Locked On ACC - Daily College Football & Basketball Podcast - SEC Bowl Losses Hurt Media's CFP Narratives! | ACC Finally Wins Another Bowl

Episode Date: December 31, 2024

In this episode, we turn our attention to the dynamic world of ACC football and the recent buzz surrounding Kirk Herbstreit's controversial take on the College Football Playoff seeding. Alabama losing to Michigan and South Carolina losing to Illinois goes against the media narrative of 3-loss SEC teams being deserving of postseason bids. Join hosts Alex Donno and Kenton Gibbs as they explore the implications of Herbstreit's predictions and how they played out in the playoff landscape. We'll also examine the standout performances and pivotal moments from ACC teams this season, highlighting key players and games that have shaped the conference. Tune in for an engaging discussion that unpacks the surprises and strategies within ACC football and the broader college football playoff picture.Louisville earned a dramatic win over Washington in the Tony The Tiger Sun Bowl. Miami fired defensive coordinator Lance Guidry. Could the Hurricanes turn to Georgia Tech DC Tyler Santucci to replace him? A report claims Texas QB Quinn Ewers was offered a $6 million NIL deal to leave the Longhorns in the portal. Could ACC teams be bidding for him?Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Rocket MoneyCancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to RocketMoney.com/lockedon today.GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONCOLLEGE for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Download Gametime today. What time is it? Gametime.FanDuelThe NFL Playoffs are almost here, but it’s not too late to get in on the regular season action with FanDuel because right now, new customers can finish the season strong with TWO HUNDRED and FIFTY DOLLARS in BONUS BETS if your first FIVE DOLLAR bet wins. Visit FANDUEL.COM to get started. FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN)    Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Where were the Alabama Crimson Tide when Kirk Herb Street needed the most? You are locked on ACC, your daily podcast on the Atlantic Coast Conference. Part of the Locked on podcast network, your team every day. Are we still down with this idea of wanting to use hypothetical wins to decide the playoff field? Shout out to the everydayers. Happy almost New Year. Maybe it's already New Year, depending on when you're watching and listening to this.

Thank you so much for making Locked on ACC. your first listen and your first watch today. 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. On this episode, we will talk about a report of alleged tampering for Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers, who is still at Texas for now, and he's still in the college football playoff. But there's a lot of rumors about his future.

And apparently, allegedly, teams really want to entice him to get into that transfer portal. the University of Miami has fired their defensive coordinator, which I feel needed to be done. The ACC finally won another bowl game. It was dicey. Louisville survived, a comeback win, a comeback bid by the Washington Huskies. But Kenton, the folks who just thought, oh, Alabama should have been in the playoff, SMU didn't belong in there, Indiana didn't belong in there. The SEC and their hypothetical wins, they all belonged in the college football playoffs.

So surely Alabama was going to dominate and beat up on Michigan today, right? Not so much. Jalen Milrow throws an interception, loses two fumbles in the game. Michigan defeats the Crimson Tide 19 to 13th. A Michigan team that had a seven and five regular season and lost to Indiana, who did get into the playoffs, even though Kirk Herb Street thought they shouldn't have been in, that you're leaving out these teams that belong to be in the field. So you're telling me, Alabama belonged to be in that playoff.

Losing to a depleted Michigan squad today would tell you otherwise. Donald, that's so interesting. You're dropping so many interesting facts. Let me add some facts on there for you. Did you know that Michigan had four players that are projected to go within the first 40-ish picks of the NFL draft sitting out as well? Yes. Hmm. That Ryan Williams kid, did he play today?

Was he available? I didn't see him much. Everybody said if Will Johnson ain't playing, he's going to go nothing. Will Johnson was, in fact, in street clothes. He was in street clothes. He was sitting out there dressed like you and me, Donno. Just, you know, instead of wearing canes gear, instead of you, he wore the him. And they did just fine.

They did just fine. I'm shocked. I'm shocked. And Grandma, I'm sorry. I told you I was going to stop talking about your Todd. Her birthday is coming up. So we love your granny. I feel so bad for Grandma.

