Locked On ACC - Daily College Football & Basketball Podcast - NO PRECEDENT: Duke, Darian Mensah Settle as ACC NIL DRAMA SHAKES College Football Landscape

Episode Date: January 27, 2026

Duke Blue Devils and QB Darian Mensah reach a private settlement, sparking questions about the future of NIL contracts and college football’s legal landscape. Could this outcome signal a shift in how student-athletes, like those at Duke and Miami Hurricanes, negotiate their marketing rights—and will it push ACC football programs further from NCAA oversight?Alex Donno and Kenton Gibbs examine the winners and losers of the Duke-Mensah saga, the impact on Duke’s quarterback situation, and the ripple effects across the transfer portal. The hosts also tackle the ACC’s surge in weeknight football games—are Friday night matchups a smart visibility play or a blow to recruiting efforts? Plus, insights on the NCAA’s hands-off approach and what it means for Power 4 schools eyeing self-governance. Don’t miss the sharp analysis on the evolving world of ACC football.Everydayer Club  If you never miss an episode, it’s time to make it official. Join the Locked On Everydayer Club and get ad-free audio, access to our members-only Discord, and more — all built for our most loyal fans. Click here to learn more and join your team’s community: https://lockedonpodcasts.com/everydayerclub   Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!GametimeToday's episode is brought to you by Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONfor $20 off your first purchase. Terms and conditions apply.MazdaLike our players, we’re driven by the details. Because highlights make the reel. What it takes to get there makes it count.There’s more to a Mazda. Because there’s more to you.Turbo TaxFor a limited time, you can have your taxes done by a local TurboTax expert for just $150 — all in, if a TurboTax expert didn’t file for you last year. Just file by February 28. Take taxes off your plate and get back to your life. Visit https://TurboTax.com/local to book your appointment today.  Rocket MoneyLet Rocket Money help you reach your financial goals faster. Join at http://RocketMoney.com/LOCKEDONFanDuelIf you’re a new customer, bet just $5 and get $200 in Bonus Bets if you win. Make it count — because after the Super Bowl, the season is over. Last call for football on FanDuel, an Official Sportsbook Partner of Super Bowl Sixty. 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.

Duke and Darren Mensa have settled outside of the courtroom, which means we will not get a college sports defining ruling out of this. 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 and thank you so much for making Locked on ACC your first listen. We're available free. Wherever you get your podcasts, we're free on YouTube. We're part of the number one Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day.

He is Kenton Gibbs, former NC State defensive linemen and co-host of Lockdown Wolfpack. I am Alex Dono from Lockdown Cains. And on this loaded episode, why so many weeknight games for ACC teams? Is this a smart strategy by the conference or is it just a little bit Bush League? We'll talk about this Dary and Mensis settlement from all angles and who this outcome is better for. Are there winners and losers here? Did both sides win? Did both sides lose?

And what happens next? All right. So Kent and Gibbs, the news came out on Tuesday morning, this morning, that they have reached a settlement. They are, Duke is dropping the lawsuit. They're dropping the temporary restraining order. We don't have the financial figures because the settlement is closed. I would imagine there was a big monetary settlement paid by the Mensa side to get out of that NIL deal. but when I say KG that we do not get a college sports defining ruling,

it's because had Duke won in court, right? And if, you know, MENSA was like not allowed to leave Duke and transfer somewhere else, you're opening the door potentially for, quote, unquote, student athletes to be defined as employees, which is something the NCAA has fought against tooth and nail. Because if you define your players as employees, there's a lot of benefits and back pay that would come with that so they don't want that distinction

or if Dary and Mensa had full victory in the courts, Kenton, you could basically tear up those multi-year NIL agreements and you would never have a chance to enforce those in the future, but we didn't get either of those outcomes. Well, here's the thing. I think that the first outcome, the one in which Duke wins and Dary and his, his NIL rights, stay with Duke. I don't think that that makes players de facto employees because of, because of the idea of, I am quite literally purchasing your rights to your marketing.

That's what was purchased. So if the idea is, hey, you want to go elsewhere, go, please. But you cannot take your rights with you. You go wherever you want, but just know when you go there, your new team can pay us because we have your marketing rights. So if they want to pay you for your marketing rights, well, you don't have them anymore. It's a lot like selling off your catalog, right? If you and I owned everything we did on Locked on ACC, and we were like, hey, we're going to sell this off to Maven or Disney because they own ESPN or whoever.

