Locked On ACC - Daily College Football & Basketball Podcast - REVELATION: ACC Quarterbacks RANKED and EXPOSED | Who's REALLY the Best in 2025?

Episode Date: July 16, 2025

ACC QB Rankings Shake-up: Is Darian Mensah the Real Deal?Miami Hurricanes football takes center stage as Alex Donno and Kenton Gibbs dissect Andy Staples' controversial ACC quarterback rankings. The duo analyzes Mensah's potential impact at Duke, debates Cade Klubnik's ceiling at Clemson, and explores how supporting casts influence QB success. They also tackle Pro Football Focus's Top 50 players list, questioning ACC representation beyond Clemson's stars. The conversation shifts to NIL spending, examining how ACC programs compete financially with other conferences. Don't miss their insights on retention vs. recruitment strategies in the evolving college football landscape.Tune in for expert analysis on ACC football's hottest topics and discover which quarterbacks might reshape the conference this season.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!GametimeToday's episode is brought to you by Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONCOLLEGE for $20 off your first purchase. Terms and conditions apply.Monarch MoneyTake control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use code LOCKEDONCOLLEGE at www.monarchmoney.com/lockedoncollege for 50% off your first year.FanDuelRight now, new customers can get ONE HUNDRED FIFTY DOLLARS in BONUS BETS when your first FIVE DOLLAR BET WINS! Download the app or head to FANDUEL.COM to get started. Bet with FanDuel—Official Partner of the NBA.FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN)   Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Second highest paid, second highest ranked. Darian Mensa is finally getting some love. You are Locked on ACC, your daily podcast on the Atlantic Coast Conference. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. He doesn't get talked about like Cade Klovenick or Carson Beck, but could Darian Mensa at Duke, could he be the second best or even the best quarterback in the conference? I am Alex Dono. He is Kenton Gibbs. He's from Lockdown Wolfpack. I am from Lockdown-on Cainz. And thank you so much to the everydayers for making Lockdown ACC your first listen and your first watch. We're available free wherever you get your podcast. We're free on YouTube. We're part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Today's episode is brought to you by Fanduel. Right now, new customers can get $150 in bonus bets when your first $5 bet wins. On this episode, there's a big on three report that claims to have the top 10.

highest spenders by team in name, image, and likeness. You don't see a whole lot of ACC presence on that list. What does that say about the conference? Is it good or is it bad? We'll talk about pro football focus is top 50 players in the country. Should there be more ACC representation on that? Spoiler alert, Clemson is very well represented. But Kenton Gibbs, let's talk about Darien Mensa.

So I was surprised as were you to see, and I respect Andy Staples and On3.com. It's a really good job, very good national college football analyst. Unsurprisingly, he's got Kate Klubnick ranked number one on his list of ACC quarterbacks. Now, once you get past Clubnick, most people would either say, you know, a couple of the following names, Carson Beck. He gets some love at that number two spot from certain outlets. Kevin Jennings had a good season at SMU. He's back this year. That's a name that gets thrown out there.

but the name that Staples went with at number two is Darien Mensa from the Duke Blue Devils, who no doubt very sought after with the numbers he was putting up. Kenton, he's going to have a big step up when it comes to competition and a powerful conference now. Yeah, absolutely right. He absolutely bought out at Tulane, and he did so as a freshman. These are the types of things that you don't see often. And I believe that the, you know, you talk about second highest paid. The $4 million man here is getting paid that much because,

it's a projection into the future. Not only, hey, do we believe you can get it done right now, but going forward, we believe that we've locked it down because who else is going to show up and show out in a better way than what we're doing, number one. And number two, who else was telling you they were going to show up and show up for you when you weren't a proven product at the power four level? So I think that he is a fantastic player. I am a little worried about him this high for a multitude of reasons.

Number one, quarterback is the most dependent position in football. The supporting cast is it there to get him to the level of like, hey, our offense is humming and he's to thank for it. They lost a lot of production, not even including Malik Murphy, their former starting quarterback. Obviously, he's replacing him, so we're not talking about that. But everything else, you still lost a lot of talent surrounding the quarterback there. And so that's a bit of a question. Obviously, you're talking about first year in this offense, first year in this system, things are going to be different.

He's going to have some type of learning curve in terms of kind of figuring out the lay of the land in terms of what this new offense looks like. And then the last part of this that I don't think that enough people are taking into account here, this is still a level jump. This is still a level jump. This is, it's a level higher than where you played at before. So while I do think if you talk potential, if you talk, hey, that who do you think will put up the best numbers over the next two to three years?

