Locked On ACC - Daily College Football & Basketball Podcast - WARNING: 24-Team Playoff EXPLOSION Could DESTROY College Football’s Regular Season, Experts FEAR

Episode Date: May 5, 2026

ACC football faces a crossroads as debate rages over a potential 24-team College Football Playoff expansion. Could tradition be sacrificed for profit? Alex Donno and Kenton Gibbs highlight why fans and coaches largely oppose the Big Ten-driven push, revealing how this playoff model could erase conference championship games, diminish regular season stakes, and welcome four- or five-loss teams. Plus, Kenton Gibbs scrutinizes Clemson’s struggles in the NIL era, spotlighting Dabo Swinney’s resistance to change and his controversial Notre Dame “money machine” comments. Are Clemson’s recruiting woes a sign the development-first philosophy is outdated? The hosts also break down Ari Wasserman’s top 10 “pivotal” college football programs for 2026, questioning Miami’s placement and Florida State’s glaring omission. Can Dabo Swinney and Clemson adapt, or will the power dynamics in ACC football forever shift? Everydayer ClubIf you never miss an episode, it’s time to make it official. Join the Locked On Everydayer Club and get ad-free audio, access to our members-only Discord, and more — all built for our most loyal fans. Click here to learn more and join your team’s community: https://lockedonpodcasts.com/everydayerclub   Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! 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 RugietGet 15% off your treatment → https://rugiet.com/lockedonnhlRugiet. Performance medicine for men. FanDuel Today's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Right now new customers can bet just five dollars and get one-hundred and fifty dollars in bonus bets if your first bet wins. Visit https://FANDUEL.COM to get started — Play Your Game.   FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

An absolutely perfect statement was made regarding the proposed 2014 playoff. College football should be run by people who like college football. 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's Kenton Gibbs. I'm Alex Dono, and on this episode of Locked-on-A-C, a curious list of the 10 college football programs facing the most pivotal seasons in 2026. Dabo Sweeney was interviewed by Greg McElroy.

And yeah, there was a lot of talk about money and tampering. We have to dive into that. But Kenton, on this 24-team playoff idea that the Big Ten has really been pushing. And apparently it's got support from that committee appointed by the White House. Almost everybody hates this idea. Like, it's almost universally hated. And I thought I give credit to the man who's, said it. Kevin Clark, who said this on the Paul Feinbaum show earlier this week. He said, quote,

I think the college football should be run by people who like college football. And every decision, every idea I've seen about playoff expansion seems like it's come from people who don't like college football. Don't know why we like it. A 2014 playoff would be a disgrace. Do you agree that it would be a disgrace, Kenton? Oh, wholeheartedly. wholeheartedly, there are so many things that college football, and here's the thing, we have to be very open and honest about this. College football, as it exists, needs, necessitates certain things. Without certain things in place, college football is no longer college football,

and that really goes for all collegiate sports to some degree. with the amount of money and the way that money has influenced this thing, I'm willing to say even sans the 2014 playoff. This is no longer, you know, as that old meme goes, what happened to the game I love? Because that is what you would be sitting here saying. If there was a world where you tell people, yeah, guys regularly go from state to UNC or UNC to state,

yeah, that's happened like five times in the past couple years. What? What? What happened to the game we love? I was watching the Swamp King's documentary just the other night. And I saw that Florida was like, yeah, we lost our second game. We knew it was over. We knew we had no shot. When they played Bama and the SEC championship, that's number one, number two.

And even outside of the SEC, people forget the reason that Florida was able to win that first championship is because they were selected for the national championship over number two. Michigan, who's only lost that season, came to Ohio State who beat them in the game. That was it. No other losses. So I'm saying this to say, a 2014 playoff takes away moments like that, takes away that, hey, I got to do it right every single week or else. Oh, but you can have one slip up. But outside that one slip up, you better be damn dominant. You better be so good.

People are looking up at you. Oh, man. And watch this. Here's the biggest thing, Donald. People talk about, well, why does it matter if it expands to 24? Here's the biggest thing that these conferences will lose. Conference championship games. Yeah, see, they would have to take those away at 24.

Those are gone, gone. You'd have to take them away. Yeah. And why is that important, Donno? Because does the NFL have conference championship games? Yeah, sure. They don't. They don't have an official.