Listen, listen, it was already awkward at Christmas, but she said, you've been talking about by time. I said, Grandma, I got to shoot it straight, okay? And why are we talking about Michigan and Bam on this show? Because Donno and I have told people all year long, this has been propaganda that propped up some conferences and defeated others. Because now the narrative that is being swung is, well, you know, bow games are like glorified pro boners. now that all of a sudden, now that Bama's lost,

now that South Carolina's trailing, Illinois, now all of a sudden, the narrative is, oh, it's too many opt-outs, these games don't matter. But mind you, these are the same bowl games that have people saying that ACC is a second rate power five or power four accounts. Now, listen, I'm okay with people out of both camps. I'm okay with people who say these are glorified,

these are glorified pro bowl games. These are exhibition games in which most of your team is going to be out if you have a really good team. I'm okay with those people who say bowl games are meanings. I'm also okay with the people who say bowl games and your record in bowl games as a conference say a lot about you. I'm okay with that. The only people I'm not okay with

are the people that decide and pick and choose which one who pick their names. You got to pick a lane and stay in the lane. It got to be Uchiwali. It got to be one mic. It can't be both. You can't combine those two songs. Okay. We all love some nines.

You can't combine both songs. So I look at this situation. And again, Dono and I are talking about this because this was a huge national story. It was SMU didn't belong in. It was Indiana didn't belong in. It was all these teams didn't belong in. But now the teams that y'all had as the last one

or the first one out is they just got dog walked by a team that couldn't complete a forward pass. They got dog walk by a team that everybody's begging a guy that technically is not even on a roster yet. Can we please play? Bryce Underwood just for one game. Let's just see what he's got. Because it can't be worse than Davis

Warren. Orgy's already in the portal. So, you know, I look at this and I say to myself, very simply, this is why you play the game. And one last thing on this, and I'm going to kick it back to you now. Sure. In three of Alabama's losses and every loss that they took, except for Tennessee,

not only were they favored, they were favored by at least two touchdowns in all of them. This was the smallest margin that they were favored by. I believe this one was 14. I believe it was 15 and a half against Oklahoma, and I believe it was 19 or 20 or so against Vandy.

Again, I don't ever want to hear if these two teams played who would be favored. How much does it matter? How much does it matter? Because in those three games, Vegas believed that there would be a point spread total of plus 40 Alabama. Alabama is 0 and 3 in those games.

with a what negative 30 something going against them. Hmm. Interesting how that works. Yeah. And like you said, like the reason why we're talking about this on locked on ACC is the ripple effect is very much felt by the Atlantic Coast Conference because they're, you know, talking heads like Kirk Herb Street are advocating for teams in the ACC and I'm sure in the Big 12 and even to some extent the Big Ten because even though Herbie ironically is a Big Ten guy having played in Ohio. He has become a mouthpiece for the SEC. So they're basically lobbying to take at-large bids away from the other conferences and give them out to SEC teams with three losses. Who knows next year it might be four lost SEC teams that they're lobbying for.

So that very much has an effect on the ACC because a week ago, Kirk Herb Street actually said it out loud. And the sports center host agreed with him thought he made a very good point when he said, we can't get caught up in wins. It's not about your wins. It's about who you beat. Well, who you lose to, Herbie should also matter. Maybe there should have been a warning sign about Alabama when they got beaten 24 to 3 by Oklahoma, a bad football team that was only bowl eligible because they beat Alabama. Maybe that should have been a warning sign about Alabama's offense, which looked like

hot garbage today against Michigan, by the way. Yeah, you could prop up their history, their program prestige. Nick Saban isn't walking through that door anymore, by the way. And suddenly, suddenly, Kaelin DeBore, without Michael Penix, doesn't look like the genius he looked like last year. But they should get in on reputation alone. And I'm even wondering, Kenton, if, you know, these media hoax are going to, or hacks, I think is the word I was looking for.

I don't know if hoke is a word. Hokey is a word. Hoke is not. These media hacks, I'm wondering if they're going to change their tune and soften their stance, but I don't think they will. think they're going to change the narrative and they're not going to change their opinions because at the end of the day, they still, they make up their minds before the season even starts who the 12 best teams are, i.e. who the biggest brands are, who might put up the best

TV ratings for ESPN and no amount of losing will change their minds on that. And that's why y'all come to Lockthorn ACC. That's why. Because remember when Pitt was undefeated and rolling, and I was on the pit train heavy. I took my last. on the squad during their losing street. And I admitted, hey, I was wrong. I see new information. Pitt is not a good team. I could admit that.

