Locked On ACC - Daily College Football & Basketball Podcast - REBUILD: Can Virginia Tech RISE Under James Franklin in Year 1 and Shift the ACC Power Balance?

Episode Date: August 6, 2026

ACC football’s new coaching era kicks off with high expectations—can James Franklin reclaim Virginia Tech glory, or will Tosh Lupoi and Cal make the biggest splash in year one? Julian Council and Kenton Gibbs break down which first-year ACC head coach is most likely to deliver immediate results, debating quarterback talent, elite recruiting classes, and the unique challenges ahead for Virginia Tech, Cal, and Stanford. Key topics include James Franklin’s track record with Penn State quarterbacks, Lupoi’s portal dominance and Cal’s major roster overhaul, and Tavita Pritchard’s vision for rebuilding Stanford’s toughness. The hosts analyze tough schedules, pivotal ACC matchups, and which program is poised for the fastest turnaround. Don’t miss this candid conversation about which new ACC leader could shape the conference’s future. Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! KALSHI For a limited time, Download the Kalshi app and use code [LOCKEDON] to get up to $500 in bonus credits when you trade $25. The Game Don't miss this chance to celebrate 40 years of The Game with 40% off your entire order. Visit https://TheGameCaps.com and use promo code LOCKEDON at checkout. 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 LOCKEDON for $20 off your first purchase. Terms and conditions apply. FanDuel Today's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Join all the action at https://FANDUEL.COM to play Daily Dingers and make your free pick on who’s hitting a homer this MLB season. 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.

Which first year ACC coach is going to have the best debut season? We'll tell you right here on Locked On ACC. You are Locked on ACC, your daily podcast on the Atlantic Coast Conference. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. Welcome in to another edition of the Locked on ACC podcast. I'm Julian Counsel, and he is former NC State Football Letterman, Kenton Gibbs. And today's episode of Locked on ACC is brought to you. by Game Time, download the GameTime app, create an account, and use code locked on for $20 off

your first purchase. We're continuing to count down the days to football season only for Saturdays because no game this Saturday, no game next Saturday. After that, we're almost there to NC State, Virginia, kicking off not in Brazil, but instead in Charlottesville and the North Carolina heading to Ireland. What's Bill Belichick and Co. got to do in year two to turn things around Florida State also going to be plans. We're going to have Stanford playing.

So a couple of ACC games that are going to be there week zero, only a few weeks away from that. But today I want to focus on the first year head coaches entering the league. We have three of them. James Franklin at Virginia Tech, Tos Lpoix at Cal and Tevita Pritchard at Stanford, LaPoy and Pritchard both back at their alma maters. And looking back at last season, only two. Jake Dicker at Wake Forest went nine and four, which was surprised to everybody. And then Bill Belichick had North Carolina, went four and eight, which was,

not great and surprised to maybe some but most it was not a good year and we can talk about that another time. But I want to go over and look at all three of these guys, Kitten, and kind of just go through what they've done so far this offseason, expectation for the teams and try to figure out who's going to have the best season this upcoming year. Let's start off with James Franklin, who clearly was the higher of the offseason in the ACC. Yeah, absolutely. And there is not an argument about that. You know, we've had Zach Seiko of Locked on N. Indy lines on multiple times talking about who won the breakup and all that type of stuff. And my biggest thing for Penn State is how do you even win the breakup without national championship?

That's the biggest thing to me. Because if you get a head coach that consistently gets you 10 wins a year but can't win the big games, that's what James Franklin was. Well, if you get a coach that gives you a spike year of 12 and 0 and then he loses in the national championship, whatever the case may be. But other than that, other than that one 12 and 0 year, you could regress to an average of 9 and 3, 8, and 4. You lost ground. You objectively lost ground. So, you know, that was a situation with that relationship kind of soured, and it made sense. But I'm telling you, a lot of people, and including myself, very high on James Franklin,

my only problem is you need to get you a better quarterback. You needed to get you a better quarterback. If I'm going to believe in you in year one the way that some of these national pundits are, I need to see either you've got superstars all over the place or you've got a quarterback that's just going, hey, guys, don't worry about it, I got us. I don't think you're not a fan of Gruncomeyer, huh? Absolutely not. Absolutely not.