Hey, you're in the NFL. It's part of the playoff. Yeah. Exactly. It's part of the playoff. But they don't have an official, hey, you're part of NFC North. The Bears are number two, lines are number one. Go play each other.

And that's how we'll determine who the champion is. It's just, hey, you got the best record. You're the champion. Oh, you got identical records. Who played the, who got the better in division record? And who got the better this and that and the tie break? Whose shoe was tied on a Wednesday when they won a football game. You take away the essence of college football.

when you make the regular season meaningless. I'm not saying that the BCS was perfect. I'm not saying that the media is selecting a national champion and the AP selecting national champion. Because we've seen with a lot of things recently that have come out about media members, hey, and Dono and are saying this, two media guys, two media guys.

We've been in media since we had firm hairlines when we were in media when we started in this thing. Both of us, clean, clean up top, little shiny. It's what it just blithe. That's what the media will do. If I'd gone into a different business, I would have all my hair. You know, but in all seriousness, we are looking at a situation where the game is changing in a way to where a 2014 playoff would be another step in the erosion of what we know a Scottish football. You know, I have theories on this.

And I've already said one of these to you and to our audience that to me, this is a negotiation. Like the Big 10 pushes hard for 24 because that may be the best road to get up to 16. That we're at 12 right now. The SEC, who's the other big power broker, I wish the ACC had more influence. We don't. The ACC and the Big 12 have almost zero influence over this. But the SEC is perfectly content at 12. The Big 10, I think, you know, they'd like this thing to get significantly bigger.

And I feel like from their point of view, if they push for 24, that gives us a lot of gives them a better chance of getting 16. That's how bargaining and negotiating works. That's one theory. Now, another theory that I have on this, Kenton, is if you see the way the reaction has been, like outside of, I think Tim Brando, I don't think I've seen any media members publicly supporting 24 teams. Like, it might just be one guy.

I haven't seen a single fan in support of it. Tim Brando and the Big Ten commissioner, Tony Petiti, might literally be the only people who want a 2014 playoff. I also wonder with stuff like this, they float ideas like this out there publicly again to get the fan base so angry that then you're like, oh, just kidding, we're going to do 16. And everybody rejoices. Oh, thank God they didn't go to 24. When most people are perfectly happy at 12, they're going to slide 16 in because thank goodness they didn't take it all the way to 24, which nobody wants. And don't know, that's definitely a possibility. That's definitely a thing that could be happening here.

But again, let's parse this out the way that it is probably going to shake out, right? So you got two auto bids that are not, you know, guaranteed to be inside the top 25 or so. So let's look at the number 22 team from each of these past few years. And you tell me if this team had a snowball's chance in hell at winning a national championship. And we'll go by the AP top 25, okay? Okay. Number 22 in the final poll last year, Houston. Connor Wegman and Houston got a shot?

Sorry, no. Okay. Well, maybe the 22 the year before that. Mazoo. Mm-hmm? I mean, they would like to think so, because it's the SEC and anything can happen, but politely, no, I'll say no.

They didn't have. And, and let's really be honest about that, that Missouri team. Every team that they played that was ranked inside their conference, belt every single one of them. 4110 lost to A&M, 34 Zip lost to Bama. So I mean, let's just be very honest about what we got going on there. But now let's go back another year here. And 22 in 2023 was SMU. Do you think they have a chance? They were not even Power 4 at that time. No. They were not. No. No. Okay. Well,

maybe 22 the year before that, our boys, the pit panthers. How about it? No, they're not winning a Natty now. Sorry. What? Addison and Kenny Pickett aren't enough, but do you get my point? I get your point. Like, we're looking at a situation where, again, I will get behind you. I'll get behind you on it.

I'll get behind you and even say, you know what? Sometimes there will be a time where 12 pulls off something crazy. Hey, I'll give you 12. 24? 24 is just, I mean, what are we actually doing here? Because now, now, even if we say the teams who finished at those rankings, well, whether or not they were good or bad, not a single one of those teams finished with less than three losses.

Not a single one of them. SMU had four. So we're looking at a situation where we're going to be talking about four and maybe even some five lost teams being in the playoff. So you, in essence, have lost so many games that when bold games first started at their inception, you wouldn't have got into one. And you're going to be in the playoff potentially?

