Locked On ACC - Daily College Football & Basketball Podcast - We Should Have Let The NCAA FAIL And Collapse? | ACC Teams Hosed In ESPN FPI? | CFP Schedule Out

Episode Date: June 6, 2024

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Don't overlook that the worst thing about this House versus NCAA settlement is the NCAA gets to continue to exist. You are Locked on ACC, your daily podcast on the Atlantic Coast Conference. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. Shout out to the everydayers for making Locked on ACC your first listen and your first watch each and every day. We're available free. Wherever you get your podcast, we're free on YouTube. part of the Locked-on podcast network, your team every day. Today's episode is brought to you by Game Time.

Download the GameTime app, create an account and use code Locked-on College for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. On today's episode, we will discuss the fully revealed schedule, including kickoff times, locations, and broadcast information for the 12-team expanded college football playoff. I'm not going to be very productive between December 20th and January. you were 8 20th. A lot of nights and a lot of afternoons booked up watching these games. We will talk about ESPN's FPI preseason college football rankings and how your favorite ACC teams are represented there. But Kenton, he's Kenton Gibbs, by the way, from Lockdown

Wolfpack. I am Alex Dono from Lockdown Keynes. I was captivated reading a column today from Joe Moliah of the Indianapolis Star, who basically reminded us that The NCAA, the best thing that they got out of this multi-billion dollar settlement in that House versus NCAA antitrust case is they get to avoid collapse. They get to continue to exist. And the way that they were able to get universities and university presidents to come along with this is part of this settlement is basically avoiding future antitrust lawsuits. But here's what they wrote in the Indianapolis Star. The NCAA got off easy, settling House versus NCAA for more than $2.7 billion, with as much as $20 billion in penalties on the line.

It's surprising the plaintiffs didn't go for the touchdown and reject a settlement. Yeah, they left over $17 billion on the table here. A loss, he says, would have bankrupted the NCAA, keeping long denied money on athletes, and opened a new chapter for college sports. Bankrupting the NCAA, he writes, would have disbanded the organization's ineffections, leadership and structure, making way for something that actually serves the needs of athletes and universities. But that's not what happened, he writes. There is a prevailing sense the NCAA is too big to fail and that collapse would have irrevocably destabilized college athletics. He

says this fear is short-sighted. If the NCAA disappeared tomorrow, it might disrupt a couple seasons, but the conferences would quickly fill the void. If one of the major banks had collapse in 2008, he said the fear was that the global financial system itself would have disintegrated. That's why the government stepped in and every step was taken to protect the banks. We're treating the NCAA the same way now, but does anyone really believe it's impossible to hold a basketball tournament or a bowl game without the NCAA? Why go to such great lengths to protect it? Now, a big part of me, Kenton, feels like he's right. And it maybe would have been better for a lot of people had that organization just had to shudder?

You know, this is, maybe it's because I grew up, I play ball under the old school, okay? For those of you who don't know, I play for Coach Thomas Wilcher and, and Coach Jermaine Crowell was my defensive coordinator. I play against Alfred Casa and Tom Mock, and those are big names up in Michigan. If you're not familiar with Michigan, I School football, you won't be familiar with those days. But those are legends.

All those guys are in the Hall of Fame or headed towards the Hall of Fame on that trajectory. they run up to score. They don't believe in that take your foot off the gas. They don't believe in none of that. Dono, you and I have talked about the ACC versus Florida State, Clemson, and what do I keep saying?

The longer this drags out, the less it makes sense for anybody to settle because at that point, the losing side is going to be begging to settle. Hey, you know, that's not.

We're all good Christian people here. We're all good people. We're all good people of whatever domination. You know, we're friends. We're all friends. Come on. Help us out, man. That's what happens when you're losing.

If you're winning, you know, I don't know if you ever seen the movie kicking and screaming, but when Will Ferrell was playing tetherball with his dad and he said, now I bury you. I bury you. I bury you. That's the school of thought that I was raised under. And if you know, I've got two bottom balls. Barry you.

It's time to bury them alive. It was time. To take the NCA out to the woodshed and say, don't worry, just focus on the trees, just focus on the trees and handle your business. But now instead, like you said, we've got to continue with the ineffectual leadership. We've got to continue with the rules that lag behind what the actual athletes need. We've got to continue with the waivers that will be denied, maybe accepted, maybe who knows, whatever happened. We've got to continue with the nonsense that the NCA puts up with while they continue to do this in essence to stuff money in their coffers. because at this point, we are all seeing that it's not about player health.

