Locked On ACC - Daily College Football & Basketball Podcast - REBIRTH: Syracuse Basketball set to RETURN TO GLORY with New Head Coach Gerry McNamara
Episode Date: March 24, 2026Syracuse Orange shake up the ACC as Gerry McNamara takes over as head basketball coach. Can Syracuse return to NCAA tournament contention with top-tier NIL support and rapid transfer portal moves? J...ackson Holzer and Kenton Gibbs dissect Syracuse’s bold coaching hire and explore the ACC’s shifting March Madness fortunes, spotlighting Duke as the lone survivor in the Sweet 16. Hot topics include Louisville’s revival, North Carolina’s struggles, and the ongoing debate: does the ACC lack NFL talent, or do pro scouts miss the mark? NFL draft buzz centers on Miami’s Rueben Bain and Clemson, as the hosts break down how player measurables influence draft stock and recruiting. Is the ACC undervalued, or are changing evaluation methods reshaping college sports? Don’t miss this energetic take on the conference’s future. 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! 5-Hour ENERGY Have your cake & drink it too. Birthday cake-flavor is back, no fork needed. Vanilla-y cakey flavor, caffeinated kick, and no sugar. It's party time. Order Now at https://5-hourENERGY.com or Amazon. Mazda Like our players, we’re driven by the details. Highlights make the reel. But the work behind them makes it count. The all-new Mazda CX-5. More to move every side of you. Coast Right now, Coast Pay is offering our listeners up to $2,000 credit when you get started at https://coastpay.com/LOCKEDONCOLLEGE. Term Apply. The Coast Visa®️ Commercial Credit Card is issued by Celtic Bank. All card accounts are subject to credit approval. TurboTax This year you’re getting a major upgrade — Intuit TurboTax now has in-person locations nationwide. Visit http://TurboTax.com/local to book your appointment today. Robinhood You’re no longer just a spectator. Play by play. You decide. Trade Every Play with Robinhood. Now available across the U.S. Download the Robinhood app now to begin. Futures and cleared swaps trading involves significant risk and is not appropriate for everyone. Event contracts are offered by Robinhood Derivatives, LLC., a registered futures commission merchant and swap firm. SupplyHouse Visit https://SupplyHouse.com/tm to learn more about becoming a Trade Master. Use promo code S-H Five College for 5% off your first order at https://supplyhouse.com. SupplyHouse. Real people. Real service. Indeed Listeners of this show get a $75 Sponsored Job Credit to help give your job the premium placement it deserves at http://Indeed.com/podcast Gametime Today'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. FanDuel Today's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. During the tournament FanDuel is offering$300 back in Bonus Bets every day for ten days. Visit https://FANDUEL.COMto get started — Play Your Game. 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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Discussion (0)
Syracuse has a new coach. Are they back?
You are Locked on ACC, your daily podcast on the Atlantic Coast Conference.
Part of the Locked on podcast network, your team every day.
Hello everyone, Jackson Holzer. That's Tenting Gibbs.
He's the host of Locked on Wolfpack. I'm the host of Locked on Syracuse.
This episode is brought to you by Fandul. During the tournament,
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Does the ACC lack NFL talent or does the NFL suck at evaluating?
We'll discuss later on in the show. Plus, March Madness, we were all excited.
The ACC got a bologillion teams in the tournament. But just like last year, only one ACC
team survived into the second weekend and it is the Duke Blue Devils, another disappointing
march for the conference. But we lead off the show today with Syracuse basketball and the
hiring of Jerry McNamara as its next tag coach. I have, of course, some bias because I am the host
of Locked on Syracuse. So Kenton, I'm going to turn it over to you first, okay? What are your
thoughts on Syracuse hiring GMAC as its next tech coach? I think that this was the hiring
that had to happen for all parties involved.
You know, I talked about this with Donnell yesterday where we discussed,
well, does Jerry McNamara want this job with the NIL holdups and all that around Syracuse?
And I said very simply, if you're a really, really big name school and you're about to get rid of your coach, right?
