Locked On ACC - Daily College Football & Basketball Podcast - WARNING: Congress Under Fire As SEC, Big Ten FIGHT To Take Over College Football POWER

Episode Date: July 3, 2026

Congress can’t halt the next era of NCAA conference realignment, as the SEC and Big Ten push back against restrictions in the Protect College Sports Act. Can any legislation curb the power of these college football giants, or will their lobbying reshape the landscape for years to come? Alex Donno and Kenton Gibbs dissect the hypocrisy around salary caps for players versus unchecked expansion and debate whether capping conference growth or NIL payouts is truly un-American. Shifting to recruiting, Texas A&M, Miami, Notre Dame, Oregon, and Texas Tech wage a high-stakes arms race, reportedly spending $10 million+ for top classes. Is building a powerhouse worth the escalating cost? The show also spotlights Miami’s Malachi Tony and Clemson’s Sammy Brown earning preseason All-America honors, plus a breakdown of ACC stars on the watch lists for major national awards. Who will emerge as the conference’s next breakout sensation? 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! FanDuel Today's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. From the opening whistle to the final kick, Let There Be Goals on FanDuel.Visithttps://FANDUEL.COMto get started now.   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.

Congress is not going to be able to stop the next round of conference realignment. The SEC and the Big Ten will make sure they can't. You are Locked-on ACC, your daily podcast on the Atlantic Coast Conference. Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Happy Friday, happy Independence Day. He is Kenton Gibbs from Locked-on Wolfpack. I am Alex Dono from Locked-on-Cains, and this episode of Locked-on-ACC is brought to.

by Fanduel. The biggest stage in world soccer is here. Let there be goals on Fandual. Visit fandual.com to get started right now. On this episode, several ACC players have been nominated and put on some important preseason award watch lists. Want to break that down. Recruiting, it's getting expensive. How much does it cost to put together the number one class in the country and to put together a top 25 recruiting class? We have the answer. answer to that. But Kenton, let's start with the latest on the Protect College Sports Act, which is this, you know, major bill that's on the Senate floor. Now they need a Senate majority and then it has to go through the House and it's got to be signed by the president. But one thing's for sure.

The two biggest power players in college sports, the Big Ten Conference, the Southeastern Conference, do not want the bill to pass in its current form. They want revisions. They issued 10 different points that they want revised or improved on the Protect College Sports Act. And I think where we have to start on this, Kenton, is the idea that Congress, because in the current form of this Senate bill, they essentially want to freeze the power four conferences, including the SEC and the Big Ten, from adding any new members, right? They want to freeze it the way it is right now. And as you can imagine, the SEC and the Big Ten,

looking at various schools, they may want to hypothetically poach from other conferences in about four or five years when the new TV deals are ready. One of the big points is they want that taken out of the bill. You cannot freeze us the way we are right now. The hypocrisy of college coaches is once again laid bare. Is it not? the hypocrisy of the administrators is once again laid out before us to say,

hmm, well, we know that we want this set of rules for us, but for the labor force, for the guys who walk away with the torn biceps and the torn Achilles and the torn rotator cuffs and the fractured femurs and all that. Those guys, no, no, no, no, no, them getting their money in the way that the market would want to pay them in an unregulated fashion, can't have that. But conferences devouring other conferences in the unregulated fashion,

oh, hey, hey, hey now. So what did we've got USC going up to Biscataway, New Jersey? And I believe it was Lincoln Riley himself who complained about it's really tough having our schedule, having to travel across the country as often as we do. Yeah. Hmm, well, how'd that happen?

What happened? Again, this is a moment where, to me, you need to go all in on this caps for everybody thing or you need to just play it as it lies right now. And what do I mean by that? You cannot say, on one hand, expanding conferences as we see fit is good for everybody. So what if teams on other coasts end up in the same conference

and teams do end up traveling thousands of miles per season in order to play football and basketball and baseball and gymnastics and track and cross-country and all that. So what? We want the ability to get the maximum, excuse me, amount of revenue possible. And if that means that one day the Pact 12 finds the money to add a Clemson, Clemson, congratulations,

get ready to go to Washington State, get ready to go to Colorado State, get ready to, and obviously I'm not saying that that would happen in the real world. I'm just giving you an example because we've seen that happen before. But instead of saying, hey, you know what? We all need caps. It's players need caps. Too much. We need hard caps on the salary.