What are we doing? Let's slow it down. I can't wait. You know, we're like two months away from the ACC kickoff. You know, again, not that he's going to have any real say in the matter, but I can't wait to hear how Jim Phillips feels. about this if he's in support of going to 24 because ultimately, you know, he's going to have his say. He's going to get outvoted by the Big Ten and the SEC, but I'm curious to know what he thinks about it.

Now, Dabo Sweeney, head coach of Clemson, said a lot of things with Greg McElroy on all his college football this week, including which school did Dabo Sweeney accuse of being a money machine? You want to keep it locked right here. We're only getting started on locked on ACC. Workplace chaos. Deadlines are stacking up, inbox overflowing, and the one position you have to fill is still sitting open. When the pressure's on and you need the right hire,

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That's indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire. This is a job for indeed sponsored jobs. Folks, I hope you've joined the Everydayer Club already for your favorite shows on the Lockdown Network. But if you haven't, it's good a time as any. No time like the present. Go to Lockdown Podcast.com slash Everydayer.

And when you join the Everydayer Club, you get exclusive ad-free versions of these episodes. You get Discord chat access with hosts and other listeners like yourself talking sports. 24 freaking hours a day. So go to locked on podcast.com slash everydayer and become an everydayer club member today. Thank you for making locked on ACC your first listen. So, you know, Dabo Sweeney, you know, he started his offseason with that tremendous viral rant about, you know, Ole Miss tampering with Luke Forelli. And Dabo continues to lean into the whole money versus development angle.

Like he's fully leaning into that. Like I feel like internally at Clemson, which I know like Clemson, the alumni base is like average to below average inside the ACC. But Clemson has been known for having a very passionate alumni base. Their stadium is always full on game days. Before the NIL era, Clemson has always had state of the art facilities and donations. They just, they haven't embraced the NIL part of it. And so I kind of feel like for Dabo, instead of complaining about not having as much money, should maybe mobilize his alumni to kind of focus on the modern era of the game.

Because, like, you can't tell, like, Clemson is not Wake Forest. Like, you can't just scream poverty. I think the money is there if you allocate it to where you need it, right? But a viral moment from Dabo in his interview with McElroy was, you know, he talked about independent programs like Notre Dame, seem to make their own rules and print their own money with a backyard money machine. But that's not how we do things at Clemson. So it's like, and you know, again, like he's leaning into the whole development angle.

And overall, it's worked pretty well for them. It's just not working the way it used to work, Kenyon. Now, just to be clear, he said that who was playing by their own rules and was printing money? Notre Dame. Notre Dame, playing by their own rules and printing their own money. Here's the deal. At the end of the day, it's the new nature of the world. And again, these colleges and people like Dabo are part of the reason this problem exists.

You know why? You know why, Dono. Because when the chance came up before for them to accept this and put it in with guardrails, what did guys like Dabo say? Once guys get paid, I'll go do something else. Well, it seems like you've taken a vacation from coaching. It seems like it. Former national champion, former, you know, every year, 14 playoff,

Clemson going to be there. The playoff just expanded. And you were playing in the Fenway Bowl, brother. Huh? With a team that everybody said, oh, yeah, they got two first round address. They got a quarterback. That's a Heisman candidate. They got a wide receiver room.

It's one of the best in the nation. And you could not get it done. So when I look at this, I'm going to say something. that may hurt people's feelings. Something that people may say, Ken, you're an NC State guy. You definitely shouldn't be saying this. But I'm going to say it anyway.

Get your money up, not your funny up. Because you are the reason it is like this. If you and all the coaches of your ilk would have banned together and stood arm in arm and said, hey, enough for the back room payments. Enough for the, you know, everybody, players who ain't been to church in a month of Sunday, don't even go to church on Easter in Christmas.

Don't even go to church then. All of a sudden, they go on these visits and they find religion and they leave that church, smiling like they never smiled before. If you know, you know. I just think if they would have banned together and said, let's stop this, let's regulate this, let's get these players paid, but let's get them paid in a manner that's conducive to success and long-term sustainability. You could have gotten away from moments like this.