And you've got to look at somebody else, let's say two, three years from now,
you're looking at somebody else to get.
And you want to get the guy who was like, I don't want to go back to my alma mater because they don't have enough money to give me the players I need,
which means I'm avoiding a built-in excuse.
Do you really want that guy?
I don't think you do.
And then on Jerry's,
and then on the university's end,
if you don't go and do everything you can
to go get a program legend
that just coached, Ciena.
Cina.
Now, Jackson, you're familiar with the area.
So I know you know where CNA is.
But the average college sports wacko,
if I asked them,
Point out the general area of Sienna to me on a map.
Do you think they could do-
It probably wouldn't even get the state.
Exactly.
Wouldn't even get the state right, okay?
So if you are looking at that team playing five guys, five guys,
wire to wire, and taking Duke, the Blue Devils, the brotherhood,
you're taking them down to the wire with just five.
And mind you, we're not talking about five All-Americans.
We're not talking about five all-conference guys because they,
all five of their starters that played,
they weren't even all-conference guys.
And you're telling me that with five guys that are, you know,
a couple months from now,
some of them are probably going to be learning some enterprise rental car.
Some of them are probably going to be learning how to do accounting at Staples.
Some of them are probably going to be running talent acquisition at IBM or something like that.
That's what they're going to be doing.
Okay.
Those are nice careers.
Not running talent acquisitions, but doing something in talent acquisition.
But you get the point.
There's a good careers.
This is not saying that these are bad careers compared to NBA players.
It ain't no career, right?
Compared to the NBA player, you took Duke down to the wire.
This had to happen.
If either side let this opportunity slip through their fingers, there would have been
castigation to go around for everybody.
This would have been a situation where everybody said,
This is why Syracuse and Syracuse.
This is why Syracuse will never win another game.
Jerry scared of the big dance.
He scared of the big lights and all that.
He enjoyed his little moment in the sun,
and now he refuses to leave his little comfort zone.
So this had to happen for everybody.
Man, I want to run through a wall right now.
I'm ready to run through a wall.
It's true.
You know what?
Look, I've given a lot of my thoughts on Locked on Syracuse
because it was announced a few days ago that it was going to have.
happen. And here on Tuesday, March 24th, it is official that Jerry McNamara is the head coach of Syracuse.
If you are someone who is a Syracuse alum like myself, you are probably getting bombarded with
emails from the university about donating your money. Speaking of which, they are doing everything
in their power to make sure that Jerry McNamara has all the support he needs to at least get Syracuse
back in the tournament as soon as next season. We live in a new era of college basketball.
the cliche of it takes time it takes time you know Rome wasn't built in a day and all that stuff
not anymore that's just not the case anymore there are so many examples and we can go down
the line here in the ACC of teams who are bad a year before hire a coach in year one
immediately successful according to against Pete B. He is reporting along with Jeff Borzello
I should include him in there as well.
That Syracuse is committing to top third in the ACC in NIL spending.
I like the sound of that one.
Top third?
That's pretty good.
You can win with that.
That ain't bad.
But you know what?
And when I look at what you're talking about there,
we live in a DoorDash society.
We live in a microwave society.
Everything that you want is right there, right?
You don't have to wait very long for things to get better.
And, help, the Transferport Portal is proven to be the exact same thing in college sports, especially college basketball.
College football, it works like that to a certain degree, but even in college football, it takes a little bit while long, because it's the ultimate team sport for a reason.
But in basketball, one guy is 20% of your lineup.
You see what I'm saying?
Like, that's just, that's the reality of what you're looking at.
It's a very different experience, you know.
I jokingly coughed out Louisville when he said teams are terrible one year, good to next to Kenny Payne.
era as soon as it ended all of a sudden louisville's back in the national spotlight doing what
they do but it's plenty of teams right i mean you you ultimately see a situation with the transfer
portal and this unmitigated free agency where basically there is hey go find the the top guys
out of the uh out of the mid major ranks that's what college basketball is now go pluck the
top mid major guys go pluck the top guys in in the uh
Power 4 and all that are really power 6-ish in basketball that are somewhere where they're not getting a lot of playing time and make it happen.