I mean, that's pretty like, nah, man, I'll see it happening. But it's not just not being a fan of Grunkumeyer. The biggest gripe about James Franklin, I will say legitimate, because that winning big games thing, I don't think that's legitimate. I'm honestly and truly, how many coaches beat top 10 teams on regular? That's the thing too, Ken, because I'm glad you said that, and I'll let you continue your point at Grunk of a moment, but his greatest sin at Penn State was not being better than Ohio State,

not being better in certain seasons than Michigan. Like, again, how many coaches are going to win those top five, top 10 games? And the one year where he did win the Big Ten, they don't make the playoff. And instead they put an Ohio State team who didn't even win the Big Ten West or East, whatever is, didn't even put them into, they get in over Penn State. So that's right to me is a little crazy.

And go on. Tell me why you're not. But now, now the biggest sin outside of the big games was what with James Franklin? What was the biggest gripe of Penn State fans? Was it development of quarterback? Development of quarterbacks. Julian, Julian, you know your stuff. You know your ball.

I absolutely look at James Franklin's quarterback development as the only thing where I say, y'all could get a lot better there right away. You get a lot better in quarterback development overnight. Because what we saw out of every quarterback name, Trace McSorley, was at best they stayed the same guy all four years. Sometimes those guys fell off a cliff. And it's just like, well, what the hell was happening there? So it's not just that I don't believe in Grunkelmire from a talent standpoint.

Okay, it's not just that. It's that I also combine my lack of belief in his overall just ability to get it done with the fact that James Franklin, when it comes to developing quarterbacks, I mean, if you were in a, you know, refused to develop quarterback competition and James Franklin walks in, go ahead and compete for who's second. Okay, the old Larry Berg quote of, all right, boys, who's going to get second in this three-point shootout? That's exactly what James Franklin would say, because he has a longstanding track record of having quarterbacks be just man and surround them with really great teams. And that me with great teams probably can work at the ACC level.

They're right now, yes, they're still going to be Miami. They appear to be, and they haven't done it yet. in their years in the league, the decades in league, they have yet to win the ACC. We talked about that the other day, but they appear to be kind of that boogeyman, that team that everyone's got to get over top of this year and maybe even moving forward if you believe in things like recruiting rankings and the amount of money that they got down there in Coral Gable. So you don't have the Ohio State, the Michigan, the Oregon now, even if USC figures it out under Lincoln Riley, you don't have that type of level of competition week in, week out now

in the ACC. Now the hope is that Clemson bounces back, that Florida State probably under a new head coach bounces back. Maybe North Carolina, if they ever figured out, they'd do it. NC State continues, whether it's Outwunder Day, where they bring somebody else in, they continue to be at the level they've been in, but you need Virginia Tech to be back to what they were.

And if you look at the Hokies, man, it's been since 2016, since they had a 10-1 season, year one of Justin Fuente. ACC coach of the year, Justin Fuente. Yes, ACC coach of the year, Justin Fuente, had Gerard Evans, they gave Clemson, We look at all the ACC title games that Clemson's been in. That's the only one that's even been close when they had to play down in Orlando.

So you look at that. It's been, that was 10 years ago. And you think about this team when they came into the league from the Big East, from 2004 to 2011, they had eight straight 10 win seasons. Unlike Miami, Virginia Tech held up their end of the bargain when they entered this league. We've yet to get that for Miami. I guess we got it last year. But as far as winning the league, they have not done it.

The Hokies have done it multiple times. And now I think they have the head coach who can bring them back to where they should have been. Now, they had to figure some things out post-Frank Beamer. They were run like a mom and pop shot. Fuente wasn't really going out there recruiting Virginia recruits. And you look at the state of Virginia, who's done a better job recruiting state of Virginia over the last decade than James Franklin? Maybe Mack Brown for a period of time in Chapel Hill. But as far as what those Virginia guys did in Chapel Hill to what the Virginia guys did in Penn State, it's night and day.