You could have gotten away from a moment. like Ferelli leaving your campus coming on the six leaving on the 16th you could have gotten away from you're 100% right but you were so hell bent on keeping absolute control and don't as a parent and many of you listen to this are parents so you know if you hold your kid in everything they do you watch them 24-7 like a hawk every step they take yeah don't step that way you got to turn your foot more along you do that the minute you let them out the house what happens They go wild. Lose their mind.

Instead of giving the players the space and autonomy to say, hey, you know what, we want y'all to get paid. Hey, you know what? Y'all are employees. Let's collectively bargain. Hey, you know what? Let's set a salary cap. So it don't matter how much money you got.

And if you get caught paying players, the hammer's coming down. I mean SMU death penalty type time. If you get caught paying players, if a player signs here, he's got to stay here. You can't enter. then commit somewhere, sign papers, and then re-enroll those. You didn't want to do it, though. You wanted absolute power. So now we're at this point where, guess what?

Oh, they got the Catholic church behind them? Oh, well. Oh, BYU's got the Mormon church's money behind them. Oh, well. Oh, all these different schools got all this different money behind them. Ohio State's about to have the first ever $50 million roster in college football. Oh, the hell. well, had you just said, we'll give you a little something, it wouldn't be a situation where

everything is up for grabs. But now look, look around. Every single thing is wide open for grabs. Yeah. I mean, you make such a great point that people like Dabo who resisted it completely are the reasons why there are no guardrails. I thought that's a great point. And listen, man, I still think Dabo's a hell of a football coach.

And like a part of me does root for him to show. that like the old school mentality and the old school way of doing things can still work. But, you know, he talks about, you know, obviously since Clemson, they don't go, you know, NIL is a thing. And their players do make NIL money, but they don't get into bidding wars and stuff like other schools do. So he talks about the approach being high school recruiting intensive. And, you know, transfer portal just break glass in case of emergency, right? That's the approach. And where I start to feel that things are coming off the rails there for him is,

that even though he's got one of the most powerful recruiting pitches, because he can tell players, hey, if you come here, we're going to invest three, four, five years into your development, and we're never going to recruit over you in the transfer portal. Like, if that's your angle, I feel like that should be working better, Kenton, because you look at the recent rankings of Dabo's recruiting classes right before the NIL era into the NIL era. like there's been a noticeable dip, right?

I mean, NIL was not a thing yet in 2020, and Dabo's 2020 class was ranked third nationally. 2021. I think NIL was approved that year. Nobody really knew how to do it at that point. They have a top five class in 2021, number five nationally. 2022, suddenly big boosters, collectives are becoming a thing. They dropped to number 10 nationally, number 11 nationally.

And then most recently, the last two classes, number 25 and 26, number 26 nationally and number 20 nationally. So it's like they haven't dropped consistently out of the top 25 yet in recruiting, which is a good thing. But I feel like when you can pitch to players, you come here and we will never replace you in the transfer portal. They should be doing a little bit better than they are, but they need to step up the NIL game. Well, you know, Dono, this goes back to, there's a cliff of Tony Hawk going viral saying that he didn't take Activision's money when they tried to buy him out. They offered to buy him out of his royalties for Tony Hawk Skater and Pro Skater and All Latin. You know, Dono, you may be a little too old for this. Maybe you're not.

But for me, growing up, that was the game. I had never, I've never been on skateboard in my life. That's what I'm saying. I've never been on skateboarding my life. That game, you still had to play, right? Yeah. Now, why am I saying this and why is this important? Tony Hawk said, yeah, they tried to buy me out and it didn't work because I was in a good enough spot financially where I could wait it out.

I could say, let's see what happens, right? Now, why is this important to dabble in the NIL and whether or not he's giving and all that good stuff? The reality is, how many of these players are in I can wait it out situations at home? how many of these players are in? I can sit down and wait until everything comes to fruition three to four years from now. I can wait that out as opposed to telling mom and dad, hey, your mortgage is that. I got it. Because that's the level.