And then we were like, well, actually, we want to sell it off to Adidas. We can't. We could not do that. You've already sold off the rights. It just is what it is there. So I don't think that that will quite get into. to the employee territory. Now, we do, I do believe that the employee measures are coming down the pipeline

because of former ACC legend Dion Sanders and what he's doing at Colorado, right? Like, finding players. And here's the interesting thing, Donald. He's not finding them for missing NIL events. He's finding them for being late to practice, for being late to treatment, for being late to film study, or missing out on those things altogether. Now, now that's a different story because you're defining football activities as you will get fined for showing up or not showing up for this. Meaning, Donald, if you can get fired for not showing up or something, it sounded like a job to me.

It sounds like a job. Sure. Yeah. I volunteer at my church. I have had times where something has come up where I could not be there for South Central Church of Christ and Riley. You know, shout out the past of Dublin them. You know, I love it. But that's different because they couldn't say,

again, we're going to find you for not so low. I'm not an employee. You can't. What are you doing? But if you are finding, now that, on the other hand, is a lot more of a employee situation. And then, like you said, now the other side I do agree with, if Darien had took them to court and whooped the whiz off of all the multi-year deals

out the window, every multi-year deal out the window. And I'm telling you, I have one good authority. I cannot name the names on there. but I have a good authority. There are multiple players who wanted to transfer from certain schools this last portal cycle. They could not because of. Demod Williams.

That's one. Exactly. And he's not the only one. He's not the only one. He was the only one to get in and then have the lawyers painted out for him, hey, brother, you've got nowhere to go. But there were others who wanted to go. They talked to their lawyers beforehand and realized they couldn't go.

So it is a very interesting thing that this settled out as quickly as it did. But again, this brings me back to the only way to solve these problems for both the universities and the players sit down at a table and collectively bargaining. Sit down at a table and establish firm guidelines for, hey, this is what we can or cannot do. And if you do not want to play in NCAA, that is fine. But if you are coming to work here, a lot like any, other union, you're part of union. You're part of it. That's just, is what it is, brother. Well, because, like, the NCAA is a big problem here. And it's one of the reasons why I think

eventually the schools are going to move out of NCAA governorship and will govern themselves at some point. Because you think about the contradiction, right? So the NCAA, by their rules, you've got free agency every year. It used to be twice a year in the transfer portal. But, like, by the NCAA's rules, because they've gotten their butts kicked in court. so many times. They don't restrict players from transferring every year. Now, schools like Duke, Washington, and others have tried to supersede the NCAA rules by making their NIL deal so restrictive that you get locked in for multiple years. So like, again, we're not 100% sure if that actually works because they settled outside the courts with Mensa, but they are basically

attempting to supersede the NCAA's rules by having separate contracts that locked you up, is the way that I see it. So again, like, you know, at some point, you wonder if especially the powerful institutions kind of look at themselves and say, what do we really need the NCAA for? And the NCAA, if anything, needs more oversight, right? You know, I, and it pains me to say this

because I, you know, I'm not the type of guy who thinks the government needs to put their hands all over sports. Like, I'm not that guy. But I've heard from it. enough lawyers and enough NIL lawyers, sports entertainment lawyers who are like, yeah, I mean, for the NCAA to operate effectively, they need more congressional or government oversight to kind of set these boundaries for them. Yeah. And the thing is, the thing is we're going to talk about winners and losers in terms of the two sides of this. But I must say the NCAA came out

of this as both a winner and a loser. And let me explain why I say that. They came out of winner in terms of people are going to look at the dichotomy of did Duke be a loser is Duke a loser in this is Mensa and Miami a loser in this you know those are and even if you separate those two in the season and say is Miami a winner in this is Mensa winning it even if you separate them in that way you're still going to be looking at a situation where people are not saying the buck starts with the NCAA had the NCAA done their job to begin with this doesn't happen the NCAA stands for what Donald? National Collegiate Athletic Association.

So if this is, in fact, a athletics situation that is happening within the nation, it seems to me, if these are NCAA members, the NCAA needed to have a major hand in this. Have you heard of any NCAA statements, any NCAA lawyers, NCAA involvement in this whatsoever. Yeah, no, I think they stayed far, far away from it, from what I can tell.

Well, what about demand up in Washington? Did you hear about any NCAA involvement in that? Zilch. Well, what about Coach Prime over in Colorado? Have you heard any NCAA involvement with the fines? Nope. So it gets to a point where you're asking yourself, and hell, let's get outside of the money for a bit, even what we're looking at with what's going on with Clemson and Ole Miss and tampering.