So I look at it. James right now, 247 has them with the. a number 15 class in the country. Granted, only five guys from Virginia. It's only a matter of time until he has this thing back in Humman. And it's not like he's going to have to always beat these top five, top 10 teams, even get to the ACC championship game, let alone maybe the college football playoff.

Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree with you. And the recruiting aspect of it is what we knew James Franklin to be. That was the proven commodity. The beauty of getting a guy like James Franklin, you know what his deficits are. know what he's really good at. There is no surprise there. You're not sitting up here saying, well, yeah, he was a good recruiter as a coordinator. Yeah, he got guys to come to school, X, Y, and Z that was already a huge name as a coordinator, but can he do it as a head coach?

He is a very proven commodity. The only problem with being such a proven commodity with such a large sample size on you is people have seen where your chin is a little soft. People have seen, oh, he's really, really bad if you close the dis. You know, it's just to say what it is that he's good at, we know. We knew being in the hotbed of where he likes to recruit. Oh, we knew he was going to be that Virginia side, that Newport dudes, all that. You know, he was going to be the guy. He was the D.C. area, he was going to be the guy.

DMV. He was going to be the guy. There's no events or much about that. And so him recruiting at the level that he is, not a surprise to any person. body. My only concern outside of the quarterback development, of course, in year one, their schedule is tough. That thing is when you think about an ACC schedule, you look at all the teams that were predicted to finish top five in the conference bottom media. I believe they have four or five, if not all five. Yeah. And I'll read it out to you right now. So their first

ACC games at Boston College, I don't think either one of us is high on BC. We talked about them yesterday talking about the hot seat and Bill O'Brien apparently been up there. They have Pitt at home. Pit think it could be solid this year at Cal. We'll talk about them momentarily. Georgia Tech, interesting to see what they do after that big season last year, no longer having Haynes King. They're at Clemson, at SMU. Both will be tough at Miami. They have home against Stanford, home against Virginia. So yeah, there's going to be, you can very easily look at Miami as a loss. You can look at SMU as a loss. And I know how high you're on them. I think SMU is pretty solid too. And in Clemson, certainly a lot of questions there with the Tigers. That could be a loss. At Cal could be a loss.

and even at home, potentially against Peter Georgia Tech. So, yeah, it's not the easiest ACC schedule. And that's the thing with this conference. And really a lot of conferences nowadays. SEC, tough schedule no matter who you are. Big Ten, I think still half the league has an easy schedule. Half the league has a tough schedule, just with too many damn teams in these leagues.

It depends really on the break that you get. And, yeah, I agree. It's pretty difficult. And two, when you look at what he brought over from Penn State, he brought 12 guys from his Penn State team, Now, if you look at the 12, only four of them really, not even four, three. Grunkomeyer, Keon Wiley, the linebacker, Luke Reynolds, the tied in. They're the only three that really played of those 12 guys.

And of the 12, I think those other nine are still going to have to really develop. Now, they do have key holdovers like Marcellus Hawkins back at running back, aiding green at wide receiver, Camari Copeland's the big one on the defensive line, Caleb Spencer at linebacker, then Isaiah Brown Murray, who was really good for them last year after transferring over from ECU. So they have the talent. It's just going to come down to development and a little bit of patience because they have the recruiting that's coming in. I don't really see it from him this year.

They can go seven and five, especially with that schedule. Maybe get to eight and four. You feel really good about what they potentially could do next season, especially if they decide to get into the portal more than really James did when he's back at Penn State. Yeah, absolutely. And they would have to get into the portal more because I don't, this is not, this is no longer the old college football where you just, oh, we got a new coach. We got to wait till, you know, everybody wants oxtails in hot dog timing now.

Anybody who knows anything about oxtails, no, it takes a while to cook them, okay? At minimum, you're looking at a couple hours to cook them the right way. But everybody wants it in hot dog timing now because that's just what the portal is done. The portal told everybody, oh, well, Indiana's been terrible for forever and sick out there. And then year one, they're in the playoffs. And then year two, they won the national championship. That's the new expectation. if you give Franklin time,

I believe that Virginia Tech will be back to where they were in no time. And I'm going to tell you, it takes a certain type of person to be happy and Happy Valley for as long as he was. So the idea of him being in Blacksburg, that won't be a problem at all. Because you're closer to civilization in Blacksburg than you are in Happy Valley by a mile.