I think that MENSA has a great case for that. But I think if you're saying outright this year, he's the second best quarterback in the conference, I say that's a very, very, it's a bold prediction. It's a prediction. I'm just not sure it's going to turn out to be one that looks great at the end of you. Here's what Staples says about MENSA. He says the Blue Devils paid a truckload of money to land. two-lane transfer, Darian Mensa, who probably was neck-and-neck with Washington State to Oklahoma,

transferred John Mateer for the title of Most Sought-A-Fer Player in the Portal. This time last year, MENSA was about to climb the depth chart in camp with a first-year coaching staff in New Orleans. After showing the nation his command, athleticism, patience, and efficiency, everyone knows what Mentsa can do. He averaged 9.5 yards per attempt tied with Miami's Cam Ward, Indiana's Curtis Rourke, and Ohio State's Will Howard for third in the nation, and he threw 22 touchdown. touchdown passes with six interceptions.

Fellow transfers, Andrell Anthony out of Oklahoma and Cooper Bartake out of Harvard. It's going to be one of his top receivers from the Ivy League will need to help by giving MENSA reliable targets. But Duke's other returning receivers might see their production increase with a better passer at quarterback. And their top returning guy is Quayshon Brown, who I think was like the third receiver last year. But your point, Kenton, is very well taken that, you know, Mensa, he, he, he, he, can do a lot there at Duke, but how high he goes. If you can be number two on that list, it's going to depend on the supporting cast quite a bit. Absolutely. And this is not a situation where I'm doubting Minnesota. Like I said, if we're talking, who has the best college career

out of all these guys? I could see second easily, right? Even with all of the success that Carson Beck has had and likely will have this year at Miami, I could see if you're talking individual pound for pound best college career for the situations he was putting, I can see Derryman's a second. My question is, if we're going second for the 2025, 2025, 26 season, you have to tell me you believe he's going to be better than everybody else this year. He has the talent. I'm not questioning the talent. How many guys have we seen that had the talent that needed a year to adjust, even with a star-studded supporting cast, a la Joe Burrow. Joe Burrow in year one had stars everywhere. He looked all right. And then in year two,

he took off like a rocket and was unstoppable at LSU. I predict a very similar path for MNSA because this year, a lot of instability in terms of talent and who's coming back, who's not. I'm not saying instability from a coaching staff standpoint because they have that locked up. But I mean from a position of you talked about losing the top two receivers, even if they bought the top two receivers back, does Daryan know those guys?

Does Dary you know how they run their speed outs? Does Dary you know how they run their band gate? He doesn't. So you talk about, you know, what is it going to take for him to be successful year one? I think it would take a Herculane effort, which don't get me wrong. I think he's capable of. But I'm not sure I would say, hey, I'm going to predict him to put that out year one. I think he'll be good this year.

I think it'll be top five, sixish this year in that range. But top two is a little bit rich for my blood, which I know is a very interesting adjective talking about the $4 million dollar bank. I mean, for me, at the number two spot, I think you and I both agree. we would go with Cade Clubnick, which Staples goes with. But for me, number two, I mean, I lean towards Carson Beck. Maybe my bias is showing a little bit. But if not Carson Beck, the other names I would consider Kevin Jennings and possibly Miller Moss, who is another one who's transferring in, but he's transferring into a really good

decision with a really good head coach who's a quarterback whisper and Jeff Brom. So I would lean towards those three names battling it out for number two before I would lean to Darien Mensa. but what do you make of the rest of Staples's list here? So, you know, Clubnik one, Mensa number two, then he's got Carson Beck third, Kevin Jennings, fourth, Haynes King, fifth at Georgia Tech. C.J. Bailey, your guy, number six,

G.O. Lopez at North Carolina, number seven, which kind of seems like a leap of faith to me. Eli Holstein at Pittsburgh at eight, Kyrin drones at nine, and Steve Angelly at Syracuse at 10, who we're not even completely sure he's going to be the starter. They're sent in Ricky Collins to ACC media days. So we'll see.

But anything jump out to you from that top 10? The disrespect of Haynes King and Eli Holstein is getting out of hand. I mean, don't get you. At least like King, at least they've gotten the top five. But Holstein down at number eight, I agree. When we look at what Holstein did last year, when we look at what Pitt as a team did last year, it only fell off the rails because Holstein got hurt.