Has the NCAA even said anything about that? You know, I don't think they have. I did see it reported that they're going to look into it, but I didn't see them say it. I saw somebody else say it that the NCAA might look into that. And that's all you need to know. Because back in the day, the NCAA, if they found out you had a bagel with some cream cheese on the next day,

a statement was released. What? Alex Donald. The NCAA, they've been sued into oblivion. They don't want to say anything because every time they open their mouth, they get sued and they lose. And that's the thing. Either you dissolve it or you say, you know what? Our hands are off football.

Our hands are all football and basketball. They're too powerful for us to deal with. We are exclusively focusing on the Olympic sports as these two sports have become ungovernable. These two sports have grown to a point where we can't do nothing with them. And every time we try, the lawyers are going to get involved and we're going to lose. So we are completely washing our hands. of this. Don't be halfway in. Don't have step with this one.

My mom always told me, as a man, you either decide to be all the way in or all the way out, but you can't go one foot in and one foot out. You pick a side or you'll die in the middle. And the NCAA right now is dying in the middle because they're deciding, well, we still do govern college football and college basketball, but we don't have the teeth to do anything.

So when moments come up that we should be governing, we're going to sit here quietly. Unless Dabo Swin, is the biggest liar the universe has ever seen, there is very direct receipts of a young man basically extorting them. But let's be honest. He had all the text messages and the times they were sent. Like, Davo had his receipts.

And we didn't hear anything from the NCAA. Even in this moment, Mins is in court, Duke is in court, Demand is in court, Washington is in court, everybody's in court, and the NCAA is just sitting on the sideline. Hmm, this looks interesting. Let's watch how it plays on, gentlemen. Yeah. So the NCAA comes out a winner by the fact that people are not bringing them to the front,

but they're a loser in terms of moments like this keep inching us closer and closer to football and basketball becoming entirely separate entities because the NCAA is doing nothing but taking to cut out the pie. And right now, everybody is looking at their pie saying, how can we cut expenses? How can we cut expenses? How can we cut expenses? If cut the NCAA out, cuts your expenses, I guarantee you folks will start doing it. That's well said, and I'm glad you brought up the NCAA part of it, because to your point,

I had overlooked that completely, because when we come back, I want to talk between Duke, Mensa, and Miami, where he's likely to end up. Winners and losers in this situation. You want to keep it locked right here. We're only getting started on this brand new episode of Locked on ACC. Folks, this is Mazda's moving the game forward. For those who show there's more to the score than what's on the screen, you know who move the game forward this week.

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There's more to a Mazda because there's more to you. Thank you for making Lockdowne ACC your first listen. And folks, make sure you are checking out the Everydayer Club. If you're an Everydayer, you might as well make it official by joining the Everydayer Club. Go to Lockdownpodcast.com You get exclusive ad-free versions of our episodes, exclusive Discord server access, discounts at the Locked-on merch store, and so much more. Find your favorite shows, including Locked-on ACC, Locked-on-Wolf Pack, and Locked-on Canes at Lockedonpodcast.com slash Everydayer, become an official everydayer today. All right, so first, Kenton, in terms of Duke, like, I guess most people would paint them, probably as the biggest loser in this situation, right? I mean, not only did they lose their quarterback, you know, which is tough,

and it put them in a really tough spot where they're trying to get a waiver for Walker Eaget from San Jose State to be their next starting quarterback next year. You know, it's hard. Like, I don't know how badly they lost here, Kenton, because we don't know what the actual settlement terms are. Like, I would assume Duke gets a lot of money for this, but I don't know. that a million, is that four million, is it 10 million? We don't know exactly what Duke is getting in terms of damages, but, you know, losing your star quarterback and not having a great replacement,

I feel like Duke is the biggest loser here. I agree with you. And whenever you look at settlements like this, you have to look at the utility of what is gained. If I look at that from the standpoint of from both sides here, and I want to start with Duke because that's where we're starting here, if we look at Duke and the utility of what's gained, let's be super generous. Let's be super generous to say they gained $10 million. They gained the $4 million plus the old $4 million for

breaking it plus $2 million in damages. Miami covers it all and it's like hey, Dary we'll pay you on top of that, whatever the case may be great, cool, whatever. Here's the problem. What utility does Duke have with that money this upcoming season? Oh yeah, no, there's

hardly anybody left in the portal. You can't do much with that money at this moment, no. So the thought is, At best, you'll be doing something with it next year. But we all know how Mercurial the college football landscape is. And we're talking about it in terms of player movement. But player movement is a new part of the NCAA carousel that's normal. You know what's always been a part of the NCAA?