Don't cap our growth. No, no, no, no, not like that. We want caps on them, not caps on everything. Yeah, that's a great point. Yeah. I mean, and that ties into something we're going to talk about later in this episode about, about how much it costs now to build a recruiting. class. But listen, your point is well taken. So the part about removing restrictions on conference

expansion goes. So the current form of the Protect College Sports Act, the bill features an anti-expansion provision that frees membership by penalizing conferences with high annual revenues, which is 700 million plus now, if they absorb or poach other schools. The SEC and Big Ten want this removed. They argue that if any expansion limits remain, they should ban outside third parties or private equity firms from poaching schools to create a breakaway super league. So that's another hypocrisy, Kenton. If a super league is going to exist, it better be our super league, Big Ten in the SEC, not somebody else's Super League is what they're saying. But you see how this thing goes, right? So it's not that we don't want a Super League.

We just don't want Red Herring Capital coming in to do Super League. because we here at the SEC in the Big Ten, we have all of your best interest in mind. But they won't because they're the bad guys because they want to do the same things that we want to do. I mean, it feels like an episode of Love Island for Christ's sake. If the girls do it, it's all right. If the guys do it, the heads got a roll.

You know, I've never watched it. I've never watched Love Island. You're not missing anything, Dono. That is the talk of a happily married man. That's what that is, okay? But in all seriousness, I look at this thing and I say, point after point after point. You get the old Finesse 2 timeline.

It's cool when they do it. It's a problem when I do. Every single time we keep looking at these moments where we say, well, we're not banning a super league. We're banning your Super League. You can't have a Super League. We're not banning caps on growth. We're banning caps on player salary growth.

We're not killing the idea of transfers for everybody, we're killing the idea of player transfers. Schools, go to whatever conference is best for you. Conferences, coach whatever schools is best for you. But as individuals, as the labor force, you all need to be subservient to a different set of rules than the conferences are scheduled to. Then coaches are scheduled to.

It's just, it's really hard for me to understand this. I did like the parts about, hey, there's going to be certain windows for recruiting and there's going to be a like, you know, hard buyouts for if somebody goes from one place. I did like that. But all of this about, you know, the parts that Congress put in that they want to take out, it's literally just them saying over and over again, we want this. But no, no, no, not like that.

Not for us. Right. But we want that thing. But no, no, no, no, for them, for that group of people, not us. But once you get past the hypocrisy side of it, I do agree that, To me, like, capping the expansion of conferences is to be that that's un-American. I'll use that phrase since I'm draped in an American flag eagle shirt today. Dono, I agree.

I agree that capping the conferences is un-American. It's also an American to tell those young men, hey, you're talking about what you're bad. Because guess what? Guess what? If I personally, and I'm not going to surprise anybody here, I'm not a swiftie. I know. I know some people are going to get up. So you're not,

you're not at the wedding this weekend. No, no, no, no, no. You know, I believe that it's a Travis Kelsey involved thing. Anything that has to do with the state of Ohio, I'm good on. Okay. I don't, you know, I got to go to an Ohio native's wedding. Gross. But you look at, you look at what she does and how she does it.

And what she charges per ticket. It is flatly, to me, price couch. I would never pay that for a ticket. But Donna, what country are we in? We're in the United States of America, the greatest country ever made. And listen, ever since Apollo Creed and living in America, we remember, we remember he was fighting to beat the USSR and their way of doing things in terms of there would be hard limits. There would be hard cash. You can only charge so much for a concert ticket.

It is not that. The same way that those artists have every right to charge whatever they want for a concert ticket, these young men can charge whatever they want for their. services. I'm the only 6-3 guy that's 220 pounds and can run a 4-4 in America. How bad do you want me? Show me. Jump. Do something about it. Again, these colleges said they didn't want to collectively bargain. The players said they didn't want to collectively bargain. So now we're trying to get Congress involved and force things to happen. To me, this needs to be a sit down with all of the stakeholders, the players, the coaches, the admins, hey, this is what makes sense.

Let's bang this thing out. Let's earn this thing out. Somebody needs to explain to the players. Don't bank on 1% outcomes because a lot of you will not be the $10 million guy, the $15 million guy and all that good stuff. It's not going to happen for you. So get protections in place so that you end up well taken care of in the future. And for the university, same deal. Come to this table saying, hey, this is what the university needs in terms of a lack of player

movement or hey you got to be on campus for at least two years at your second school unless your coach leaves or something like that or whatever things that you need you need to say that so dono i do agree that capping the the you know team movement un-american but so is capping these young men's pay so is capping these young women's pay to me all of it is a a very clean exercise in if you just would have put guidelines you know i'm not trying to put my religion on anybody but We all know that the good book says, Spare the Rod, sport, a child, and they think that that means that you got to, you know,

hit your kids. That's not what it means. A rod is a guiding tool that a shepherd uses. We did not use that guiding tool. And by we, I mean the administrators, I'm not one of them, but I'm just saying in this scenario, the guiding tool was not used to say, you know what, everybody's getting paid.