And I'll also say this too. He had to fight the paterno click of all those folks who wanted to have Joe Paz still be a part of that legacy, which he'll always, be a part of it, but they wanted to still be ever present. That was not what James Franklin wanted to do. He had to fight that. Now with what's happened with Brent Pry, who's still here, by the way, guys, didn't have to move out of his house. He's going to be in the D.C. now, which is crazy. And with Fuente, they've already dealt with the post-Beamer and what's happened

with that. They're going to allow James to be the man who calls all the shots and they're not going to give him that pressure, and they're also desperate and are going to be way more willing to allow him to do what he has to do. So let me ask just before we go to break. Is he going have the best year of the first year coaches or is it going to be LaPoy or potentially Pritchard? Oh, it's going to be LaPoy and I'll tell you why right after this break. There are more live events than ever worth seeing right now. Games, concerts, comedy shows, festivals. The hard part usually isn't deciding what you want to attend. It's actually getting the tickets between long wait times, confusing checkout processes and surprise fees.

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for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply again, create an account and redeem code, LOC, K, E-D-O-N for $20 off. Download the game time app today. Back here on Locked-on ACC, trying to figure out which first year ACC coach is going to have the best debut season here in 2026. Just talked about Virginia Tech's James Franklin. I'm going to get into Tosha Poe here in a moment and Tavita Pritchard later on today's show. I asked Kittin before the break who we thought was going to have the best year and whether it was going to be James Franklin.

He told me, no, it's not James Franklin. Instead, it's Tosh Lepoy back at his alma. most people would say James Franklin. I wouldn't. You're not. Tell me why. You, first of all, the conversation begins in the Andrew quarterback. Obviously, J.K.S.

Your Uncle Meyer, two totally different levels. But let's get into the in-between of quarterback, because a lot of people will say, oh, can your analysis is lazy? It depends too much on the quarterback. So let's get into the stuff outside of the quarterback, right? They say, that's me. Muhammad, the running back for Cal,

he is a load. This young man was sharing the backfield. I watched it with an NFL guy. I was like, hey, I need more touches, man. I need more touches. And guess what? His play absolutely justified it. You're talking about a power back that average five yards a carry last year.

And you mean to tell me that I'm supposed to believe that they're going to get worse? One of Kyle's biggest problems last year was the inability to convert those in short situations. Third and short, fourth and short, fourth and one, fourth and two, third and two. It was a big problem for them because they didn't have that big old, that massive, amount of running back that was just going to fall forward for you. That was just going to get you those two yards. And so they had to figure out ways to scheme that up and draw that up and kind of make something happen there.

They've absolutely addressed that in a very, very meaningful way. Beyond that, Cal has gotten the type of investment. Cal is another school now. I know it seems like everywhere has gotten this new investment of what's going to make them great. But Cal has not only gotten the investment from alums and all that good stuff, folks are putting their money where their mouth is in terms of their time and energy, not just their actual money where you can write a check and never look at that money again, right?

You are looking at one of the best GMs in college football in Ramo Verr, and I very genuinely believe that. I believe the way that this cowr roster has been constructed for years has been for what they are, for where they are, for the things that they are up against. For him to construct rosters like he has, I think he's done a good job. You combine that with that little bit of LaPoy match. the ability to recruit at such a high level. I would not be shocked if Tosh LaPoy had the best year to three.

I expect him to have the best year of the three. The only thing is I wouldn't be shocked if James Franklin beat him out simply because James Franklin has been a head coach before. He knows the ends and outs of the on-field coaching situations that LaPoy may fall short in. Both of them have fairly difficult schedules. But again, I believe that Cal meaningfully addressed needs in the portal in a way that Virginia Tech did not.