The coaching carousel. So let's say that Manny Diaz has a terrible year next year and decides, you know what, I'm done with this. I'm going to go do something else. Or let's say he has a great. year next year and somebody said, wait, you took Duke to an ACC championship, won it. And had an 11-win year with Eaget at Duke. I think that I think we need you. I think we need you, right?

How about it? So he leaves. You bring in somebody new. Sure, you got all the money in the world. But if players think this school is unsurious about football, I've seen what Wallace Way Stadium looks like on the Saturday night in a prime time game, I don't want anything to do with that. what does that money actually do for you? You can say, well, they'll give it to basketball

and basketball will make more great things happen with recruiting and all that. Basketball seems to be doing fine as is with the money that they have. They're doing all right. So what utility does this money actually serve as opposed to having Dary and Darendt, as opposed to having a situation

where they are now, you know, looking at their players saying, this is strictly enforced. You play with us. Everything is. strictly enforced. And even if you were to say, well, the payout was so high, that'll make sure players don't do it again. If it was paid off for this one player, the next one thing is paid out for them. So I think Duke is a defendant loser. Let me ask you a question as a former

college ball player at NC State. Now, I know you were there before the NIL era, which is unfortunate timing for you. But okay. So, and you know, like I've covered this story extensively from the Miami side, which means I also see what Duke fans and college football fans are saying. And among fans, like Duke, Duke suing Mensa was very popular. Like, hey, don't let him do this to you. You've got to get your damages or keep him there. He can't get away with this after signing the contract. But I want to ask you as a player, and this is an honest question, the answer might be no, right?

But from a player perspective, right, the idea that, hey, most schools, I can, I can, you know, if I want to, I can change teams and I have the freedom to go somewhere else. But maybe Duke will sue me and try to hold me to that. Like, do you think that might give players any concern, hey, maybe I should have a lawyer look over this deal that Duke wants me to sign because I don't want to get sued in a year if I want to play somewhere else? I would say absolutely not. And for this reason. Okay. When I played, it was all about, you know, we weren't getting paid.

So it was all about, hey, I want to win football games. I want to do something special. I want to build something special here. And even if I was looking at it from a standpoint of, you know, would I want to go to this school if I'm not sure if I can transfer next year or, you know, wherever elsewhere, we've seen that with multiple schools just from different aspects. The school right down the street from them, UNC, and this is not a joke. This is not a knocky UNC.

This is a factual thing that has happened. Multiple players from UNC have been. unable to transfer into the next school that they were going to based on some academic rigor and standing things. So would you say, oh, no players should go to UNC anymore? And again, y'all know how I feel about the dirty footglow. Y'all know, but this is not me taking a dig at them. This is me saying that there are plenty of other examples of, you know, different reasonings why players wouldn't be able to leave. And to me, honoring a contract of $4 million, if I'm looking at my life as a college football player,

And I'm saying, well, Shucky Darns, either I honor a $4 million contract or I've got to go to court. I don't, I'm not joking when I say this, Donno. I come from the west side of Detroit, 48228 zip code in particular. And the average salary of people around there is about $35,000 a year. If you tell me that all I got to do is honor my contract to make $4 million, sign me up yesterday. I'll be there. I'll be the first one here. last one out. I will sleep in the stadium. I will sleep in Wallace Wade every day. Just give me a little tent and a cover. So I don't think that this will be a discouraging factor, even though most kids, you know, objectively, they may have a different perspective than me because they grown up. Like NIL is what they know, right? So they may have a different perspective from that aspect. But for me, if I'm looking at a seven-figure deal being what locks me in at college football, I'm geeked up. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm. I'm, I'm. I

I think that's a great deal for me. I think that's pretty good. That's a fair way to put it. All right. So in terms of like, when we're talking winners and losers here, we look at Miami and Dary and Mentsa, right? Like on the surface, I think you could say they got everything they wanted, right? I mean, Darian Mentsa ultimately, he gets to transfer to Miami and he doesn't have to,

you know, leave his NIL rights with him at Duke, right? So he's, Miami's going to make him whole again, presumably so. and this is probably expensive for Miami, but Miami got the quarterback. Like they wanted an elite quarterback and they get it. Now, here's where at, I'm not sure why you're smirking. I'll find out in a second here. But I will say that potential loser spots for Miami and Mensa is, you know,

just reputation, like how this looks from the outside looking in. Like I see Mentsa comes off looking, you know, looking like greedy and that he's not honoring his deal. you know, you question his integrity. You know, Miami, you know, looks like on the surface, like they're tampering. So, you know, maybe from the PR standpoint, both sides can be losers. But when it comes to actually getting what they wanted, they win. Miami is the ultimate winner here because Miami knows something that the rest of the country hasn't gotten known to yet. No such thing is bad publicity.