Like that, the offense was. humming. They were doing what they were supposed to do, and then one guy goes down and the offense falls off a cliff all of a sudden. Hmm, I wonder what that could mean, Dono. I, you know, I'm not sure, but I would imagine if things grind to a screeching hole without one guy, I'd imagine that one guy is pretty good, pretty value, pretty worth something, you know. But Eli Holstein continues to be overlooked when we darn near had to rename ACC freshman of the year, the Eli Holstein Award for the first half of the year. That's right.

Every week he was winning that award. I don't understand it, you know. And pit fans, don't worry. I'm not trying to get back in your good graces. I still don't think Kitty Pickett was a first round quarterback. But I think Eli Holstein is fantastic. I really do. That's one that I think, you know, having him down this low, it's a little egregious.

Yeah, I mentioned, you know, Miller Moss is someone that I could see having a good year, you know, given that he's going to Louisville. because every quarterback who plays for Jeff Brom seems to put up numbers. Miller Moss is not even in that top 10. It's a little surprising to me. Yeah, I agree. I agree. But I can understand it from the standpoint of the last time we saw him,

although it was a much more ceremonious exit from USC than what Thomas Costalanos had from Boston got him, those are two guys that the last time we saw them, they were replaced by somebody else. So at least from that standpoint, I can understand the argument, despite the fact, that he is going to have the best backfield in all of the ACC, despite the fact that he is going to have some weapons all around them and the Brown brothers have proven when it comes to producing offensively, if can't nobody else get it done, it would take an act from the big man upstairs

to put them in the bottom half of the conference offensively, regardless of who's that quarterback. Because remember, they had Tyler Shuck and convinced a team to take. him in the top 50 in the NFL draft. Yeah. Hey, give him their guts. They got it.

Did you see that there was this side? I'm sure it was just horrifically taken out of context. It was one throw. But you see that that one throw of Shuck at the at the combine where he missed his receiver by like 40 feet. It's like that got the top 50 draft pick. Listen, you know, when I tell people look at the Stanford film, Louisville Stanford last year, everybody's over, oh, every player has a bad game.

And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. Watch that game and tell me that that guy is an NFL prospect. If he had that game as a freshman, I'm okay. As a seventh year senior, he's damn there a senior citizen playing like that. Get that nonsense out of it. Not hearing. When we come back, I was pretty compelled with pro football focus. They put out their top 50 players in college.

college football heading into this 2025 season. Now, Clemson, very well represented. Miami, kind of well represented, but there's not a whole lot of ACC love in this top 50. What does that say about the conference? You want to keep it locked right here. We're only getting started on this brand new episode of Lockdowne ACC. Folks, we've been having to blast all summer long with Fan Duel. Summer sports are in full swing.

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Make sure you check out our other shows. Kent and Gibbs does an awesome job with Grayson Boone, hosting Lockdown Wolfpack, keeping you up to date on all things NC State. I host Locked on Cains keeping you up to date on all things Miami. I did. I had a little rant this morning on Locked on Cains about the on three NIL top 10 team spending lists. We'll get to that a little bit. But first, pro football focus top 50 players in the country.

So, you know, Kent, you understand, we understand, I think, why, you know, Clemson, they return such a high percentage of their talent, you know, why they are the favorite to win the conference this year, and why they are among the favorites to make a deep college football playoff run. You have to have talent to do that. And Clemson has three of the top 10 players in the country. Now, the team that gets the most love right out the jump is Ohio State. They've got the top two players in America, according to PFF, with Jeremiah Smith, wide receiver at number one,

and safety Caleb downs at number two. But then for Clemson, you've got defensive lineman Peter Woods, ranked third nationally. quarterback Cade Clubnick ranked seventh nationally and edge rusher T.J. Parker ranked 10th nationally. And then Kenton, the next ACC players you have on the list, Miami's Rubin Bain comes in at number 15. And then I'm looking, no more ACC until you get to Miami's Carson Beck, ranked 21st. I don't see any ACC after that for a while until you get to Isaac Brown, Louisville running back at number 28. So within the first 28 spots, you only have, you know, one player in the ACC, not for Clemson and Miami.

You've got to go down pretty far to find other players in the college. How much a reflection, Kenton, is that on the talent in the ACC or is it maybe more of a reflection on the media perception of ACC players? The latter not the former. The perception is forming these guys' opinions more than the reality. I'll give you a prime example. Who was the top player for Miami? It was Ruben Bain at 15, where I thought the top guy should have been Francis Maui Noah, who I think is the best player on the team.