It's not about player safety. Again, conference realignment in the end of itself shows that. It's not about academics. We all know the old saying of school first, football second. So for those of you who don't know, you hold up two fingers when you say school first, one when you say football second, because that's the dealer. So what is the NCAA's purpose at this point? Yeah, is it just to schedule games and tournaments?

Because like you said, and like they pointed out in the Indy Star, you talk about ineffectual leadership, they can't really enforce recruiting violations anymore. And they try to do that. They just get sued and then they lose or they settle. They obviously cannot enforce transfer rules. They don't even try to enforce those anymore. They can't enforce any NIL rules. So it's like, okay, I understand that the NCAA served a purpose in a different era,

in a different era when you didn't have college athletes eligible to get paid. and no one seemed to really want unlimited transfers back then for whatever reason, but the genie's out of the bottle now. When they could actually enforce some regulations, I can understand why the NCAA served the purpose. But if their purpose now is basically just to put out schedules and put their logo on a basketball tournament every year, I don't know why we need them and why they need to take a cut anymore.

Now, on the flip side of it, and obviously there are, I think, a lot of valid reasons we haven't even gotten into as to why the NCAA is not necessary. But on the flip side, Kenton, if I'm going to maybe make an argument in their favor, I don't even know if this is in their favor or not, because, you know, everyone obviously focuses on the moneymakers. They focus on college football. They focus, of course, on college basketball. And, you know, to a lesser extent, college baseball, because the college world series does get talked about quite a bit. You know, part of the NCAA's purpose is, you know, the organization of non-revenue sports. sports and, you know, ensuring, you know, equality through Title IX and scholarship splits and

stuff. So if you were going to replace the NCAA with something else, for as much of a capitalist as I may be, I hope it's not pure capitalism because I don't want to suddenly see, you know, women's soccer teams and track and field teams and diving teams and tennis teams suddenly getting cut all over the country because they no longer serve a financial purpose. I don't want to see that happen. Yeah, and I, here's the thing, right? When the NCAA gets gutted, which is inevitable, is coming. We can pretend like, you know, we can pretend like they're not running to die tired,

but that's what the NCAA is and that's doing right now. When the NCAA hits that point, when they hit that wall, ultimately they're going to be responsible for relegating and handling all of, not relegating, but handling and managing all of the non-revenue generating sports. Because many of those actually do resent. what the purpose and intent of amateurism is and this is no disrespect to those athletes in any regard whatsoever the swimmers at the NCAA level some of the best in the world they go on to win Olympic medals all that good stuff the track

runners at the college at the NCAA level they are some of the best in the world they go on to win gold medals for their respective countries all that good stuff so this is not to say they're not good athletes but when I think about what separates the difference but between amateurism and professionalism, right? Dono, if you and me go play basketball at, you know, Lifetime Fitness, okay? Some people may watch. You may have your family want to come watch.

My family may come watch. Some of the viewers of this show may come watch and say, oh, who's the best hooper between Dono and Ken? Undoubtedly, it'd be Dono, by the way. Who's the best basketball player between the two, right? That may happen. But there's a shift when all of a sudden you have a professional. trainer and I have a professional trainer to play basketball. Not only do we have professional

trainers, but our coaches are millionaires. Not only do we have professional trainers and our coaches are millionaires. There's a shoe deals involved in. I'm getting paid by NACA. You're getting paid by ID. All of a sudden, it becomes a different theme when we're filling a stadium of tens of thousands of people to watch you and I play basketball. All of a sudden, when we become the focus on Sports Center, you know, Stephen A and Shannon Sharp were talking about, could you get off a basket against Dono and who do you think has the advantage between the two. Now we're looking out a different ballgame. Objectively speaking, the NCAA, when it collapses, as it should, in my opinion,

will be responsible for handling the non-revenue generating sports because even if you talked a lot about how, you know, when they had the power, when they had the power, you know, when they had the power to enforce all these different rules, well, let's look at what they did when they had the power to enforce it. Justin Fields somehow gets clear to go from Georgia to Ohio State, even though he's from the state of Georgia up to Ohio State, clear and free he could play right away, but players who were actually transferred to be with their sick and elderly family members were denied waivers.