And with that, I'm going to give them not to cap. Yeah, and I'm going to as well. And like, that's a good point you bring up to about potentially Franklin being above La Poy because he has the experience over a decade of being a head coach at Penn State. And at Vanderbilt, too, pre-NIL.

He won at Vandy before you could play dudes like Diego Pavia like they're able to do last year in a Clark League, which is still just phenomenal job that he's done down there on the West End in Nashville. But I'm all in on Tosha Poe. and Cal he talked about at ACC kickoff, how he flew to Hawaii to meet with JKS there at 1 a.m. They spoke until 4 o'clock. And it's all well and good to talk to a kid who was committed to Cal originally, then flipped to Oregon,

then said, actually, I don't want to be here. I'm not happy here. And then went to Cal got the opportunity to play because he wasn't going to play ahead of Dante Moore. He may be the guy even next year. He wouldn't have played this year because Dante Moore stayed there up in Eugene. But he obviously balled out last year. But if he's going to come back to be your quarterback, you've got to put. put weapons around them.

So the first thing I love about Tasha Boy having success this year is, of course, JKS. Second thing is what you brought up, they brought in weapons. Adam Muhammad, who you mentioned played behind Jonah Coleman last year at Washington. Every time he got an opportunity, he was electric, the five yards per carry last season. And it's not just a running game because they did lose Kendrick Raphael, but then they add in Ian Strong, the receiver from Rutgers. They're bringing Chase Hendricks from Ohio. They're bringing Cooper Perry from Oregon, who was a top 100 guy, and Mason

Minnie's back at tight-in. they brought in Tori and Thomas, Dorian Thomas, that is, from New Mexico. And offensive line-wise, there's questions that tackle as you're losing those top-four snap guys from a year ago, but they do have their interior back. And the third thing I like is, you talk about the recruiting with Tasha Poe. He's brought in a lot of guys, especially defensively, who were blue chippers at their previous stops at a high school, who maybe have not had that much success or not that much playing time. They bring in guys like Solomon Williams from A&M and Emmanuel Coye from Tennessee.

Big old Jericho Johnson is going to hold it down at noseguard for them. comes from Oregon. All three of their linebacker transfers are from A&M, Oregon and USC. I love what they've done as far as the talent that they brought in via the portal offensively, just what they already retained with JKS. I think they can get it done. I'm very excited to see what they do against UCLA in week one. And I think that's a Saturday.

I think, yeah, I'm excited to see how the team goes. And they're like, yeah, schedule at Syracuse. They could be a bounce back team if it ends up being Angel, and Jellie, which I think will be the case. if he's healthy. I mean, Clemson at home. That could be a gut check game on a Friday night there in Berkeley for Davo. They get the Hokies at home.

They get wake at home. Those feel like games that they certainly should be favored in. And then got to go to SMU. That will be tough. Got to go to Raleigh. That's always difficult. Got to go to Virginia. Like that stretch where it's three straight cross-country trips with a bi-week

after SMU and NC State game. That stretch where you talk about depth. Do they have the depth late in the season to be able to win those games against I think are pretty talented teams in SMU, in SMU, NC State and Virginia before closing out at home against Stamford and Pitt. Do you want to talk about recruiting and what Toslapoy did, not just in retention of JKS and some of the guys on the roster, but who he bought back or who he bought out of the portal?

14th best portal class in America. 14th best portal class in the entire nation. Let's take it a step further. You talked about James Franklin and his current high school recruiting and how, hey, he's at his hotbed. He's in the area now that he crushes it on the recruiting trail. Well, guess what? You sent to California boy back to California.