Because that's what the strategy is.
That's what all of these coaches that have had these instant turnarounds have done.
They haven't feasted on high school recruiting.
And then in a couple of years, you're like, wow, that class that he had is turning out to be something.
No, no, no, no.
They go and I'll use my coach as an example in Will Wade.
He went out and got Texas Tech one of their top leading scores.
He went out and got Michigan State's backup point guard.
He went out and said, hey, Houston, you've got a guy on the bench over there.
He can defend a little bit.
He could shoot the three ball a little bit.
Let's see what he could do over here.
He bought some guys with him from McNee's.
So ultimately, like you said, Jackson, in the world of transfer report, NIL, people are no longer waiting.
Back in the day, it used to be in patience, sit on our hands until at least year two, two and a half, maybe even three.
Now, year one, day one.
Matt Cash show us some results, brother.
Right on, right on, because, like, yeah, I mean, not, it's honestly so recent.
Like, yeah, I don't, I can't even be like, oh, in the old days.
No, like, we're going like, I don't know, six or seven years ago.
It was, you know, unless you have these one and done hot shot high school prospects,
you're going to need to stack multiple good recruiting classes in a row in order to finally
see the effect of having the new head coach.
And, yeah, if you give them three to four years and they can't.
recruit properly and it just doesn't come together, then fine. But that was a different era.
Now it's, you got the transfer portal, you got resources. There's no cap in the amount of resources
that you're allowed. Syracuse is committing to top third in the ACC. And if you're top third
in the ACC and spending, well, that means next year, theoretically, you should be top third in
wins and losses. And if you're top third and wins and losses in the ACC, that means more
likely than not, you are going to be in the NCAA tournament come this time next season.
Jacksonals are locked on Syracuse, Tentingivs, Locked on Wolfpack.
This is Locked on ACC.
Now, coming up here on Locked on ACC, speaking of the NCAA tournament, unfortunately,
while it was a very good regular season for the conference, postseason, not so much.
We'll talk about it next on Locked on ACC.
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Jacksonals are locked on Syracuse, Tenton Gibbs,
locked on Wolfpack, this is locked on ACC.
This year, ACC basketball we thought was back.
The conference got eight teams in the NCAA.
tournament. That's good. That's good. But unfortunately, Kenton, and unfortunately for this
conference, for the second consecutive year, the Duke Blue Devils are the only team in the
conference to make it to the second weekend. So Kenton, what are your thoughts on it?
I don't have a big problem with it, and I think that people are blowing this out of proportion.
I really and truly do. I mean, ultimately, when you look at how these things are shaken out and
in what's happened over the past few years,
how am I going to sit here and say,
oh, this was such a disappointing run,
this was so terrible by the ACC,
when we're not the only conference
to have a similar set of circumstances
where our team showed up and kind of flopped.
Our team showed up and didn't do a ton.
Like, we're not the only conference to see this.
And so it's just like everything else that happens with the ACC.
Everybody else in the power four,
their ice is colder.
Their jokes are,
funnier. Their food tastes a little bit better, even though it's made with the exact same
seasonings. This was a very good year in terms of regular season for the ACC. Bad year in terms
of tournament play, but I'm not going to sit here and say, oh, man, we've never seen the tournament
be this bad. And, you know, we've, we've always seen better from all these things. That's not
reality. That objectively is not reality. How many times have we looked up and said, wait a minute,
where is Big Ten representation in the Sweet 16?
If you don't believe me, look up 2024.
See how many of their teams advance to the Sweet 16 or beyond.
But nobody was screaming.
Big Ten basketball is over.
It's over.
Izzo's lost his touch.
Michigan's got no coach.
Ohio State's a football school.
Indiana.
What the hell is happening?
I think they're still asking that at Indiana right now.
Well, yes, they're not at Indiana.
That's fair.
That's fair.
but all of those other things, it wasn't the case.
