand new episode of Locked on ACC. And you know we're only getting started with FanDuel. Guys, we've been making money. We've been having an amazing time all season long. And hey, NFL fans, you can start the season with a big return on FanDuel, America's number one sports book. when you get a hunch in the middle of the game, you can check out the latest stats, view live play-by-play and so much more on the same page where you place your bets.

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America's number one sports book. Thank you so much for making this episode of Lockdown ACC, your first listen and your first watch today. For your next listen, make sure you check out our other shows. Kenton Gibbs does an awesome job on Lockdown Wolfpack, C.J. Bailey and NC State bounce back with a win this weekend. I also host Locked on Cain.

So you know it's been a crazy past couple of days for me reacting to that Virginia tech game. You know, Kenton, to me, I think a lot of the outrage from that final play comes from the fact that the officials initially ruled it a touchdown, which they seemed very unsure of that. It's like nobody really had any idea who came up with that ball, whether it was secure not. But they ruled a touchdown on the field because something that I kept seeing from college football fans was, well, and I saw a lot of people say, yeah, I don't think it was a catch, but how did they have enough evidence to overturn it? which is like a weird take to have if you're that outraged by it. But they end up determining that, you know, the ball when it was not secured was touched by a Miami player. I didn't even realize which Miami player it was at first because, you know,

they had the Hail Mary Hands team on the field. So it was actually Miami wide receiver Isaiah Horton, you know, switched his jersey because his regular number two is worn by another defense player. So he had like a generic number 43 jersey on. and he was the one who was touching the ball while he was out of bounds while it was not secure. So by rule, it was ruled an incomplete pass. So like it seems pretty cut and drive by the rules. But I get why there's controversy behind it because it was such a crazy play.

And it was so crazy the way it unfold and a seven minute review that happened on the field. Yeah. So first thing first, I want to say this, right? If we're going to look at a big play controversy and all that, we have to admit that this is a moment. where again, pride should be catching more heat, even though it isn't the last play like it was for Miami with the non-nealing situation,

where their back was clearly down. Like, let's make that very clear. The back from Miami was clearly down in that moment, and everybody was just like, oh, you shouldn't ever put yourself in that position, which both things are true, though. Both things are true. And then this one, I think both things are true again.

Both things are true that Pride made idiotic decision after idiotic decision after idiotic decision that had them in that situation where they needed a hell merit. But what is also true to me, when I watched that play, I said there's no way they call that a completion. They call it a completion. I said, oh, there's no way they can overturn that. Because again, it's not about whether or not it's complete or incomplete.

It's about conclusive evidence. You need conclusive evidence one way or the other for if you are reversing a call. If you're rocking with a call, you don't need that much evidence. You can just say, Rulonvilleville. stance, boom, whatever it is it is. But in this moment, to me, it felt like it should have been a ruling on the field stands more so than anything else because I believe that the new rules surrounding catches, especially going to the ground, did something wonky in terms of like if you land on another player, but you are inbound and how that works out to be. So it's a strange.

It's a weird, it's a weird technicality. Yes, it's a weird rule. It's a rule that 99% of us don't understand. Exactly. But if they did determine to me that it was touched by an out of bounds player and if that may, I don't, so it seems like they found cut and dry evidence for a weird rule that people don't know about. Yeah. And either way you cut it or slice it to me, I think you stick with the ruling. But in that moment, again, don't let pry off the don't let pry off the. Those guys didn't know. Those guys did enough. Drones didn't enough. Tutin did enough. The tight end who was going off in the first half.

They did enough as a unit to get this thing done. Virginia takes defensive line. Longbackers, where the hell are you been? Where the hell have you been? They need to get multiple lunch panels because them fellas were filling, filling gaps. They were on the run gate. They were everywhere.

And so it took literally a Herculane effort. It took Superman stuff. It took, I'm being sacked, but I'm going to chipping out to a tight end who's going to go for 20 because nobody's accounting for him because that's not how this play should work type of stuff for Miami to win this game. So credit to Virginia Tech. They showed up in a massive way. They showed up and they were just by the hairs on their chinny, chin, they missed this one.

But again, you know, that last play, it sucked. There were bad calls all throughout the game. That holding call was one of the worst holdings I've ever seen. And I'm saying that as a defensive lineman who thinks that offensive lineman, get away with holds every play. That was not a hold. But again, you cannot count on ACC officiating one way or the other. You can.