That's the level that. And it's not like Clemson is the only place you could develop, right? I mean, you can say, like, all right, I can go to Clemson where I'm guaranteed they won't replace me in the portal, but I can make, you know, a hundred grand there versus I can go to in Georgia or Miami. Miami probably a better example because they're even more aggressive with NIL and I can still probably get developed. And I can, you know, I can make five, ten times what they offered me at Clemson. It's, you know, it's hard to say no. Question, Dono.

If you're Cantwell, why wouldn't you go to Miami? You get the best of both worlds. You're going to get the best offensive line. development and the money. And so what do you offer again? This is not as much as people love to say, oh, these players are two transactional and this is ruining college sports. I agree.

I agree that the transactional nature of college sports ruins college sports. In the NFL, I know I have watched it with my own two eyes, some of my favorite players, the fact to some of those teams that we said we hate it. I watched. I saw Jason Taylor play a season for the New York Jets because they offered him, three times what the dolphins offered him. But that's my point.

It's professional sports. We accept that. I watch Ben Wallace Trot out there for them sorry, old Chicago Bulls. Disgusting. Disgusting. Horrible. But it happened. And that's the nature of pro sports.

But you know what I would have never expected to see growing up? If somebody would have told me, hey, Ken Braylin Edwards is going to be a Buckeye one of these days because they got more money. What? Who is going to be? to be a what now? Like that's again, this is this is where we are and you can sit there and you can hold your moral righteousness. You can hold your, we're doing it the right way. You can hold your pitch of you got four years here guaranteed some. We're not going to quit on you. We're not

going to give up on you. And you know what's going to happen? Because this is a discussion for a different time. But many people say that a lot of black coaches have the same problem where there's so invested in, hey, I'm not going to give up on you. I want to develop you as a player and as a man that they put winning secondary to developing these players and showing up for them. And here's the nature of the business, right? When people talk about Nick Saban, do they say, hey, without Nick Saban, there wouldn't have been all these great men created?

When people talk about Bobby Bowden, do people say, hey, without Bowden, they wouldn't have had all of these wonderful men? When people talk about Jimmy Johnson, do people say Jimmy Johnson's canes were filled with upstanding citizens? And I'm telling you, they became choir boys compared to what they would have been. And here's the thing. Here's the thing, Dono. If you really want to think about it, that technically is true. If you look at some of those Miami teams, what those young men would have went on to do had Jimmy Johnson said, first incident I'm cutting you, it would have been terrible for them.

That's objectively true. But when you talk about Jimmy Johnson, what do you do? talk about. He won. Championships. Rings. Notariety. Winning streaks. That's what you talk about. So, dabble, you can hold all your righteousness.

You can hold it till you're blue in the face. You won. But in the words of Andre 3000, you only funky has your last cut. And his last cut stinks. Well, they'll have an opportunity to bounce back. And they get to do it as an underdog. So you certainly know excuses of, you know,

reading your own press clippings and getting cocky or complacent. Like there's no complacency in Clemson, South Carolina. Like they're not expected to do anything this year. And oftentimes those are when dabbo teams rise to the occasion. So we shall see. Now, I feel like Clemson should be on this list. Pivotal seasons coming up in college football. You want to keep it locked right here because we're not done yet on Locked on ACC.

Thank you for making Lockdown ACC, your first listen here on the number one sports podcasting network, the Lockdown Network, your team every day. For your next list, make sure you check out our other shows. Kent and Gibbs and Grayson Boone, do an unbelievable job talking all things Wolfpack on Lockdown Wolfpack, NC State.

I host Lockedon Keynes talking all things, Miami. You could follow me at Alex Dono. All right, so Ari Wasserman at On 3, who I think does a really good job, but some of this list, I don't know if I agree with. He writes, the top 10 college football programs facing the most pivotal seasons in 2026. I just feel like the logic is all over the place.