So to sit here and say the ACC had a bad year,
this is the prime example of the downside of living in that popcorn and DoorDash reality
that I was talking about earlier because it's not just that results have to be instantaneous.
They have to be instantaneous and every year.
The ACC has, by and large, historically, even during the Transfer Portal era,
outperformed what they were supposed to do in terms of representation in the Sweet 16 and Elite and all that.
to a very high degree, to a very, very high degree.
But now all of a sudden, one bad year makes us the worst squad ever.
But how many of our teams made it to the elite eight in 2024?
What are we doing here?
I'm with you on this.
I don't think it takes away much from the ACC.
I think it's disappointing that there's not a lot of representation at this point,
that it's only Duke.
I think that's fair to say.
It's disappointing.
You want more ACC teams in the Sweet 16, the Elite 8 Final 4.
You get the idea.
Of course.
But does it really take away from what the ACC did as a conference this season in basketball?
No, I don't think so.
I think you outlined it perfectly with the Big Ten in all those years,
how they would get a bunch of teams in the tournament,
and then they would all spontaneously flop.
And the other point that I want to hit on is,
okay, how many teams in the ACC that were in the tournament
legitimately underperformed relative to what their seed was?
Who under perform?
I mean, Louisville lost to Michigan State.
It was a three-six game.
Virginia lost in the three-sixth game to Tennessee, which, by the way,
they were favored.
I know, that's what I was going to say.
Tennessee was favored in that game because you know what Vegas does?
They don't look at the seeds.
They look at the teams.
And they said that Tennessee is the better team.
And guess what?
The six beat the three.
The three just happened to be the underdog.
In this case, it was Virginia.
I would say the only team.
that really underperformed relative to their seed.
And you can take the whole season macro with whatever all of these teams and whether they
underperformed or not.
But relative to their seed, the team that underperformed was North Carolina.
Of course.
That's the team that you look at and say,
yeah, that's the black mark on the conference this year because they had a 19 point lead
on VCU.
I don't want to hear about how Caleb Wilson was injured.
He had a 19 point lead.
You are still a better team than VCU,
even without Caleb Wilson.
on paper, and you blew it.
Which, by the way, at the time of this recording,
what's going on Hubert Davis?
I believe he's on Indeed right now, right?
Is he?
Is he on, is he?
I'm not sure.
Is he anything out?
Nobody said anything about Hubert and what he's got going on,
but I heard that he's out, you know?
I've heard that there's a whole lot of player meetings and whatnot going on.
So I'm not saying that I know,
But no, I'm just joking.
There's no official word on it.
It's just been up in the air and a lot of feet dragging to see who they could get.
But you're right.
It is a mess over there in Chapel Hill.
It's very unfortunate times.
I hate to see it.
But more than that, I love to see it.
I think I can already guess what you're thinking about right now with North Carolina.
I think you're praying right now that they bring him back.
They need to extend them.
Oh, they already did.
They did it last year.
Remember the extension kicked in last year because they won a certain?
amount of games.
Double up that extendo.
Put another extender on there, okay?
Make sure put the big drum on that thing because we need another extension
in.
No, but seriously, I think I wholeheartedly agree with you, you know?
Miami won a true road game in the NCAA tournament, people.
Oh, boy, they didn't get to the Sweet 16.
Yeah, they lost to Purdue.
Yeah, Purdue.
It's better.
We have to do it.
Exactly.
Oh, NC State lost to Texas.
And what's Texas doing right now,
everybody.
They're at 16.
Oh, they still
they still cutting the rug.
They're still in the chat,
cha, chow. That's what they still doing.
You know,
SMU lost to Miami Ohio team
that had one loss all year
before they put.
What I would say about
SMU was I think
SMU could play a little bit of the injury
card, not having BJ Edwards,
but I still think that's a little disappointing
that they couldn't beat Miami, Ohio.
But here's my thing.
Especially with how Miami Ohio did
when they got,
to the round of 64, and they got absolutely manhandle.
But here's my thing.
They lost a game to a team that had winning habits.