Eric Dickerson's taking a pay cut to go to the NFL. Let's figure out a way to pay these players fairly. Let's sit down at a table, work out something where they're getting some of the fruits of their labors and kind of guide this thing in the right way. That didn't happen. So it turned into Pandora's box. We've opened it and now we're trying to slam it shut.

But only for the players. Only for the players. For us, for the coaches, for the admin, for the conferences, for the media, leave Pandora's box open. But for them, cap it immediately. Well, if they can't cap it,

we'll tell you just how open that Pandora's box is because putting together a top, 25, let alone a top recruiting class. It's not cheap. We'll tell you how expensive it is. You want to keep it locked right here. We're only getting started on this brand new episode of LockdowneCC. The biggest stage in world soccer is here right now.

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hat trick, guys, every goal you can benefit. from that. And I love, folks, I'll be looking for matchups where both teams are aggressively going for the goal, because those are the games that can open up fast. The more chances being created, the more exciting the match becomes from beginning to end. From the opening whistle to the final kick, let there be goals on Fandual. Visit Fandual.com to get started right now. Thank you for making Lockdown ACC your first listen. All right, so Kenton, on three sports, put out a new story where, and you take some of this with a grain of salt because they talk with sources, which include GMs from football programs, talking about other programs.

So, you know, there could be some agendas and some hearsay that come into this. But based on the sources like GMs and coaches that they polled, not too surprising. Texas A&M is said to be the highest spender in class of 20. 2027 recruiting. We're talking about recruiting just one class. Reportedly, they have paid, and we're still like five months away from National Signing Day, by the way, and they've reportedly paid already more than 10 million just for this one number one recruiting class that they have. Other big spenders that they list include Notre Dame, Oregon, Miami, and Texas Tech are said to be like the top five spenders. but even more so, Kenton, if 10 plus million gets you the top class in college football,

one anonymous SEC general manager said that he believes you have to spend $7 to $8 million just to put together a top 25 recruiting class. And again, I don't know if he may be inflating that to try to tell Congress, y'all need to step in and put a cap on this. But still, we know these numbers are going up and it's not cheap to land a top. class in the country. The thing, Donno, at a school where y'all can spend that. I'm at a school that didn't happen.

And by the way, he's saying, oh, do y'all have degrees from those schools? Yes, Dono and I both have degrees from the school. We do. Respectively. Yeah, even though that doesn't really matter to fandom, because, you know, for me personally, I really don't think that that defines it. But let me be clear about this. Let me be extremely clear.

Even on the side of a school that does not have that kind of money because our top guys just don't want to spend on athletics. I don't care. I don't care what it costs. Spend it or else. Oh, the money is getting unsustainable. So stop spending it. Let your school be the first.

Let your school be the first. Let your school set the example. I'm not going to sit here and say that money is too much. NC State, go spend it. Don't come back with a dollar in your pocket coach, Dorn. I am on record when they talked about Justin Ganey and what he was coming into

after what happened with Will Wade leaving, I said, Justin Ganey, don't come back with a dollar in your pocket. I don't want you to be able to buy a cold Arizona tea from the gas station after you get back off the recruiting trail. Spend every dime.

And I'm okay with the fact that if every dime we got, don't match up with every dime Louisville got. Every dime we got, don't match up with every dime Miami got. Every dime we got, don't match up with every dime. I'm okay with that. I live with that.

You know why? Because it's a consistent thing. To me, so what? And Donno, you're absolutely right. This is absolutely teams that are becoming the have-nots are sliding back. Because you talked to me about this before the show. I knew that recruiting was bad at Bama. I didn't know that at Georgia, they were looking like,

brother, do you need some money too? But now that the big dogs are sliding back, the pitch of will develop you into an NFL player. It's not working anymore. Tough Titty said to kitty when the milk went dry. Figure out a new way. Figure out a new way. Oh, if the will develop you into a four-year pro

or into a pro after three years, if that's not enough, combine it with money. If you don't got the money to combine it with, guess what? I believe it was Senator Tom Tillis who was talking about something that's much more essential of people's lives that said, this is like a silk shirt. And if you can't afford a silk shirt, you don't get a silk shirt.