You sent to Dela Saldrad. You sent to Calrad back to Berkeley. And how's he doing? How far behind Franklin is he? Franklin is 15th or 14th. Where is Kyle at not? 21. So this is not a situation where if you are looking at what Tosh LaPoy has done so far,

just in the portal and on the. recruiting trail. He has been, and I'm not joking when I say this, light years better than most people expect it. Most people expect them to be a good recruiter, not coming in and saying, hey, by the way, we're going to have some of the best recruiting class on the West Coast. How about it? How about it? We're going to be up there with your organs and USC's of the world. We're going to UCLA, what's that? Ew, yuck. That's the type of dealing that Cal is doing right now on the recruiting trail. So again, if we're talking year one right now the job he did in the portal fantastic good enough to get you there the question is the on the field coach can he do the little situational stuff so that he doesn't have

those mario crystal ballesk blunders right so that he doesn't have those hey brother you you could have just nailed it out blunders so he doesn't have that hey dude your operations if you're going run that play you got to have your field go team hot you got to have all 11 standing on that mat and ready to roll so they know i'll operationally that next step regardless of what happens. Get your ass out there, get your tail out there and get ready and get that thing. It's one of those things where, you know, you're, that's the question for LaPoy. That is a big question. That is a big question because everybody talked about his recruiting ability coming in. So we're seeing that. We're seeing that be great. We just

need to see what he's going to be on the field. But I'm going to tell you, I believe in him. I believe in them a lot. I believe in him a lot of recruiting battles out in the West Coast. Dan Lannning and Oregon and obviously not going anywhere with Phil Knight's money behind them. And even whenever Phil's gone, that money is still going to be there for Oregon. And then Cal now's in at USC at UCLA, Bob Chesney. I mean, they've even recruited fairly well during this process with him now taking over there out on the West Coast. So be interesting to see how that plays out moving forward. But yeah, I agree with you.

Tosso Poy, Cal, I'm in on them having the most successful year one, which means that to be to Peter and Stanford are not going to be, at least who we believe is going to have the best first season. but how well can things go? Can he turn things around there on the farm? We'll talk about that here in just a moment on locked on ACC. Now, Kenton, we're out here talking up Tosropoi and Cal, which has to have our Stanford viewership and listenership absolutely sick

because the Bears, they've been pretty much a 6-and-6-7-5 program over the last decade, which ain't bad. Now, I know that Cal can be football. As I told you earlier this week, from 04 to 07, those are my form. of years watching college sports. And I watch some damn good Cal team. So it's hard for me to sit back here now at 33 and think, no way. Like Cal's bad.

Like they can be better. And we're seeing that investment, which makes me wonder, when are we going to see that from Stanford? Because typically Stanford looks across the bay and they see Cal doing something. They want in on that as well. How are you feeling about Tevita Pritchard, who is most famous from his win back in 07, USC, or Stanford upsetting USC in a Coliseum, Jim Harbubup, Pete Carroll saying, what's your deal?

No, what's your deal in that beef that carried over to the NFL? How are you feeling about the Cardinals heading into the first year, or Cardinal, rather, heading to the first year with Tabita Pritchard at the helm? I'm going to say something, and I know a lot of people are not going to like this. Kyle, go ahead and tune out. We just talked very nice about your university. Go ahead and tune out for this. I believe Pritchard.

I believe him. I believe him. I walked away from ACC media days, believe in them. That's it. He got you. He did. He got me. He got me, Julian. He got me. But let me tell you, let me tell you, looking at this roster, we know what they are, right? We know. We know. Ford is going to have to carry that ball 40 times a game. It's going to be like that scene. I'm tired of digging grandpa, well, that's too damn bad. That's what it's going to be in terms of giving him the ball. That's what it's going to be. It's too damn bad. But the reality is he understands the way to. win at Stanford is not the way to win at Oregon. It's not the way to win at Clemson, not the way to win at FSU.

It's the Stanford way to win. He understands we have to be something different than what they are because, I mean, that's, and that's what we're looking at. And then let's really have a real talk about Stanford. These past couple of years have just been so terrible because of stuff that was kind of out of their control. Last year, you had an interim head coach. Who in college has an interim head coach? for an entire year.

Where does that happen at? Only at Stanford. And then you look before that, what was Stanford's identity? When you go back to Harbaugh, even Shaw, exactly. It was, we're going to beat you up. We might not win the football game,

but guess what? Us nerds are coming with some lumber. We coming with three big old tight ends. You know, we're going to make a claim to be tight end you. I will step aside. We're going to bring out all of these big old tight ends and we're going to make something happen.