They didn't lose to some team that had 16 losses that you were like,
oh, yeah, they barely scraped in by the hairs and they chinny chin to it.
They lost to a team that was one of the best stories in college basketball all year.
I'm okay with that loss.
Should they have won that game?
If they were fully healthy, who knows how that game goes?
But they lost to one of the best stories in college basketball this year.
I'm fine.
that. Plus, they were kind of fading down the stretch anyway. They were not the same team in the last
few weeks of the year, like they had been for most of the season to the point where there was a reason
why they were playing in that first four game. A few weeks earlier, they were a safe bet into the tournament.
They still got in, but it was more of a team overall that just faded and it, it coincided with
you lost to Miami, Ohio in the first four. And yeah, Miami, Ohio. I mean, obviously they had a great year with
only losing one game up until the NCAA tournament,
but I still think for SMU,
you probably should have won that game.
Yeah, you had an injury to BJ Edwards.
I understand that it's a big one.
They were just,
but if that's like your second worst one,
it's not a big deal.
If Duke lost to Sienna,
that would have been a problem.
That would have made me excited
about Jerry McNamara and all that.
That would have been a problem
if they had lost to Sienna.
That game was looking real dicey.
It would look real dicey for a lot of it.
But the reality is, again, I don't like this castigation of the ACC.
When if you go back just two calendar years, three out of eight teams in the elite eight were right here.
And everybody said, oh, we're so bad.
We've got nobody in.
Oh, nobody got in.
And everybody that got in was kicking backs in, was kicking backs clean in.
And all of a sudden, now that it's one bad year, nobody said the ACC of the Kings of Basketball again.
when we saw an all-ACC matchup in the elite eight and Clemson make the elite.
That wasn't, oh, yeah, the ACC's the Kings again.
It was, oh, well, good for them.
Good story.
NC State, all these games running the day.
Oh, yeah, Duke.
Look at them.
Oh, yeah, Clemson.
Brownell finally done choking away.
To me, I look at this and I say, you've got to be consistent here.
And if you're going to be consistent, if the ACC continues on a consistent path,
low performance in the tournament, I'm willing to hear you out.
but historically even since NIL, the ACC has whooped tail.
They've been whooping feet every time they get in the NCAA tournament.
The one time they don't wear terrible, stop that nonsense.
Overall, I think that this year was significantly better than it was last year,
and we're just hoping that you could put it all together for next season of ACC basketball.
Have a great regular season, great non-con, and then put it all together come the NCAA tournament.
Jacksonals are locked on Syracuse, Tenton Gibbs, locked on AC.
When we come back, we go from the hardwood to the field.
We talk about the ACC and the lack of NFL prospects in this year's draft cycle.
But is it a product of the ACC or does the NFL suck at evaluating?
We'll talk about it next on locked on ACC.
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the action. The ACC lacks NFL prospects or does the league have an issue in talent evaluation?
Right now, when you look at all the mock drafts out there, it seems like the only guys that are
going high in the draft are either from Miami, which makes sense. Miami was just in the national
championship. They have some talented players. Maybe the New York Jets, my favorite team will take Ruben
Bain at two. We'll see. And Clemson, which is odd because Clemson barely.
made a bowl last season. So Kenton, I'm going to turn it over to you. Do you think the ACC
lacks NFL talent, or do you think it's more of a product of the NFL not being good in
their evaluations? Let me ask you a question, Jackson. I'm going to answer your question with
a question. At any level, at any level of football, does Anthony Richardson have a winning
record as a starter or a touchdown to an interception ratio of three to one or better at any
level, including high school, any level.
I think you asked that question because the answer is no.
It's a resounding no. It's a resounding no.
Not even at high school?
No, his high school stats were worse than his college stats.
That's the crazy part about Anthony Richardson.
And so I say all that to say, and this is not to disrespect Anthony Richardson.
This ain't an Anthony Richardson callout moment.
This is a, how was he projected to go in the first round by everybody?
And that was his results.