You can't. You can't. So, you know, the reps give it, the reps taketh away, especially if you're not the darling in this game and you know that you have an uphill battle, don't count on the rest. Don't count on the reps to give you nothing. You've got to accept, hey, we may be an eight ball in that regard. And maybe, again, we should take our 13-point lead

because I want to see how they bounce back from that more so than a, a 10-point lead where we just gave them a lot of momentum because that drive that they had was a long drive where you're taking the wind and the air out of Rock Hard Stadium. The bands are cheering less and then you give it back because you want to get cute. What a bozo movie. Yeah. And it was one of the craziest games. Like I kind of am jealous that you got to watch it as like a neutral because I'm watching it hearing for Miami.

I was breathing into a paper bag during the fourth quarter. I was having panic attacks. It was insane. It was insane. And like by the time they actually made the final call of the last play, like I had already gone through every possible stage of grief and panic that I don't think my demeanor would have been any different if Miami had lost the game. And just like on the final Miami touchdown drive, you felt like there was some divine

intervention because on that same, you talked about the play to the tight end. Like Cam Ward had basically been sacked twice, escape from both sacks. flips it out to Riley Williams, the tight end, who rumbles down to the two-yard line. Prior to that, you had that catch by Xavier Restrepo where he had literally fallen over and still somehow managed to reach his hands up and get the grass. You had a bad snap that Ward was able to somehow pull out of the dirt and hand it off for a five-yard gain, and that play could have easily been a turnover. So it was absolutely nuts.

You know, a couple of other notable things around the ACC. How about this for notable, Kenton? Duke football. They win again. They come from way behind. They come down 20 points against North Carolina to win 2120. And of course, doing it against their rivals has to be even better. Mani Diaz has Duke 5 and 0 for the first time since 1994. As much as we praised Mike Alco the last few years, he never had Duke football 5 and 0. Here they are. Wow. I'm so sad to talk about Mack Brown losing once again. You know, William Brown, as they call them. You should still coach. Don't quit on that team. I heard that you quit in the locker room.

Come on now, William. Keep coaching them boys. They need you. Them boys need you, okay? Keep the coaching job. But in all seriousness, what a job I meant he is, right? We talk about inferior important, an inferior opponent and inferior opponent.

I'm not saying that UNC is the class of the conference. However, that is a very serious route. That is a very serious. And I'm going to tell you, The Duke and USC basketball robbery, I don't, as much as that's a robbery, I think it's a robbery because they're both very good. I don't think it's a robbery in a sense of I hate you.

I think that every time you could do anything. And if you're doing it near me, you're doing it too close. You're doing it in the wrong way. What ball it is like that? That battle for the liberty, oh, it is absolutely like that. From trash and locker rooms,

so all that type of stuff, they do not like each other. see many ds come out on top here again we could say duke hasn't played it has played inferior opponents but at some point time we got to give them they gots they are five and oh for the first time since when don't oh 94 30 30 years was last time i was not bored yet i am bald have a lifetime worth of regrets and have much too intimate of a relationship with a coniac known as his presidency you understand those are three facts about a human being that was born after the last time Duke was five and no.

So you've got to give Manny Diaz. You've got to give Malik Murphy. You've got to give this largely rebuilt defense because there were so many guys who left, who graduated or hit the porter with Elko. This team is finding ways to win. A lot like we say about Pitt, they're the inverse.

They don't have the greatest offense in the world, but they continue to find ways. They continue to just score. One more point to you. That's all we need. And they showed it against you. see. Yeah, and you can see why, you know, Mani Diaz, who's their head coach, has been, you know, one of the, one of the more successful defensive coordinators in the country. They did an awesome job at Penn State. When he was D.C. at Miami, he did great. It was just a whole different thing when he was the head coach. But I strongly believe that coaches, coaches can learn from mistakes and they can evolve. And I think Mani Diaz is probably a much better head coach today than he was four, five years ago. I mean, you know, who was Bill Belichick before he got.

to New England. Like he was fired by the Cleveland Browns before he ended up becoming the greatest of all time. I think coaches can learn and evolve. And when we come back, man, there's still a couple more things I want to talk about here. I also want to talk about SMU's systematic destruction of Florida State. And we also, we got to talk about how the ACC and the Big 12 might lose a lot of leverage in 2026 with the new college football playoff format.

you guys want to keep it locked right here. We're nowhere near done yet on this brand new episode of Locked on ACC. And we already know you're keeping it locked to game time. This is the only ticket app that Kenton and I use. Guys, the prices actually get better, the closer you get to the event. They reward you for procrastinating, which is unbelievable. I've gotten so many great deals on tickets to events in my area down in South Florida, including Florida Panthers, playoff games, Miami Hurricanes, football games.