You know, oh, oh, God, Miami. People are going to look at Miami as the bad guys now. Do y'all not remember what happened when they played Notre Dame? Oh, I don't know, about 40-some-odd years ago. Their team was dubbed the convicts. Even now we see Miami getting undue penalties that they probably don't deserve. That statistically are a little anomalous and that I watch a game and I say, I'm not sure I agree with that call.

But Miami's never had a problem being the bad guy. So if they've got to get a bad guy, The same thing that I talked about before in terms of the utility of what you gain. What is Miami's utility for dairy and minza? A healthy dairy and minza, you get a ton of utility. You get a lot of use out of an elite quarterback pairing with Fletcher and Brown and Lyle and all the offensive linemen that they got that those boys need to work at our band the way they move around furniture.

You understand? So the reality is when I look at Miami, they came out on top just for, furthering the reputation is, yeah, we're Miami. We get what we want, when we want. Say something about it. We dare you. And by the way, Miami is not a defendant in that lawsuit. Exactly. Unless Duke decides to down the road sue Miami separately, they were not involved in this lawsuit. And I talked to a sports and entertainment lawyer today on Locked on Cains.

And he was like, he thought there's a pretty good chance that Miami and Duke probably agreed as part of the settlement. that Duke isn't going to sue Miami. So I guess we'll find out if that's part of the settlement or not. But yeah, no, I agree with your take on that. Miami doesn't mind being the bad guy. But what about Mentson? Does Mentson mind being a bad guy? Now, remember how I said with Duke, the amount of money does not matter

because the utility of that money, Duke has no use for it. Darian Mentson, on the other hand, he's the wild card in terms of who won or who lost here. Because depending on what the buyout was, and what that looked like and how that impacted his salary at Miami, right? So let's say he was supposed to get $6 million. But Duke said, we're not letting you out for a dime under $3.5, right? We paid you out for you did a year's worth of work. It was two years over eight.

We extrapolate that to be four per year. We'll pay you out. Your buyout will be $3.5. And he pays them out, you know, that 3.5, but that 3.5, Miami says it's going to come out of your 6. What just happened, Donno? he just took a one and a half million dollar pay cut now if you want to talk about utility in one's life 10 million useless for due 5 million useless for due 3 million useless for due in darian mince's personal life yeah each and every one of those amounts is very useful it's very very useful

so depending on what the the numbers are which we'll probably never get to see because, again, this is Duke going out of with a private entity, and, you know, it's kind of, it gets a little health or scelter when you try to FOIA and it's not too public entities involved there. But it's what I will say is, depending on the amount, if he got out and he's still making, you know, close to what he was going to make at Duke or something along those lines, then sure, he ended up a winner.

But if he's taking a significant pay cut based on the fact that this payout comes out of what was supposed to be his Miami check, don't get me wrong. Yes, you're still going to, you know, you look at the utility of it and the utility of going to Miami. You have the opportunity to play for a national championship. You have the opportunity to vault your stock up way through the roof. You have the opportunity to do lots of great things at Miami that,

objectively speaking, that ceiling just was not there for Duke. But you're also in the space where in college football now, I mean, guys can go number one from pretty much anywhere if things break the right way. We're watching Fernando Mendoza potentially be a number one pick. After being a guy coming into the season, people say, maybe he's a second day guy, maybe a third. So ultimately, if Darien had to pay out so much that it drastically affected next year's salary, he's a loser.

But if it's like close, and by close, I mean like he's still, you know, maybe a 25% or less cut plus the opportunity and all the things that playing for Miami brings, I'd say you end up a winner. 50% that 30 to 50% or more territory, brother, I'm sorry, a bird in the hand is always betting a two in the bush. Okay. And you betting on that bird in the bush, I pray that this young man is healthy.

I pray that everything goes well for it. All it takes is one play, one tweak, one snap, one pop, all of a sudden, regardless of how well you were playing, that value looks very differently. And if you took a step back to take a step forward, but you get hurt in the process of that step back, you're objectively a loser. Yeah, that's true. He is the wild card there. Speaking of wild cards, we're going to have, I think, more weeknight games than ever in the ACC.