Jackson, you saw what I saw when you watched them play.
Did you not?
Anthony Richardson?
Yes.
I saw a guy who was a product of Josh Allen.
The Josh Allen, home run, like, like Grand Slam project quarterback that just happened to develop.
Took a few years.
But I think Josh Allen got a lot of guys drafted and Anthony Richardson was the one who benefited the most.
But you knew what I knew.
in terms of this young man cannot hit a swing route.
It's like throwing a baby in to solve rocket science.
He can't do it.
He just cannot do it, right?
And yet, every mock draft said he was going in the top 10.
He ends up going in the top 10.
I'm not about to sit up here and play with people
and act like the NFL is decent at this.
People are talking about now the conversation is,
Fernando Mendoza versus
Ty Simpson. And people
who get paid a lot more than me and Jackson
to talk about sports have said
these words verbatim.
What big games has
Fernando Mendoza
Heisman winner and national champion
Fernando Mendoza played in?
To excuse Ty Simpson
being better than him. Now folks, I know
what you're thinking. Didn't
Alabama and Indiana play
in the playoffs? And
didn't Indiana win that game 38-0, you would be correct.
Or 386, something like that, you would be correct.
You would be very correct.
So, and then it's not just talking heads.
The talking heads, other talking heads are saying,
I've spoken to many GMs who agree with this sentiment.
So ultimately, I'm not too concerned with what NFL GMs have to say about who's the top
talent and whatnot.
because when you give ACC guys a shot,
they're going to be there every time, every time.
And ACC guys are having to do all this ridiculously high-level hard work
that guys from other conferences don't.
But when you give them the chance,
they're going to show up and show out every single time.
I agree to some extent.
So I think when it comes to quarterbacks,
there is clearly an evaluation problem.
it is clear as day that the league just can't evaluate.
There are way too many guys that go early in drafts and they just don't figure it out.
And too often, I feel like we blame the team and not the fact that the quarterback was just
not good at all because it's very rare.
You have a Sam Darnold situation where you know,
you bounce around a few teams and eventually it just clicks at one place and it clicks
at another.
That's incredibly rare.
Usually that's not the case.
there's just a problem with evaluating quarterbacks right now.
With every other position group, I think the way it works is these GMs and these talent
evaluators, they're not really evaluating the talent.
Sure, the talent matters, but they're not looking really at production.
They're not looking at how many yards you had.
They don't care.
What they're looking at is how tall is he?
How much does he weigh?
What are his hand size?
How are his hips?
Can he move?
What is his injury?
history look like because that's obviously very, very important. If you have a long injury history,
if you have some sort of issue that's going to plague you for your career, you're going to slip in
drafts. They don't want those nagging injuries. Right. And that's ultimately how they make their
evaluations. And so why does the ACC not have as many guys at the top? It's because the ACC might not
have as many guys that fit the measurables to be NFL players. It might not be that there's a talent problem.
it might just be that they don't fit those measurables and it causes them to drop in the draft.
You look at NFL mock drafts right now.
You look at Ruben Bain.
I mean, he was phenomenal in college.
I don't know where Ruben Bain's going to go on draft day.
I mean, I'm assuming he's going to go in the top 10.
I think he'll go top 10.
But what's the concern about him?
It's not nothing to do with his ability.
It's his arm size.
Or his arms big enough to be at the next level.
So that's what we're talking about here with the NFL.
It's just the way they.
evaluate these players is completely different than how we look at these players. Yeah. And it's it's to me,
I think the reason I talk about the NFL's lack of ability to evaluate, it starts with the quarterback
position for me because the quarterback position is the most important position in football. It's like
if you tell me, hey, this is the most important function of any business, regardless of what sector you're
in, this function matters more than any other. And everybody has changed the rules to,
make sure that this function is successful.
And if I saw a bunch of companies continuously getting this wrong,
if I saw a JJ McCarthy equivalent be taken very highly and invested in a meaningful way,
I would sit here and say, brother, I kid you not.
When JJ McCarthy got drafted by the Vikings,
I said the Vikings couldn't have made a better pick.