And so Francis was the second player for Miami or was it Carson Beck? Was it Francis? Third. Carson Beck is the second. Francis is not until the 40s. So that's my point. You're talking about two guys with all due respect, all due respect, right? Everybody knows how I feel about Carson Beck.

I don't know if it's like I'm a Carson Beck hater. I disagree, but that's all right. Let's talk about Ruben Hurricane Bang. Love him down. Love everything about his game. Physical, violent, explosive, great hands, great hands. I mean, when he gets into offensive linens chest, he locks him out immediately.

I adore that young man. Watching his film, it gets me a little excited. It gets my engine going, okay? Now, with that being said, I would not argue that he was the same level of player as Maui Noah last year. And that's with all due respect to him. because of the injuries and the things that held him backlash. Now, even if we say, hey, fully healthy, right, at his peak, if everything, you know,

we're playing a video game and we've turned injuries off, do you think he's better than Maui No? I would say he might have a slight edge, but even then I'd give it a 1A, 1B. It's neck and neck. That's what I'm saying. That's what, and listen, I'm not the guy who watches Miami every day, Dono is. And he's telling you that. I have seen these two go at their highest foot, and I'm telling you, again, consistency aside, Maui Noah is an animal.

He is very likely to be either the first or second tackle off the board next year because he has not only been dominant. He's been consistently dominant. Dominance is the expectation from Francis. It's not like, hey, he'll have his up, games, it's down. It's, no, no, no, he's there. We're good for the most part. So, you know, I think this is much more of a perception thing than anything.

And Isaac Brown down to 28, if you can name me 28 player, here's how good Isaac Brown is. Louisville had a back that was averaging 10 yards per carry over 30 carries in the last three games of the season. And yet, nobody thought to themselves, is there going to be an RB1 competition? That's how good Isaac Brown is. And you're telling me he's the 28 best player in the country. anywhere else. If Bill Watson is anywhere else, he is either the starter

or pushing to be the starter. Because Isaac Brown is so damn good, everybody's like, hey, they're a great one-two punch. It's thunder and lightning, or lightning and more lightning in their case, because both of them can absolutely scoop. But he's the 28th best player in the country. Come on, man.

Stop. Stop it. Even in today's game, where the passing game is taking the front seat, you can't tell me that he's down at 28. Well, I'll give you the rest of the context, by the way, for the ACC. So in the full top 50, Clemson's got four, Miami's got three, Isaac Brown from Louisville. That's the one from Louisville.

And then there's only two others in the entire top 50, and they're both from Duke. Safety, Terry Moore, at number 49. And then, I think at number 31. No, sorry, number, what was it, 20? I thought there was another. Oh, there is one. Oh, no, Isaac. ground from Louisville and then I know there's one more from Duke.

I'll have to find it. Oh, Chandler Rivers. Number three. I was about saying Chandler Rivers corner. Yeah, it's got to be Chandler Rivers. So two members of the Duke secondary, a Louisville running back, three Miami players, four Clemson players. Nobody from SMU making that list, Kenton, you know, nobody from a pretty good Georgia

tech team. You know, Florida State, they went two and ten last year, but they got a lot of talent. Nobody from Florida State in the top 50. The ACC's not getting much love. Again, Jamar Haynes, one of the best 50 players in the nation, some of those big old hogs they got, that key is coaching up.

Yeah, they got a good offense line. There are multiple guys in the offensive line. And Maui knows a great example of why I say these national lists, look at how they rank offensive line. And that's always the indicator to me of how much you know ball, because they have one of the hardest jobs that there is. And I'm saying this as a defensive line, right? Like I believe it's Will Campbell from LSU said,

if I give up one sack of game, I'm working at Amazon. If a defensive lineman gets one sack of game, he'll be a first round draft pick, even if that's all he can do. That's a great point. I want to take it a step even further. We could include the running game. If a defensive lineman gets one and a half tackles for loss per game over a three-year career,

he's going to be a first-round pick if he's got the physical tool. look at Shamar Stewart, who's now back practicing with Texas A&M, but that's another story for another time. Yeah. The young man can't rush his way out of a paper bag. And yet, because he was pretty decent against the run, he got it. You know, he got what he got there. So I look at this in, say, the lack of offensive line love, particularly from Georgia Tech, where they've got multiple guys on that offensive line, and you're like, hey, these are mallers.

They get people up out the way. That to me is an indicator that, like, hey, this. list, you see some big names, you see some bright lights, all that good stuff. I'm not going to take it. I'll take it with a grain of salt. Now, I'm trying to lay out like a 4D chess board here because when we talk about like a lack of perceived top 50 players from the ACC, how much of it ties into the ACC apparently, with a few exceptions, not very aggressive when it comes to NIL and football?