I could admit I could admit I was wrong down the stretch. I admitted. I admitted, hey, SMU is looking like one of the better teams of the conference, despite the fact that you and I both came in thinking, oh, they could get a couple upsets when they showed themselves to be consistent, when they proved themselves to be a consistent team at stopping the run, when they showed themselves to be a team that could do more than just hold up, but win battles in the trenches.

I say, hey, you've got to re-evaluate this team, despite what I believed about them to begin with. Because that is what this thing is about. It's not about, you know, to me, this whole, what we're doing with analyzing who's good, who's not, it's more of a scientific method than a confirming of our bias. We don't end with the conclusion and then work back and make everything else justify that.

We have a hypothesis that, hey, this team will beat this team because or they should beat this team because. And if the results come back different, we said, okay, well, this is why the results came back different than we thought. And one of those, this is why it could just be we're wrong. But now I'm already seeing it while South Carolina was losing to Illinois, which they were at the time where we started this recording, but I believe they scored a touchdown to take the lead. at that point in time, people were screaming, well, USC and Alabama have a lot of opt-outs and Illinois and Michigan Done. And, you know, this is just a, you know, these are glorified scrimmages for these teams who feel like they should have got in. So they're let down and they got less to play for. No, forget all that.

Show up and win the damn game. I understand. And I'm a last thing because I know we got to get the break here. But, Dono, I feel the worst for. USC, Alabama, and Ole Miss. You know why, Donnell? Why? Every other team during bowl season only has to play one game.

Those teams have to play 45 hypothetical games of peace. And then they got to play it real game. So my heart goes out to them. Yeah, they're really tired by beating all the other 44 opponents that they were simulated against. Jaylon Milrose armed gave out after about the 25th hypothetical that Bailer, was supposed to win by 50. You know, the 45th time that they played Indiana, his arm was like, all right, I can't do this no more. You know, so we can't really hold the real life results against him. But like Kirk Herbstry said, we need to pay attention to more than wins and losses.

We need to pay attention to more than their performance. What we're seeing before our eyes, you know, Kirk Herbsty like a cheap man, who you're going to believe? Me and your line-ass eyes. That's what I'm going to ask you right now. Who you don't believe? Well, I did see the ACC pick up their second bowl victory finally. And we fully admit the ACC has not represented well during bowl season. We had Syracuse to hang our hats on for a while. And now we got the Louisville Cardinals. And that was, man, talk about a thrilling finish against what.

That was an awesome game and an awesome finish. Miami has fired their defensive coordinator. And by the way, Miami's already getting linked to interest in another current DC. inside the ACC. So that's a relevant topic as well. You want to keep it locked right here. I'm Alex Dono from Lockdown Caines. He is Kenton Gibbs from Locked on Wolfpack. And we're only getting started on this brand new episode of Lockdown ACC. Guys, did Rocket Money help you find any subscriptions you forgot about or that you were paying for twice? That's happened to me. I had a few subscriptions. I didn't even realize I was still paying for. And Rocket Money made it so easy to track

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automatically set aside money for your future. No more stressing out about budgeting every month. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with RocketMoney. Go to rocketmoney.com slash locked on today. That's rocketmoney.com slash locked on. Rocketmoney.com slash locked on. Thank you so much for making this episode of Lockdown ACC your first listen in your first watch. Make sure you make locked on college football with Spencer McLaughlin. Your next listen, he's been very, very busy with this transfer portal season, bowl season CFP.

So make sure to give Spencer and Lockdown College football a listen and a watch, much like this show. It's available free wherever you get your podcast and available free on YouTube, part of the Lockdown podcast network, your team every day. So, you know, Kenton, I was hoping the ACC would get another bowl dub today. And boy, did this one come down to the wire. Louisville had a two touchdown fourth quarter lead. And, you know, Jed Fish, coach of Washington sounded a little cocky after the third quarter talking about,

hey, we're down two scores. We're going to get four or five possessions in this fourth quarter. No problem. So Washington only had two possessions in the fourth quarter, but they made the most of them, Kenton, because they turned their 14 point deficit into a one point deficit. And I've got to send a shout out to Washington's young quarter. Because both quarterback starters were out for this game. So there was no Tyler Shuck for Louisville.