Guess what? Those five stars are the silk shirt. If you can't afford it, go to the clearance rack. Go find yourself a three star. Go get in the transfer portal. But to me, so what if it costs $10 million? So what if it costs $8 million? So what if it costs $20 million?

Okay, spend it or don't. Be a top class or don't? Nobody is putting a firearm to your head saying, Dono, you better make this a top 20 class. Nobody's doing that. You're choosing to want that. You can go to Iowa route and say, we'll get a bunch of three stars to develop them.

You go to NC State route. That's very much so been NC State's prognosis for most years. With all due respect to Doran, he's done some fantastic work in recruiting, getting NC State into the top 25 multiple times, which is respectful and amazing for NC State, respectable, rather, and amazing for NC State. But for Miami, that's not enough.

right for a multitude of reasons. Yo, so I'm going to have to continue here without Kenton because his power got knocked out. He says it was because of a thunderstorm. I think it was the big SEC lobby that was trying to shut him up if you know what I'm saying when he starts talking about all this NIL stuff. But, you know, he was mentioning, of course, there's obviously a difference between the haves and the have-nots when you talk about, you know, an NC State versus a Texas A&M. but you have to wonder if the situation we're in right now

can raise the incentive for certain schools that aren't big spenders right now to become bigger spenders down the road. And I'll say something about all the dialogue about who's spending how much on recruits. They say Texas A&M, Oregon, Notre Dame, Miami, and Texas Tech are allegedly the five highest spenders, to these general managers that On 3 spoke to, this is the playing field that we're in right now. And these schools are playing in that rule set and thriving in it. And I think something that's worth noting is that just because you are able and willing to cut checks,

whether it be for transfer portal or for recruits out of high school, you still have to be able to build relationships and be a good recruiter. That's still part of this year because guess what? If you're offering seven figures to a certain player out of high school, which does happen, especially with quarterbacks these days, somebody else is offering him seven figures, maybe two, three, four, five programs are you still have to build the relationships to beat those other teams because, you know, people have noted, rightfully so. Yeah, you can look at Texas A&M as reportedly the school that's spending the most money.

but Mike Elko, money or not, it's a darn good recruiter. You saw the way he was able to punch above his weight recruiting wise when he was at Duke. If he could do it at Duke in the early NIL era, he's doing it at Texas A&M in the midst of the NIL era. The coach that I cover, Mario Cristobal, he was regarded as one of the better,

if not best recruiters in the country before NIL was even a thing. And yeah, he's thriving in the NIL era as well because he adapts to whatever era he's in. You know, Marcus Freeman, I guess we don't have as much data of Coach Freeman at Notre Dame recruiting before the NIL era. But Freeman is an excellent recruiter and relationship builder. These are not just coaches just throwing out wads of cash and checks. Like these are coaches who have to be great at building relationships.

And they're also now armed with that financial power. Because if you look at, you know, school like Georgia, like Georgia is doing well in recruiting. but being number 16 right now on the on three industry recruiting rankings, that seems to be uncharacteristically low for UGA. Because I'll tell you, Kirby Freeman, it's a hell of a recruiter. They're Kirby Smart. I should say Kirby Freeman is a former failed Miami Hurricanes quarterback going about 20 years. I don't think he's a great recruiter.

But Kirby Smart, Coach Smart is a great recruiter. but if Georgia is falling a little bit behind some of their SEC rivals from a spending standpoint, no matter how good of a recruiter you are, the pocketbooks aren't where they could be or should be. It's going to hurt you on the trail. So it's a two-way street there. But there are still some darn good players in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Several of them have been put on award watch lists and preseason All-American teams. You want to keep it locked right here because we're not done yet on this brand.

new episode of Locked on ACC. Thank you for making Locked on ACCC your first listen. For your next listen, make sure you check out Kenton, Gibbs, and Grayson Boone on Locked on Wolfpack. If Kenton gets his power back, or if the big SEC lobby allows his electric current to reach his home again, I know Kenton and Grayson will drop another great episode of Locked on Wolfpack very soon. Make sure to check that out.