How do those two things tie together? because on three sports laid out the alleged top 10 biggest spenders in college football, not a whole lot going for the ACC. You want to keep it locked right here. We're not done yet on this brand new episode. Thanks for making locked on ACC your first listen for your next listen. Be sure to check out the portal. Our pal Brian Smith, he does an awesome job.

I'm sure some of the stories we're talking about today are getting talked about on the portal from different angles from Brian. He talks not only about the transfer portal, about NIH. about recruiting. It's a heavy time of year for recruiting with a lot of verbal commitments coming down day after day after day. Make sure you check out the portal available free wherever you get your podcast and available free on YouTube.

So, you know, I made sure to paint the full picture when I talked about this story on Locked on Cains this morning, Kenton, because, all right, so on three sports put out the list of top 10 highest spending teams. Now, here's how they came up with this list. because schools are not releasing exact dollar figures of what players are getting paid in NIL. They're not required to do that. They really don't have any reason to want to do that. So here's how On 3 came up with this list.

They said to get a better idea of who spent the most money building a roster for the 2025 season, on three surveyed 17 stakeholders across college football, including head coaches, administrators, general managers, NIL collectives, and agents. The specific question was, quote, which 10 programs do you believe spent the most money to build their 2025 roster? So I call it the snitch list, Kenton. Like you're asking head coaches, administrators to say, hey, which other programs do you think are spending the most?

You take this with a grain of salt. And I appreciate On 3's transparency. Like they tell you, this is how we could. compile the list, but this is not necessarily who's spending the most. It's who's got the reputation for spending the most. And the reason why I talked about this today on Locked on Cains, Kenton was even though, like, you may think, oh, was Miami number one, number two on their list. Miami was tied for fifth with Texas A&M. And yet, On 3 is promoting this article with a graphic of Carson Beck that says six million because they're claiming he's got incentives that could have. have him making up to $6 million this year. So even though Miami's not even top four for their own survey of top spenders,

they're using the most polarizing player in college football Carson Beck and the most program, one of the most anyway in Miami, to try and sell this article, even though they're not the top spender. But they've got in their top 10, Texas, Texas Tech, Ohio State, Oregon, Texas A&M and Miami tied at fifth, Michigan and USC tied. for 7th, Tennessee and Auburn. I definitely feel like, based on what I hear, LSU could definitely be on that list.

I know Georgia has this reputation of, we're Georgia's, so we don't need to offer you a lot of it, but believe me, Georgia's spending pretty big. But you notice there's only one ACC team on that list, Kenton. Now, there were a couple in others receiving votes, like others considered. Let me see, Florida State was one of the ones considered, and Clemson was one of the ones considered.

But apparently there's only one ACC program that's spending big. Is that part of the problem when this conference apparently doesn't have enough talent? Hey, listen, at the end of the day, even if we pretend it, right, for the sake of this segment, we'll take this as the gospel truth, okay? Miami is the only one spending big money. Here's the only problem with that. It's not like these teams have the money to spend and are holding it back in their coffers. Teams just don't have.

What do you want these teams to do in terms of many of these teams? Their states are very meaningfully split between multiple teams. Or these teams also have perfect or these teams in the ACC also are located in cities that have professional teams that mean something to them as opposed to many of the teams on this list. With all due respect to the state of Miami, let's be very real. There are more Miami football fans. then there are fans of any Miami professional team except maybe the heat. The heat are probably the only one that I would say is in that same ballpark. The dolphins.

I would say the dolphins. The dolphins have a lot of fans. They're miserable. They've been miserable for 50 years. But I'm saying even if we include casual fans, even if we include like fans who are like, oh yeah, I like that team a lot. The dolphins are up there with the Kings. Come on now, Dono.

I don't think that they're quite in the same category. But again, you look at these teams and you say, whose fans or who has the support from the fans in a way that they can do things like, I believe it wasn't, was it Clemsons or somebody? I was like, hey, just give us a dollar or two in NIL and that'll work out

because they had so many fans in their stadium. I mean, Clemson can do that because who else is in the state of South Carolina? Who's South Carolina's professional team? Basketball, anybody? Football, NFL, hockey? I know good and darn well. They ain't got no hockey down there in South Carolina.