You had Harrison Bailey starting, and he played all right. But the real headliner was DeMond Williams, Jr., the young quarterback quarterback quarterback for Washington, who went 26 for 32, 3754 yards, four touchdowns. He was also their leading rusher with 48 yards of touchdown. So Williams absolutely balled out for Washington. And so when Louisville, they're up seven, Kenton, in the final couple minutes of the game. And Washington basically had eight downs, you know, inside the five-yard line. Because you had a drive extended by what I thought was a bogus pass interference call against Louisville that started the downs over first and goal, basically a goal line stand. And it comes all the way down to fourth down.

Washington scores a touchdown to pull within one. And Jed Fish, tell me how you feel about this just now. Maybe you could say, hey, it's a bowl game. It's not the most important thing in the world. but Ged Fish said no overtime. We're either going to win this or we're going to lose this on a two-point conversion, which Williams, who was Superman for most of the game, could not hit.

He threw a little bit low. The past was tipped. Louisville survives. They win by one point on a failed two-point conversion. My heart was in my throat at the end of that game, Kenton. It was an awesome finish. I sat there saying, not again to the ACC, not again, not again. The two-point, I'm sorry, the two touchdown lead evaporated like that.

It literally like, you just, you blinked and you were like, wait a minute, I thought this game was put away. I thought Louisville had this thing put away. But I will say on the Louisville side, right? Because, yes, watch the quarterback plays with that. He did his thing. He bought out. No offense or what's about it. But when I look at this game from Louisville side, we gave Clemson a lot of love and we talked about their setup for the future.

In terms of who I think is the second best setup, for the future. Let me just read something off for you. I've already told you about how bad of a man Isaac Brown is and, you know, all that he can do on the ground. He was a true freshman this year, Isaac Brown. But they've got another guy over there. Duke Watson, 10 carries, 83 yards, some top running, some physical running. Duke Watson showed up in a major, major way in this game. And I'll tell you what, when you think about, you know, the explosive run. he had you say oh well other than that 50 yard or he didn't do much let's do the math on it right you're still looking at seven rushes for about 30 something even if you take away the 50 yard

the young man showed up in a major way so i look at this team and i say they got they got some stallions in that back there they got some guys that can absolutely get it done and i i appreciate the cerebral approach to how both of them run the ball you know both of them they take their time There's a patience. There's an understanding of how their blocks are getting set up, which this is crazy the thing about, Dono. These are both freshmen. These are both guys that they're mature beyond their years when reading blocks.

And so to see that duo going forward, oh, hell, oh, hell, man. Where, yay, hey, ain't you see. Y'all better put on your big boy pants when you're going to take on the cards. Because I know that Broms calling cards being a quarterback whispering, and reviving these quarterbacks who are nowhere men in the middle of nowhereville, he gets them and he makes them something special. But I'm going to tell you, he's got to be the biggest fool line of scene if those two don't at least look at 10 to 15 touches per game apiece.

Yeah, I know I'm with you on that wholeheartedly. So, you know, for a lot of teams in the ACC thrived with their offenses this year, Miami was one of those teams. Now, had Miami's defense actually showed up and not given up 30 or more points in six of the games that they played in this year and not giving up over 40 points in three of the games they played in this year. Who knows? We might be talking college football playoff from Miami.

And Mario Cristobal, he held the defensive coordinator accountable. And he made the decision or at least made it official on Tuesday morning that Lance Gidre has been fired. And first of all, is it really like nice guy had a chance to cover Gidre for the past couple of years. I wish him nothing but the best success. And I'm sorry that things didn't work out for him at the U because I really wish that they'd had. But as Christobal said after the Pop-Tarts Bowl,

Miami's defense this season did not meet the standard for Hurricanes football. So I think Gidre had to go. And it's too early to say for sure Kenton, who Miami's going to bring in. I know that they're probably, from my understanding, going to look at some folks who have been former head coaches in college football. I've heard the name Pat Fitzgerald, who's the former Northwestern head coach. I've heard Mel Tucker, former Michigan State head coach.