You can check me out on Locked on Cains covering all things Miami. and you bet Malachi Tony, Miami's stud wide receiver heading into his second year off of a 1,200-yard season, 13 total touchdowns, led the nation in receptions. Tony is getting a lot of preseason love. He's been named to the 2026 Walter Camp preseason All-America team, which is just a first team. You've got Malachi Tony of Miami, first team offense. I guess this is two teams, first and second team. Sammy Brown, Clemson linebacker, one of the best defensive players in the country, first team defense. And Bryce Fitzgerald of Miami, second team defense is a defensive back.

Bryce Fitzgerald is going to be stepping into a starting safety role this year at Miami. He was a true freshman last year, hauled in six interceptions despite playing in a rotational role. So the ACC has three players on the Walter Camp preseason All-America team. You have several ACC players who are on the 2026 Ronnie Lott Impact Trophy Watch list. I think this is all defensive guys. It's a defensive award. You've got Sammy Brown, Jr., linebacker from Clemson,

so he comes up on multiple lists. Fisher Kamak, defensive end from Virginia. Bryce Fitzgerald, DB from Miami, Cleve Louis. Levin, defensive lineman from Louisville, unbelievable player. Luke Murgot, linebacker from Duke, and edge rusher, Damon Wilson, the second from Miami, make that list. And here are the ACC players who made the Athlon Sports College Football 2026 All-America preseason team. Tony of Miami, first team offense.

Deuce Robinson, receiver from Florida State, first team O. running back Isaac Brown from Louisville, second team offense. Mark Fletcher Jr., Miami, third team offense. Cleve Lubin, Louisville, third team defense. Sammy Brown, Clemson, I think he's on every list, third team D. Kicker Aden Burr from Georgia Tech, third team specialist. Malachi Tony makes the list again as a third team specialist for Miami as a punt returner. Running back Justice Haynes, fourth team offense.

Now, Haynes, it's going to be someone to watch. this year. And I know you say fourth team. That's All-America. Fourth Team All-America is a heck of an honor. And you notice the ACC has three running backs on that list in Fletcher, I guess Isaac Brown first, then Fletcher, and then Justice Haynes. We said this on a recent episode of Locked on ACC. The Atlantic Coast Conference, they used to call it the conference of quarterbacks. Maybe it's the conference of running backs this year because a lot of the best RBs in the country are playing in the ACC right. now. Wide receiver Cooper Barcate from Miami makes fourth team offense. Wide receiver Bryant Westco Jr. of Clemson, fourth team O. P.J. Williams, offensive linemen from SMU, fourth team offense. Williams is one of the best offensive linemen in the country. And again, like, I've seen some lists. I think Phil Steele had him even higher, like maybe third team. But PJ Williams is one of the better offensive tackles in America. And Miami defensive of lineman Ahmad Moten Sr.

Makes fourth team defense. So you see really good representation for Miami, pretty good representation from Clemson. And then outside of that, it's pretty evenly distributed through the rest of the conference. So I guess that would tell you that in the eyes of the people who do these watch lists and All-America preseason teams, Miami and Clemson are the teams that are, I guess, consider to be the most talented when you consider the individual award honors, which kind of makes you wonder if Clemson is like on paper just in terms of you go down their roster. If they are the second most talented team in the ACC, how come a lot of publications have them finishing

fourth or fifth in the conference? Is there a disconnect there? I think the disconnect could be people don't believe in their quarterback. I think that's the disconnect, right? Because in the case of Miami, really deep roster. People trust that Darien Mensa is going to have a great season. In the case of SMU, if you could say Clemson may have a better roster top to bottom, who do you

trust more? Kevin Jennings of SMU or Chris Visina or whoever else might start at Clemson, you trust SMU's quarterback situation. Louisville, I know that Louisville's new quarterback is not experienced per se, but I think he's a former,

what is he, former five-star? recruit out of high school high level four start at the least former ohio state buck guy uh keen holts who really looks like he had a great spring and i think it'd be really good for louisville so maybe you trust him more than you trust vizina at clemson so i think the disconnect there might be the quarterbacking but clemson does have a really good roster and as you know a miami guy who will be watching miami play at clemson this year i do not take the tigers for granted especially not at death valley the huge thank you and shout out to all the everydayers. Thank you so much for supporting Kenton Gibbs and I.

Make sure you check out Kenton at Lockdown Wolfpack. Check me out at Lockdown Cains. And we'll talk to you next time on another episode of Lockdown ACC. We are part of the number one sports podcast network celebrating 10 years of the Lockdown Podcast Network. Your team every day.