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Locked on College for $20 off. Download game time today. What time is it? It's game time. Thank you for making Locked on ACC your first listen today. Make sure for your next listen, you check out Locked on College football. My guy Spencer McLaughlin does an awesome job taking you through all the big games, all the big storylines. We're going to talk about one of those big storylines in just a minute. But meanwhile, Kent, I mean, and full credit to SMU, because they play great. But have you ever seen a preseason top 10? a team that was, you know, almost a consensus pick to repeat as conference champions. I'm talking about the Florida State Seminoles, of course, go from 13 and 0 regular season

in ACC championship game last year to 1 and 4 and getting almost mercy ruled by SMU. 42 to 16 was the final sky. I don't think I've seen a harder fall than this one. Never, never in life. And let's talk about some of the things that were so astounding from that game, shall we? Yeah. If you were to say at the beginning of the season, SMU beats Florida State, how would you believe they do it, Donnell? You know, probably get a couple of timely takeaways and they win by like a last second field goal,

like a really close grinded out, like, oh, what a miracle game, like something like that. Absolutely. And if they were to, you know, have a grinded out miracle game, what do you, What do you think the stats would look like? Who do you think would be? Would you think SMU would get it done through the air on the ground? Do you think, what do you think that would look? I mean, I would have thought that Preston Stone would be the quarterback

and that they would be probably throwing for 350 yards in the game, but I would think. So SMU only came up 100 yards short of that passing goal, but you know what they did do? They outrested Florida State 204 yards to 63. Wow. For every one yard that Florida State gained on the ground, SMU gave three to half.

I'm going to get it done. That ain't going to get it done. I mean, that is, FSU is getting pushed around on both lines of scrimmage in a way that is, this is unheard of. This is unheard of from a top 10 team effort, especially a team that again, this was supposed to be your calling call.

This was supposed to be, this is your identity, this is who we are, this is how we're going to do it, this is why we're going to do it. Wow, wow. Shout out to SMU. They deserve all the love. They deserve all the credit. They absolutely, I mean, you know,

you want to talk about BTA, belt ass as the kids like to say today. Well, guess what? SMU took off their belt and said, where is that report card at, son? And there was nothing but F's down the road for FHs. because this was not pretty at all. I mean, wow.

What a game by SMU. They deserve all the love, especially, I think the biggest part of irony out of this, and I'm going to let it go after this, but I think the biggest part, in Florida States lawsuit, they specifically went out of their way. They duck Cal and Stanford to say,

SMU, who is in our conference? And they said, oh, nobody, just us guys who are going to, rest for 200 yards on you. Just us guys that are going to hold you all to about 3.something yards per play. That's who is in the conference now.

You may make more money than us, but you don't make more wins than us, which is, ooh, very impressive. Very impressive. But you know, and Florida State would argue that they, they don't make enough revenue to win games. I mean, S&U's not making any revenue from the ACCC. Like, they bought their way into the conference.

So Florida, Florida State doesn't make enough revenue to beat a team that they, paying to be in the ACC, apparently. Again, you and I are both asking questions that are important here, because if the revenue is the problem, does Georgia Tech make more than them? Does Boston College make more than them? Does Memphis make more than them? Does Cal Berkeley make more than them?

Does SMU make more than them? I think you can combine a lot of these teams, and they probably still make less. Their budget for football is probably smaller than Florida State. So, again, I have said this for a while, and Florida State right now is confirming my theory. There's an upper limit to how much you can spend on. Now, how much you can pay the players? That's different. That's different. Okay. You can never pay too many good players. There's an upper limit on facilities where it's like, all right, bro, stop. Like you, you have everything that you can want. You have everything that any real football player needs to be his peak self. At this point in time,

you're just getting things for kicks and giggles and whatnot. All right. So let's take a look at at this report that that came through ESPN. And nothing about this is surprising. I mean, as soon as, you know, as soon as the Big Ten and the SEC, they made their big additions this season. You know, they formed this like joint advisory board where they're like, well, we're not thinking about breaking away from the NCAA.