You know, the arts of the world, the fleeners of the world, so many great tidings. Colby Parkinson. It was a ton of guys. You cannot name enough really good tidings that came from there. And so what happened? They lost their way. They lost their way in terms of, hey, this is who we are. This is how we get things done.

This is our path to success. You know, they lost their way in that regard. They lost that physicality. And it's been kind of walking through the wilderness. at this point, but I think Pritchard knows how to get them back. But it won't be in year one. That team is too devoid of talent for me to say, year one, I see six for you. I don't.

If Pritchard gets six, I'm betting on to win eight next year. Mark my words on it. If Pritcher gets six this year, book him for eight next year, because that's how much I think of Pritchard and his methodology to kind of building this thing out because he and I had some time to have an extended chat that just was off air. but when I talked to him about it, I said, he's got a vision for this thing that I see,

I can see it. It's just not going to come to fruition in year one. Yeah, and I hope it happens. It was fun watching those Stanford teams under David Shaw. You talk about all of the great tight ends that they have. You think about the running backs to Toby Garrigan, Chris McCaffrey, two guys knew. Bryce Love.

He won the Heisman Trophy, but did not. Bryce Love as well was phenomenal for them. And they had just such talent. And that was really, you look at recruiting rankings back then. They always were bringing in like a four or five star quarterback. They always brought in talented players. And this is before NIL. Obviously, that's a big piece of what's happened to Stanford across the whole with their athletic department.

We want to talk about momentarily. But yeah, the talent level this year is not great. When you're telling me that Davis Warren's going to be the quarterback, good, he has experience, but also like, it wasn't great at Michigan. Michael Ford, you're right. He's going to have to be a workhorse for them in the season. and they're relying on a Yale transfer Nico Brown to come in and be their top receiver.

Nico Brown, by the way, guys, he was an FCS Hall All-American last year. He had never had a reception in college until last season, and he was a thousand-yard receiver. So is he going to now step into the ACC and be their lead guy out a lot? We'll have to wait and see. But my thing is, I look at Cal,

they're doing very similar things. You have Andrew Luck as a GM there at Stanford. And really, he's handling everything, that football program. He's the reason why Frank Reich was the interim last year and why Tevita Pritchard his old teammate, who we pushed out for that starting job the next year after that upset in 07 is why he's back.

So you have the luck of it all here in Stanford. You look across the Bay and Berkeley, you have Ron Rivera, you have Tasha Boy, a bunch of alums. And I'm thinking that Stanford's probably looking over at Calvian, like, these guys have the talent, they have the backing that we need here. And I'm just wondering, if anything, in today's landscape, being in the ACC,

what's Stanford's motivation, beating Cal. If anything else, they want to beat the Cow golden bears. And the way to do that is to invest. And get the band on the field. Yeah, get the band on the field. Give it everything that they need because you talk about Cal recruiting. They're sitting there at 21st in the rankings. It's been since 2011, since they've had a top 25 class.

There were 15th that year for Cal. Stanford portal activity, they had like six guys come in. Cal had 30. So I don't know if Stanford's ever going to be at. as much as Cal is when it comes to that standpoint. But I'm just so curious to see if the Stanford administration thinks about what Cal is doing and a success at least they appear to be on the way to having football-wise. And if they want to try to change things up, especially on the gridiron when looking at the Vita Pritchard's program.

And really Andrew Lux program, as he is one of the famous sons from this program and from the university. So yeah, I agree. Not going to happen year one. I mean, hopefully they can beat Hawaii this year. Ben Grohl Branson was awful in that game last season, but hopefully they can beat Hawaii. They're going to get the ass whooped against Miami on that Friday night. Then, like, they could potentially win at Duke.

I don't think they're going to beat Georgia Tech. I don't necessarily think they'll be Wake or Notre Dame. They're going to beat my alma mater, Elon, for sure. I don't see a ton of wins there. And they beat Cal last season. So it's possible they win that game. You get the 4-8. I think that's a pretty good season.