Is it Bush League or is it smart? I don't know, man. Part of me thinks maybe it's a little smart. You want to keep it locked right here. We're not done yet on this brand new episode of Locked on ACC. folks tax season does not have to take over your life this year turbotax is making it easier than ever to just hand things off and move on with your day with turbotax full service you can have your taxes done for you by a trusted local expert start to finish without the stress or the guest work

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with Grayson Boone on Lockedon Wolfpack. I host Locked on Cains. All right, so Kenton, I was just a little while ago I was on the phone with our good friend Smitty, Brian Smith from Lockedon Seminoles. And he was like, man, you won't believe the ACC gave Florida State three Friday night games this upcoming season. and like, oh, you know, clearly they're punishing Florida State for being five and seven and two and ten the year prior. And then I told him, hey, Brian, Miami's also got three Friday night games and a Thursday night game. And I'll look up the stats at a second how many Friday night games there are. We know this is something the ACC's been dabbling in for the last couple of years. But, okay, so part of me, Kenton feels like the Friday night thing is a little Bush League.

And I also, I hate Friday night home games for Miami because Friday night is high school football night and it limits the visitors you can bring in for recruiting. So that part of it sucks. A lot of people who come down for a long weekend don't want to do it for a Friday. But I understand why the ACC is doing this, Kenton, because, you know, if you can put some, you know, big time programs like Miami, Florida State, Clemson, et cetera, on a Friday night, you've essentially got the night to yourself when it comes to TV viewers. doing. Yeah. And you know, the interesting thing is this was something that I talked about as what the ACC needs to do to bridge the gap. They needed to monopolize every other night of the week and say, you know what? Saturdays are going to belong to the Big Ten and the SEC. But who's taking up Wednesdays? You know, I think we could beat out Maxion on the Tuesday. I think what's your thing? You know what I mean? So ultimately, I do, I don't like the fact that it's pretty much. much all Friday. Like I obviously for the sake of guys, you know, playing their games and still getting out to whatever places to visit and all that.

I would have loved to see there be more days during the week where players could, you know, still go visit and still play their high school games and all that. But I think that this is the first iteration of it and they're kind of seeing what comes to that. But again, you know, Florida State getting that many Friday night and prime time games and all that. It's a train wreck you can't help but look at it.

It's a train wreck that you just came. I remember I was in a place called Salt and Line watching Florida State Virginia last year and I just couldn't look away. Oh, that was a wild game. Oh, my gosh. The thing is, Donald, did I not say before that game, this has every element of a trap game? Florida State is in trouble. I knew what was going to happen and I still couldn't look away.

I still was like, ah, this is good. This is pure cinema, ladies and gentlemen. So ultimately, I would say, you know, it makes sense that the bigger brands with the bigger followers and those who are more successful are getting a ton of Thursday and Friday night games. Yeah, according to an ESPN article, there will be at least 19 ACC games played on Friday nights this year. It seems like they should know exactly how many by now that might be a couple days out-of-date search result, but at least 19 means the conference will average more than one game per Friday night, Kenton. So sometimes there's double headers.

We saw that. You'll do like a 7.30 game or 7 o'clock game on the East Coast, and then Cal or Stanford will host the 1030 game later on Friday night. So we're going to have at least 19 Friday night games this year with a few Thursdays sprinkled in as well. Yeah, I think that's because they're, you know, I believe I could be wrong here. I believe the ACC is trying to flex thing, where it's like, depending on how important the game is, you get moved into this slot or that slot or this day or that day,

which I don't really like because it puts too much uncertainty into these teams and coaches' schedules. But I digress. I mean, it is what it is. It's kind of the nature of the beast. I'm not going to shake my fist at the cloud saying, stop raining. Stop producing snow and ice right now, weather, you know.

So I'm not going to do it here. I just say stop trying to sabotage. these teams recruiting by when you got a home game it's like we can't get anybody to visit because they're all playing their high school games tonight i don't like that's the part of it that i don't like it's why at least thursday night you can swing that if the players play high school ball off friday night thing man it uh it hurts me a little bit well we appreciate everybody making locked on acc your first listen uh make sure to smash the like button subscribe make sure to check out the every day or club uh which we're offering great stuff locked on acc locked on wolf pack locked on

Keynes, all the other awesome shows. And we'll talk to again next time on another episode of Lockdown ACCC. We are part of the number one Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day.