It seemed like starting quarterbacks, especially at the Power 5 level, had an absorbent amount of their waivers passed. Meanwhile, a guy like Chandler Zavala, who, by the definition of the rule in transferring in the NZ state, had to get legal representation in order to battle the NCAA about it. The NCAA has made its own bed, and I agree. They shouldn't have let up. They should have mass the gas.

We have 50. I want to get up 60 on the NCAA. Yeah, well, that's well said. Let's talk a little college football when we come back. ESPN has revealed their preseason batch of FPI, that's Football Power Index rankings. and they claim the FPI is the best predictor of a team's performance going forward for the rest of the season. So we got to talk about that, right?

Alex Dono and Kenton Gibbs with you. You want to keep it locked right here on this brand new episode of Locked on ACC. Folks, game time is the only ticket app that we use because, first of all, you can get amazing deals no matter when you're buying tickets for a sporting event, concert, music theater, comedy show. But you also, you get the best deals, right? before game time. Last minute tickets, they reward procrastinators on this app. But no matter when you book, you're getting great deals. I'm going to be going to some Stanley Cup final games coming up. The Florida Panthers, of course, representing my area down here in South Florida. But maybe some of you guys are planning to go to some NBA finals games. That starts tonight. Game time makes

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Terms apply. Again, create an account and redeem code Locked-on College for $20 off your first purchase. Download game time today. Last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. Thank you so much for making this episode of Locked on ACC, your first listen and your first watch today. Locked on, this network is awesome. And they've launched the first ever national sports 24-7 streaming channel on YouTube. And now it's also available on Amazon Fire TV and the free Fire TV channels app. Locked on Sports today is here. for you 24-7 covering the top sports stories of the day with the local experts of locked on plus our national shows covering every league find locked on sports today now available on the free fire tv channels app alex donno alongside kenton gibbs here on locked on acc so kenton i'm looking at the uh the espn

college football power index the fpi uh so not only do they do they rank teams here uh but they also give you their projected wins and losses now this is this is this is is a very scientific method that they use. You're going to see a lot of decimals, right? A team, like, for example, they've got the Georgia Bulldogs, I'm not arguing, at the top of their rankings with a 26.8 FPI ranking, and they've got their projected win total at 10.3 for this coming year. So Oregon at number one, sorry, Georgia, Georgia at number one, excuse me, Oregon at number two,

Texas at number three, Ohio State number four, Alabama five, Penn State, Six, Notre Dame 7, Oklahoma, 8, Tennessee 9, Missouri 10, and then finally you get a true member of the ACC in Florida State at number 11. Their projected win total, by the way, is 8.8 this coming year. Michigan at 12, LSU 13, Texas A&M 14, Clemson 15, with an 8.5 projected win total. By the way, for both Florida State and Clemson, their projected wind totals are under their Vegas lines at nine and a half wins this year. You've got Ole Miss after Clemson at 16, Kansas at 17, USC at 18, Auburn 19, Florida at 20, Louisville at 21.

So that's another ACC team, 7.9 is their projected win total. Kansas State at 22, Miami at 23 with an 8.2 win total. Arizona at 24 and SMU at 25. So they got SMU in front of NC State would be the next ACC team on the list. What do you make of all this? I want to tell those computers something that I want to quote a ACC legend. You know, stop it. Get some help.

Okay. Those computers, I don't know what the formula is. I don't know. Maybe this is the same formula being entered for Bracketology or something. Maybe it's the same formula because I don't get it. They said it's 20,000 simulations or something along those lines. What are they entering into the simulation machine? What information are they putting in?

Because I don't see a world where, and this is with all the reasons. Y'all know I love some SMU. Shout out to Sherwood Blutton and boys. You know, free to guys. But, you know, do I believe that the Pony Express will be back at some time in the future? Absolutely. Is it back now? Do I believe that there'll be ACC champs now?

No, I don't. I don't. And here's the thing. I love Brett Lashley. I think he's one of the better hand coaches in America. I think that he's going to get a bigger tier job, even though they're now in the Power 5. I think he's going to get a bigger tier job within the next two or three years.