And that's also where they were last year, right? Yeah. And again, there's a vision. Like a lot of people will say foreign eight to four and eight. It's like that picture of a guy who said, me now, me five weeks ago, and it was like, you just step back from the camera. Well, no, there's an actual vision in place.

There's infrastructure in place. There's been some alumni donations. One of the biggest donations in Stanford history just came in for them. So this is not me saying, forget the results, store away the results. It doesn't matter. What I'm saying is we know that Stanford is not in year one position. Anybody who, if your expectation is Pritchard needs to show me something year one or I'm done,

prepare to be done with Stanford football. But if your belief is that Pritchard is the guy that you invest in him, give him at minimum three years to show you, hey, we're rebuilding Stanford. We're rebuilding Stanford in Stanford's image. We're not trying to build this thing like how Cal does it because we don't have what Cal has in some regards. We're not trying to build this thing like Oregon does it, like USC does it. We damn sure don't have what they have in a lot of regards. But we have what we have.

And all we got is all we need. And I'm telling you, Pritcher sold me on that vision. I was looking at all these court cases like, wait a minute. Can a 31-year-old defensive tackle go play out? bit in Palo Alto, you know what I? Just a loser. So I think that he's the guy. I just don't think that this is the year that he's going to show it to the nation.

Like, hey, Stanford's back. But I would say, don't be surprised in two to three. If we're looking up saying, okay, Stanford, okay, you upset an Applecar. You got a little bit of an identity going for yourself. You're just beating up on folks. You put your dukes up. I like it. You know, the crazy thing about it is you talk about they don't have necessarily what

USC and Oregon have as far as money, they do. They just haven't tapped into it. Like if Stanford and Cal want to tap into it, I mean, we all were in trouble in the ACC. And it's awesome. It would be the best thing for the league. We talked about it briefly other day looking at the Western expansion. SMU's come in and they've kind of been a bully in the first two years, especially football wise.

And they were equipped to come in. It's the credit to them. I also look at it as like, come on, guys. Everybody else in the ACC was already here. What are we doing, guys? What are we doing allowing these guys come from the American to come and push us around, these first two years. But that's a good thing for this league. And if the Protect College Sports Act's going to actually go through and it's going to lead to everybody being stuck in this league,

we need SMU to continue to invest. We need Cal to continue to do what they're doing. We need Stanford to get back to the Stanford that they were under David Shaw. And then Virginia Tech get your act together. North Carolina, get rid of Belichick, bringing a real coach. Stop hiring guys. You don't know what the hell they're doing. State, you keep doing what you're doing because you've really overachieved plenty of times. Miami, welcome. Finally. to the show, this can be a league that every year, I think at minimum, as long as it stays at 12, should have two teams in. It's going to always be hard to get that third team in.

I understand all that. Sometimes we'll count Notre Dame we want to, but we need to start beat Notre Dame so that they're not even getting into the thing in the first place. Thank you, Miami, for doing that last year. But this should always be a two-bid league. I look at what they have as far as with Clemson and Florida State, Miami, like three legitimate national title contenders when they have their act together. And it's not like Virginia Tech's that far behind.

them either when they have their is together too. And who's to say somebody else can't rise up after what we saw what happened of Indiana, which is, of course, breaking everybody's brain as far as how college ball's supposed to work nowadays in a new portal in IL era. But I'm excited to see what's going to happen at Cal. I'm hopeful, especially after talking to you today about Pritchard in Stanford. I hope they get back to that. And I'm not concerned at all that Virginia Tech is about to be back here in very short time here

coming up this upcoming season, potentially, and maybe in 2027. But that's going to wrap up this episode of the Locked-on ACC podcast hosted by yours Julie Julian Council and former NC State Football Letterman, Kenton Gibbs. Again, y'all, subscribe and follow the show for free over on YouTube and wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. And be sure to follow us over on Twitter at Julian Council and at TGIF underscore Kenton.

In the meantime, be safe, be happy, be whole. We'll talk to y'all on Friday. And we'll be talking about some of our regression candidates from the ACC from last year, bounce back candidates. and who's going to stay the same from a year ago. We'll talk about that here on Friday on Locked on ACC.