What a pick for them.
I love this for them.
I think that he should be their guy forever because I knew what he was.
as a Detroiter, as a guy who grew up in the area that he played his college ball at
and knows what he is, is not.
I said, oh, what?
And again, I'm not making millions to do this.
I'm not making millions to do this.
Maybe you should.
I wish.
I wish I got paid.
Listen, if I got paid hundreds of thousands to do this,
y'all would never see me.
I'm deleting my recruiting LinkedIn tomorrow.
That people ops and HR LinkedIn is getting deleted because I would just do this for a living.
but it's some of those things that just are very clear.
And then the other thing, the ACC doesn't get loved in terms of the draft.
And yet, when all pro consideration starts up,
when they start talking about who are the best guys in terms of the players
that are making it happen on the field, the ACC is all over the place.
So to me, I could really care less.
I could really care less, to be honest, if you're talking about,
oh, man, you know, we're such a.
a bad conference by the drive. Yeah, well, who's producing?
Who's producing? When you get to the NFL, who's producing? Because I see a whole lot of
ACC on that all pro first team. No, you're not wrong. But I think that where it hurts a little bit
is in recruiting. Of course. If you can, and look, it's great if you can tout that, hey,
when our players get to the league, they do really well. Yeah. But these college,
is they're just thinking about getting there because that's the hardest part.
I don't know, actually, if that's the hardest part.
But it's incredibly hard to get to the NFL.
Only 2% of these high division one, high major football players are going to make it to the NFL.
And the average career in the NFL is about three years.
So I don't know which is harder to stay in the league or it's make it to the league.
But it's easier to sell someone when you're recruiting someone out of high story or recruiting
someone in the portal, hey, I can give you a better chance of getting to the league,
then, hey, if you get to the league, you will do better. So it does kind of hurt the ACC
in that regard. If you can't have players consistently go high in the draft, it's not just a
conference thing. It's a literal, every school and no matter what conference thing, if you can send
guys to the league, no matter what their success is or their failure is, you're going to be fine
as a program because all these kids want to do, aside from obviously make money in college,
is get to the league because that is very, very hard. Kenton, any last thoughts?
I mean, listen, I agree with you. I agree that it hurts you in recruiting. I agree that these schools
to say, hey, we've had X amount of first rounders or X amount of years consecutively with a
first rounder. But at the end of the day, you know, I've seen guys that I watched the tape.
I saw them and I said, what are they seen? Even, and I know quarterback is the example we use the most,
But there was a defensive lineman that Jackson and I were talking about before we even started this show up that I said that guy's horrible.
I do not in what world do you draft?
He was in this exact same high school class as me actually.
His name is Robert N.
Cruditschia.
And I watched him play and I said there's no way he's supposed to be going in the first round.
And now he's in Winnipeg.
So, you know, I mean, I believe he's with the Winnipeg Jets?
I believe so.
Is that their football team then?
No, that's their hockey team.
Yeah, he's in Winnipeg now.
It's the Blue Bombers, right?
That's their following.
I have no idea.
I don't follow the CFL.
Either way you cut it or slice it.
The man is somewhere singing,
Oh, Canada, oh, Canada, before every game.
So, you know, it clearly is not a situation where the young man panned out,
but it was, he was super highly tired in high school,
wasn't majorly productive in college,
but somebody was going to convince themselves.
And I knew it when the draft came around.
I said, somebody's going to do it.
somebody's going to trick themselves and believe in it.
So ultimately, Jackson, I agree with you.
It's wonderful for recruiting.
It's wonderful to say we produced X amount of first robbers and all that.
But the reality is these guys in terms of how they're picking players,
it's rough to say the least in my opinion.
All right, folks, well said by Kenton.
Thank you all so much for watching.
Thank you all so much for listening to this edition of Locked-on ACC.
be sure to hit that like button hey really enjoy locked on acc be sure to hit subscribe to all your
friends alex dono should be back very very soon thank you all so much for watching we will see you
all again soon