Both of them are actually currently involved in wrongful termination lawsuits. So there could be some legal red tape there. But then another name Kenton that's come out that apparently Miami has contacted him. But so has Texas A&M. So he's going to have some folks vying for his services is Tyler Santucci, the defensive coordinator from Georgia Tech, who did a phenomenal job this year. And, you know, Mario Cristobald knows how good of a DC Santucci is

because they actually had the most success against Cam Ward and Miami's offense compared to any other team Miami played this year. Now, again, I don't think getting Santucci is going to be easy because, first of all, nobody knows for sure if he's leaving Georgia Tech. That's one. And second of all, Mike Elko is allegedly calling him from Texas A&M. And he and Alco have worked together before there was a relationship. and Santucci has also worked at Texas A&M before.

So there's a longstanding connection there. So if the Aggies are serious about that, it might be hard for Miami to beat them out. But that's a name I've heard. You could potentially have a D.C. going from one ACC team to another. I'm going to tell you something. That Texas A&M bag is a little different. It's a little heavier than everybody else is better.

Even with all due respect to Miami, and, you know, Miami has not been known as exactly a penny pinnisher themselves. But, you know, there's certain schools that Notre Dame, Michigan, Texas A&M, Texas money, a little different. It hits a little, a little different. So I'm looking at this very closely because Santucci and our relationship with Elko could mean a lot there. But you're also asking yourself, you know, if you are Santucci, do you want to stay in Elko's shadow potentially? Because, I mean, you'll never get the credit for that. It's a lot like being an Andy Reid offensive coordinator.

You'll never get the credit for what happens offensively if Andy Reid is your head coach. It's a very similar situation. And yes, people, I know Doug Peterson is from the Andy Reed tree and he went on to win the Super Bowl. You don't get caught up on the little stuff. The entirety is, you know, Elko is a defensive coach. People know him for that that's a calling car. If he does go to Miami, that would be a massive gift. That would be a massive, massive gift for Miami.

I'll tell you this much. where Tucker and Fitzgerald, it's just a very clear thing that, you know, you and I have talked about this a lot, and this is not a castigation on Miami, but you and I have talked about this before. Gidre being a nice guy doesn't mean Jack Squad if you can't win football game.

You can't get a stop. Nope. We don't care. And this ain't a Miami thing. That's why I'm saying we. All of us do not care if you have a weird case. if you have something bad in your history, can you coach these boys up to get me some stops?

That's what matters. I mean, think about how many jobs Bobby Petrino has gotten since his roller cycle incident. Hello? And Bobby wasn't on that motorcycle alone. You know, you wouldn't know that motorcycle alone. So, you know, there's very much so a thing. And again, this ain't about Miami.

This is just an overall observation. It does not matter that they're tied up in legal red tape. If there is a way, if they find out, hey, we can legally hire them. Everything is copacetic. Their lawyers are handling that. They're not worried about it. They'll be just fine. Yeah.

No, no doubt. And Christobal's got to get this higher right because he'll be looking for his third defensive coordinator in four seasons. And it's like, you know, obviously you could say, hey, he hasn't gotten the right guys in the first place, which is fair. But, you know, just for the sake of continuity, I don't think keeping Guidry would have been the right move. I think he probably made the right move letting him go, but he's got to nail the replacement. There's no question about that. Now, you know, Miami is probably one of the teams in the market for a transfer portal quarterback, especially after a poor showing by Emery Williams in the second half of the Pop-Tarts Bowl.

They're certainly not the only team in the country going after big-name quarterbacks, not the only team in the conference going after big-name quarterbacks. There have been allegations of programs, unnamed programs, offering silly NIL money to Quinn Ewers of Texas. We'll talk a little bit about that when we come back. You want to keep it locked right here. We're not done yet on this brand new episode of Lockdown ACC. Thank you so much for making Locked on ACC your first listen and your first watch today.