So like he has USC at number one, which I agree with because like, how long has Lincoln Riley been there? Is he heading into year six or something at USC? Yeah. Yeah. And Lincoln was just talking, okay, now our window to win a championship is open. It's like, wait, did they really steal you away from Oklahoma so it can happen in year six or later? I don't think so. So I get it. Pivotal season for USC. LSU is number two,

really pivotal season. And I totally get that because, you know, they invested a lot of in that program and in Lane Kiffin. Now, they do put Kenton. Clemson does make the list at number three for all the reasons we talked about. And I'm happy that they're on there. Utah at number four, Michigan 5, Miami at six. I don't really get the logic putting Miami in there, Kenton, because it's like the other programs that are on the list are usually programs that have been like floundering and maybe the coach's borderline on the hot seat. So I don't really understand Miami being in that top 10. Now, obviously from where I sit, the host of Locked on Cains, every season is a pivotal season. I just don't see how you put them into that conversation with

like Clemson with USC and with LSU. I don't feel like that's the same list. So I don't know Wasserman personally, but I'm going to try to speak for him here. I think that this is pivotal positive for Miami. If Miami has a great season this year, if they go on to repeat last year, but maybe even win an ACC championship

on top of going to a national championship, that then cements the fact that that was not a flash in the pen. That this is like, hey, this is who my. Miami is now. Expect them to be back year after year. Expect them to be able to knock on the door, even if they don't kick it down this year. Expect them back at the precipice of winning it all. Expect them there. I think that that's a pivotal good instead of a pivotal in terms of like, oh, well, if this year doesn't go well, you know, we're going to think about firing your coach.

I think it's more so if this year doesn't go well, we know like, yeah, Miami still got work to do before you get in that perennial playoff powerhouse, that dynasty moment of like, hey, when you write the story of college football in the late 2020s, you cannot write it without Miami. You can't write it without the minute.

I think that's what he means by pivotal. Because again, there's two ways to look at it. It's just like if somebody sees your outfit, it says, hmm, okay, all right now. You know, it's different ways that you can interpret it, depending on how they say it, because they could also look at you off and say,

okay, all right now. That's usually the look I get. Well, Dono, stop it. Stop it. They call you wrench because you normally overdressing. But the reality is, you know, there's a couple different ways to do this thing. And so if you view it from a negative,

this is not a pivotal negative season for Miami. It is a pivotal positive because if crystal ball and company get it done, if mince and company get it done, they'll cement themselves as like, hey, we're back. We're here now. Yeah, I just feel like they're one of the few that are pivotal positive. So let me give you the rest of the list and who should absolutely be on there who's not. So Alabama at number seven, fully agreed.

Colorado at number eight, I mean, Coach Prime is still there. That steak has lost at sizzle over the last couple of years. They haven't had the same sort of spark and success there. Tennessee at nine, South Carolina at 10. But if you're going to put Colorado on there at number eight, some of these other programs, how do you not put Florida State on there, Kenton? Like how do they, by the criteria you judged a lot of these other programs, how do you not have the program that was almost at the top of the world just three years ago

and is now, you know, I don't even know how to describe where Florida State is right now. How do they not make the list of pivotal seasons? With all due respect, I very seriously don't see how Colorado made that list. I don't get it. when you include the fact that Dion Sanders get you good instant clicks, sure. But when you actually look at the overarching theme, when's the last time Colorado was really good consistently? When Coach Mack was there and they were running a triple option,

that's the last. Like 20, 25, 28, 30 years ago, I don't know. Yeah, yeah. That's the last time that that was a legitimate like, hey, people want to pay. attention here type of team. It means something type of team. So with that in mind, I don't see how you don't include that team.

And for Florida State to not be included, I get why they're not included for this reason. We already know what's going to happen. We already know the story's already written. It's just like, oh, how much fun are we going to have in between? Do you pull off an upset

of Bama again and don't get what you need? to win football games again this year? What fun do we have along the way? Because it's not a matter of like, oh, might they? Possibly? Could they?

It's a matter of we know. Y'all are holding on to that coach that you hate because you have to. So ultimately, I would say, you know, I get why Florida State is not listed as pivotal, even though the coaching search that they have upcoming will be pivotal to whether or not Florida State ascends back to where they belong. or continues to flounder at mediocrity and below. So, yeah, I guess you're right.

The following season, assuming Norville gets fired, is when you would get to the pivotal point. Exactly. I guess you're right about that. Huge thank you and shout out to the Everydayers. Make sure you check out the Everydayer Club. And make sure you follow Kenton at TGIF underscore Kenton and on Lockedon Wolfpack.

You can check me out on Locked on Cains and at Alex Dono. And we'll talk to you next time on another episode of Lockdown ACC. We are part of the number one. Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day.