So you look at this and that's part of it. But again, as much as people love to say, oh, you play for the name on the front of Jersey, you play for the G on the half, whatever the case may be. At the end of the day, it's a new era, okay? This is employment. Obviously, I have hired and poached people from places that are paying a lot more than some of the startups are work for. So it's not all about the money, but the money is an important part of it.

You cannot get an engineering manager from Google for $50,000 a year. You know why? They have a fun thing called golden handcuffs. It means that their pay is so high, they're not going to leave. And if Georgia wants to say they don't spend money, Zacharii Brett left USC, left USC to come down to Georgia just to win ball games when he doesn't know who the quarterback's going to be. Yeah, sure.

I believe you, buddy. Again, all of these teams are spending. it's the nature of the beast. ACC teams need to come up with new sources of the revenue. That's just the bottom. Yeah, that's right. That's right. And I agree with everything you said, by the way,

except you downplayed the dolphins a little bit too much. The dolphins have more fans than the hurricanes. You downplayed the dolphins a little bit. And believe me, I am a dolphin fan, and some days I wish I wasn't because the team only makes me miserable, all right? But to add another piece of conflict, so some people would hear, oh, so Clemson was in like others, receiving votes, but like Clemson doesn't spend any money.

They barely use the transfer portal. Here's a part of this that people forget, Kenton, because when we talk about programs that are spending a lot of money, usually we're focused on, okay, who did they bring in through the transfer portal? A big part of spending. And the big programs actually spend more on retaining their players than they do on bringing in new players. And that's one of the reasons why Ohio State is number one on that list.

and they probably belong there because at Ohio State, they bring in players through the portal, fine. But they also, you know, when you think about guys like Caleb Downs and Jeremiah Smith, there were these reports of Jeremiah Smith allegedly receiving up to a four and a half mil, maybe even more than that, to be honest, because if Carson Beck is making over four mill, I'm sure somebody's offering Jeremiah Smith north of that,

but reportedly Jeremiah Smith gets a $4.5 million NIL offer from other programs. So Ohio State had to give him a raise to retain him. That's part of the business. Retention gets very expensive. And I do think from what I understand, I hope I'm not speaking out of turn here, because I'm not locked on Clemson. I'm locked on ACC and locked on Keynes. But I do understand that like Clemson, even though Dabo Sweeney doesn't like to bring

it a whole lot of new players, like he doesn't like roster turnover. He values continuity. That's why Clemson has the highest percentage of returning talent in the country. But an area where Clemson is willing to spend is to retain their own players. Like that, they feel like that's a better and better. than bringing in outsiders from other places. So retention is expensive. And it's a part of this I hope people don't forget about.

Because guess what? Your player has a great season. As soon as that transfer portal opens, actually before that transfer portal opens, because tampering is a thing. They're going to be getting calls from intermediaries with offers from other programs. Retaining your players is not cheap.

Dono, teams are tampering? Not Miami, but everyone else. Everybody except I am. No, but you're absolutely right. And the biggest thing about retention, these guys have proven that they can do it in your system, at your school, on your campus. They've proven it.

When you look at a guy from the transfer form, you know, for all that we talk about, oh, Carson Beck, what is he going to be? Is he healthy? Is he not? Gio Lopez, what is he going to be? Is he any good at the Power 4 level, is he not? Same thing for Darien Mintsa. We asked these questions to these guys

because they weren't their last year. You know what questions we don't have to ask? Hey, what does Rubin Bain look like against ACC offensive linemen? Hey, how does Francis Maui Noah hold up against the T.J. Parker or guys of that guilt? What does that look like? Because we've seen it. We have seen it with the exact thing that Christobal wants to do. And insert player X and coach Y for whoever or wherever your team is, right?

We've seen how Haynes King performed in Brick Key system. We've seen how Kyron drones performed in Brent prize system. We have seen this firsthand so it makes sense that more of the money should be spent on, hey, we will keep high performers than it would be going to guys who could potentially be high performance. As the old saying goes, a bird in the hand is bad to the push. Amen to that. Well, we appreciate everyone making Lockdown ACCC, your first listen and your first watch. Remember tomorrow, a new episode of the squad is going to be dropping. so make sure you check that out.

It's always fun when Jackson Holzer and Kenton Gibbs get together. There's always going to be sparks flying. So make sure you follow Kenton at Lockdown Wolfpack and follow him on X at TJF underscore Kenton. Follow me on Lockdown Keynes and on X at Alex Dono. And we'll talk to everyone next time on another episode of Lockdown ACC. We are part of the awesome Lockdown Podcast Network. Your team every day.