Make sure you also check out our other shows. Kenton and Grayson do an awesome job on Locked on Wolfpack. I host Locked on Cain. So we had a big episode about the Lance Gidre firing. early on today. Now, I don't know if this is necessarily a Miami-related or even ACC-related story, but this report from On Three Sports came out on Tuesday, Kenton. And, of course, on their thumbnail, they had the word tampering in like huge capital letters with the allegation. And they don't, they don't name which program or programs are

involved in this. But the allegation is that schools are offering big money to Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers, to he's got a year of eligibility left. He may decide to go pro he may not probably will decide to go pro in my opinion but the schools are offering him allegedly up to somebody offered him six million dollars for a one year NIL deal now I'll be as someone with a little bit of knowledge of what the NIL markets look like for star quarterbacks my immediate knee-jerk reaction was to call shenanigans on that um you know and listen maybe I'm not saying it's definitely not true. But a couple people that I talked to also had the reaction that this could be something that's maybe leaked from viewers people to, you know, maybe drive up the

price and create a bidding war. But however, I mean, you know, Kenton, on the flip side of that, you know, Darien Mensa is allegedly getting four million per year from Duke, reportedly, four million per year on a two-year, $8 million NIL deal. So maybe it's not completely implausible that somebody would offer 6 million to Ewers for one year who's obviously more proven than Dary and Mensa is. Is he though, Dono? Is he? Because having more tape out does not mean that you're more proof.

It means you're a more known commodity, but it does not mean more proof. And beyond that, you know what Mensa has that when yours does not? everybody says that the big 12 is a you know glorified group of five conference everybody you know not everybody let me not say that certain folks from the SEC and big 10 like I said the ACC and the big 12 are glorified power five or group of five conferences you know what's interesting though when you were playing that group of five conference and still couldn't be the uh the conference player of the year quarterback of the year first team all conference Mensa was his

conferences he was a guy that was seen highly and regarded highly in his conference and correct me if I'm wrong here but he actually has had a year that people looked at and said oh my God this kid is it not just on paper

not just what people thought not just oh man he he could be really good no no people looked at him they watched them and they objectively said oh he's one of the best quarter back in the nation at his age. Here's the only, the only point I'll argue with you on is that NIL payments are also based a lot on flash.

And Quinn, Quinn Ewers is so much more known than Darry and Mensa. So that, I mean, if the $6 million thing is true, like, Quinn Ewers will be a flashy signing. Like if somebody lands him and convinces him not to go to the NFL and play another year in college. That's a guy who, and I agree with you, Darian Mentson might very well be a better quarterback than Quinn Ewers, but who moves the needle more just based on PR and perception? It's yours. Well, sure, but you can go that substance route, but it's like, it's like getting fajitas at like one of these fancy restaurants, right? Like, you see them come out with all the sizzle and all that good stuff. And then once they're like on the table, you're stuck with the reality of like, oh, this is like

three fajitas worth of meat. This is like three wraps worth of meat. And the meat to tortilla ratio is always crazy. It's always crazy. Like, what are we doing here? So I look at this and I say to myself, if you want flat, sure. But Quinn, you were being offered $6 million.

Come on, though. Come on. Quinn, I know what you do. Oh, since we're all putting out rumors, you know, Dono, I was rumored to be romantically connected to Megan Mustalia. I started that rumor. And the streets are saying, no, no, it's not me.

It's not me. It's what the streets are saying, okay? I just want to, I just want everybody to respect me and Miss Pete's privacy during this time. I would just like that very much. Yeah, so when, when this, when the ex post from On 3 came out about this, you know, Quinn Ewer's report of the $6 million offer, I was reading the comments. A lot of people were commenting Miami. And yeah, those are there's so quite, but Miami might be interested in, in landing a flag.

She quarterback. I would find it very hard to believe that Miami would offer $6 million for him. I'm not really buying it. I could probably say that for most any program, but there's one thing, to keep it in the ACC for a second here, Kenton. You know, we know when North Carolina hired Bill Belichick,

there was the promise of upping their NIL budget for football to $20 million. It was widely reported that it was actually North Carolina, not Oklahoma and not Miami, who offered the biggest NIL bag to John Mateer, the star Washington State quarterback who ended up signing with Oklahoma. His heart seemed to be in Oklahoma's former coaches there, all that. But allegedly, North Carolina was the team that offered him more than anybody else did.