We just wanted to have some chats. So here's this report from ESPN sources in both leagues, that being both conferences, Big Ten and the SEC, told ESPN on Monday that they would prefer to have potentially four automatic bids each to the playoff when the next contract begins in 2026. And that's when they expand to 14. So, I mean, they're going to leverage this. Again, we don't have any way of knowing whether this is going to pass or not, Kenton, but the fact that they're leaking this to ESPN must mean that either they feel good about it or maybe it means it's like a Hail Mary for them. But you could potentially

see in 2026, the SEC and the Big 10 could control eight of 14 college football playoff bids, meaning there's only six spots for, you know, the other, potentially for the other power fours and for the G5s. So they're trying to really monopolize this thing. Well, wait a minute. Let's take it a bit further, shall we, Dono. If you do this math correctly, they get four, right? They're pushing for four. That's the number. And then you got the ACC champ and the Big 12 champ that puts you up to six. And then you've got the highest rated group of

five that pushes you to seven. So at that point in time in the field, you're going to have how many spots left for everybody else? All of the Big 12, all of the G5, all of the ACC are left fighting for those seven

spots when, again, you got a guaranteed four. But here's the thing. Is anybody surprised by this? Is anybody shot? Is anybody and all say, walk around. I can't believe it. I can't believe that the big 10

in the SEC would do. They have time and time again, proverbial, they have time and time again made it a proverbial pissing contest, and I hate those because everybody's leg just gets away. This is one of those moments

where they're trying to big bro themselves once again and say, we demand for, we are worthy of four, so and so forth. I think it should function in the same way for all of the power four or however you want to cut it and slice it, okay?

I think you should have your guaranteed champions and the next highest team out of both, both of the, out of all of the power three, I think that should be, or a power four, rather, I think those next two up should have guaranteed in. All four of your champions and the next two highest in. And then after that, you see your ad larges and all that. But I mean, with what they did originally with demanding more spots when it was expanded to 12, So how do we expect them to not do this when it was extended to 14? And it's hard to stop them because I'll admit they have a ton of leverage because their leverage is,

okay, if you don't want to give us these concessions, we'll just walk away and do our own championship. And that'll be the real championship they can say because, you know, they are on paper, of course, the two best leagues in college football. I'm not questioning that. So they can threaten. We'll just leave the table. We'll form our own big kids table somewhere else. So they're going to get a certain amount of concessions because they've got a lot of leverage.

I'm going to tell you this. The best play for the ACC and the Big 12 right now, work on the Big Ten because the Big Ten is in Fort Reckney. They may not be aware of it. But Ryan Day and that team, I don't think they have what it takes toughness-wise. Sharon Moore in Michigan, Sharon Moore is not your guy. Oregon is Oregon. I mean, with all due respect, doesn't matter who you put in that seat. They'll always be close, but they'll always be the bridesmaid.

USC, Lincoln Riley. He's Lincoln Riley. We see it. He's Lincoln Riley. You know, like, you're going to see these teams a time and time again. The Big Ten's at for a reckoning in a couple of years. Meanwhile, the SEC's got all these 17-year-olds out there doing things that are unheard of. Yeah.

More power to you. You got it. But if I'm the Big Ten, I'm sorry, if I'm the Big Ten, I'm sorry, if I'm the Big 12 in the ACC right now, I'm going to the Big Ten. and say, listen, you do realize. That alliance is only going to last for so long. Didn't you all already have an alliance thing before? How'd that work out?

You know? Listen, they're going to kick you off the island eventually. You come join us and make sure that college football, as we know it exists in the future. We'll be all right. Or when you want to break away, you'll have multiple conferences to back you. Not just us two big boys will take our ball and go home.

You can say one of the two big boys and all the little boys are coming with you. Let's think about it. Let's think about it. Let's think about this logic. Well, I appreciate the time and great inputs, as always here from Kenton Gibbs. Check him out at Locked on Wolfpack and at TGIF underscore Kenton on X. I am Alex Dono.

Check me out on Locked on Cains at Alex Dono. And we will talk to everyone next time. We're going to have the squad together later on this week. Syracuse won. Syracuse won against Holy Cross. so Jackson's going to be in a good mood this week. I feel bad. Like I wouldn't blame Isaac Shade if he just didn't show up this week.

He got blown out by James. He's locked on UNC, locked on Tarhills. He got blown out by James Madison. Then he, you know, blows almost a three touchdown lead to Duke. But Isaac's a great dude. He'll probably still show up because he, you know, he's just a mensch. Isaac is a great guy. I couldn't laugh at the Tar Heels last week.

But boy, have I got my ha-haz and kikis prepared for the squad this week? I'm ready. I'm locked and I'm low-ed. Absolutely. So we'll talk to you guys again tomorrow on another episode of Lockdown ACC. We're part of the awesome Lockdown Podcast Network. Your team every day.