So I wonder, like if some, and I don't know if six millions the number, but if somebody has made a really, really high bid for Quinn yours, it would not surprise me if Bell, and Michael Lombardi are behind that. It makes me wonder that. So first thing first, let me correct one thing. Mentsa was named the freshman all-conference quarterback for conference USA.

He wasn't named first thing. So I just want to get that corrected before the URs fan boys come from me, before Queens, Queens come out and go crazy on me. Now, moving forward from there, if the North Carolina branch trusts offered in that, good, do it. Up the score. Go to $8 million. That's the wolf packer of me.

Let me speak as an objective guy who wants the best for the ACC. If you offered Quinn Equanimious yours, $6 million for one year, I promise you, there are so many better ways to spend $6 million to still get to $6.6. Okay? You can break that up amongst me and Donald. We'll take over for Isaac Shade. We'll be the new locked on time. I was going to say we will become the UNCPR machine.

We'll join forces with Isaac. We'll do it. I'll change out all my Miami gear for Tar Hill gear. I'll do it in a second. Or if you really want to get into it, we'll do it in like how Herb Street does it for ESPN, where we'll just purport ourselves as the ACC guys and always have like,

UNT will always be an A block, we'll spin everything like, oh yeah, UTC is four and six right now, but you got to remember four of those games are within 28 points. That means there are four plays away from being an entirely different team. So, you know, there are many better ways to spend that to know queen ewers.

But very seriously, if you're talking about what's best for your program, you can spread that money around to all these different positions. Right. Why get one queen viewers when you can get the top guys at every other damn position if your goal is, hey, we'll put together a team that is built on a very good NIL system and we'll make this a semi-pro team in essence. Do it like you would in the pros. And the pros, you wouldn't give a $100 million a year deal

and then have everybody else looking around like, wait, who are we going to pay the block for him? Who are we going to pay to do all the things that he needs done for? I don't know, but he's getting paid $100 million a year, so we'll figure out the rest with scraps. Yeah. And the big problem with paying one player that much is the secret's going to get out pretty quick and the rest of your roster is like, hey,

how come I'm making, you know, 30 grand and this guy's making $6 million? Like what's going on here? He has to be perfect at that point. Yeah, exactly. making six million. Like, I'm showing up to practice early every day and I'm getting paid 200 banks. If the guy that is being paid, what would that be? 30 times what I'm making is showing up late ever? Oh, he better put some money in that bucket. He better drop some more. He better be giving NFL level gifts to all his offensive linemen at that point. But again, because he would be making more than some NFL quarterbacks looking at you, Brock Purdy, by the way, shout out to you for losing to my lions.

But, you know, it's a situation that I can't see happening. But if the Tar Heels want to do it, again, the Wolfpacker in me is like, go for it. Pay them up it from six to ten. Yeah. If the six million thing is true, I hope it's not Miami. As a guy who covered Miami and went to Miami, I hope that's not coming from Miami because, you know, the reports. And nobody knows exactly what Miami's paying out because it's a private institution. It's a little bit more tight lip.

But the other, the reports would indicate that Cam Ward was making about a third of that. And so would Quinn Ewers really be worth three times what Cam Ward was making? That's a hard no for me. Sorry. That's a hard no. Absolutely. And if we talk about some of the highest paid quarterbacks and all that good stuff in the NFL, right? Joe Burrow is one of the high, I believe he's the highest with 24.5% of, you know, whatever it is.

is that whatever it is that the entire salary cap is. If you look at UNC, you say that they've upped it to 20 mil, I believe was the number that Bill Belichick was like before, 15 to 20, something like that. Allegedly, yeah. Now, let's do the math on that, I know. Six times four is 24. So even if you were to say, hey, we want him to have the exact same amount as Joe Burrow, we'll round it up to 25%.

You're still not looking at six. Six puts you at that's more than one-fourth of your total allotment. Wow. That's wild. Well, I appreciate the math skills because I couldn't have come to that so quickly. He is Kenton Gibbs from Locked-on Wolfpack. I hope everyone has a happy new year. Celebrate safely.

Don't be an idiot and get behind the wheel if you're going to drink too much. Find a designated driver, call an Uber, celebrate at home, whatever you got to do. And don't go shooting in there. The bullets are coming down. Don't do it. What goes up must come down. That's one of the first things we learn at school. So remember that tonight.

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