I really do. But with that being said, I'm struggling with this idea that they're a serious threat in the ACC right now. I really and truly am. So, you know, you go from there and then you look at these other teams and you say eight games, eight and a half was the total for Florida State. If Florida State wins eight and a half games next year, something has gone terribly wrong. Yeah. Terribly. Like this is not, oh, man, that's just a rough year.

No, something has gone all the way downhill. Clemson is a little closer to making sense. But you get my point. Long story short, when you look at this conference, if you're going to tell me with a straight face, hey, SMU is one of the best five teams, I would ask you based on what? You would say last year's performance. I would say last year's performance against whom. You're right.

In what conference last year's performance? Yeah. Exactly. They played against the American conference last year. And with all due respect to the American conference, if you drop off most of the teams of the ACC, most of the upper half, I'd say, in the ACC, they're the champions or runner up. Maybe third place. Maybe.

Now, so what are we doing here, man? Stop it. So here I have an explanation of what the ESPN FPI is based on. And so, okay, after I give this to you, tell me if now you understand it better or you understand it even worse. So the FPI's rating is based on the average number of points by which team would beat an average college team on a neutral field. The model uses a Bayesian framework using priors around the EPA rate of each team unit derived from preseason expectation. I feel like somebody just put a bunch of words together. It's like, this will explain it.

Oh, yeah, I get a way more now. I get a way more now. It makes exponentially more sense to me. We all know what priors are and how much we've talked about that in football. You know, every time we watch college game day, the first. thing they talk about the priors we got to talk about the priors ladies of course that doesn't make sense of course it doesn't and and again the question becomes what information are you entering to get this before we even get to the formula what numbers are being entered that becomes the biggest question

because these teams are set to beat the average team by X amount based on what yeah based on how they Right, right. Like, are you saying, hey, this is how these teams played against the average, the middle of the road teams last year. Therefore, that's our belief for this year. Is it, hey, these players are now going. And so we factor out all of their production and what's coming back. But then it's the question of, well, how do you factor in what they got in the portal? How do you factor in maybe guys they got out of the portal?

We're in bad situations last year. They're going to be better this year. How do you factor those things? How do you factor in? Hey, this player who looked like a net positive? last year is going to be an award-winning guy this year because you've finally given them some weapons to throw to or some players are up. What do you factor in is my only question?

Because before we get to the point, to what you're alluding to, the big thing that's almost impossible to factor in is player development, right? I mean, if you've got somebody who may be starting for your team at whatever position it is, maybe he was a freshman last year, didn't play a whole lot or played and didn't play very well because he was a freshman. How do you know what that guy's going to be when he's a sophomore or when he's a junior, right? That's where it's like the numbers can only get you so far. This, you know, this reminds me of the BCS. Now, at least in this case, the ESPN FPI doesn't decide it just gives us something to talk about where the BCS used to decide who played in the

national championship game. So that was a little bit different. I will say this. I will say this. If they could bring the BCS back with small tweaks and that determined who gets in and who does I'd love it. Because this committee, they have absolutely crapped their pants on multiple occasions. In terms of like, we feel like this team should be in. I'm looking at you, Florida State. You got holes.

We all know you got holes. There's no way around that. But honestly and truly, I wish that they would bring the computers back to a certain extent in that regard. But at least in that situation, Donald, the computers have actual information for what they do. done that year up to that point to go off of. You see what I'm saying? Yeah. Like it's not. Which would be, yeah, which means the FBI is going to be more useful

during the season once you have new data. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, speaking of data, we now have dates and times set for the college football playoff. And this is, this is going to be a long stretch. This thing is going to start on December 20th. And it's not going to end until January 20th. So we're going to have an entire month of college football playoff, debates, arguments, you know, about who's going to win it once they get in it. We'll talk about the dates, times, and broadcast information set. You want to keep it locked right here, my friends. We're not done yet on this brand new episode of Locked on ACC. Thank you so much for making this episode of Lockdowne 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. Alex Donno alongside Kenton Gibbs. So Kenton, on Wednesday, the college football playoff committee put out a big old press release. It's got graphics and everything on the entire schedule with kickoff times, locations for most of these games, with the exceptions being the four first round games. They say each of the four first round games will be played on campuses to be announced on selection day December 8th.

So I would imagine without having set locations for those games, I don't know if the committee is just going to decide, hey, you're home, I would assume they're going to go by the higher seeds. I would assume the higher seed would be hosting those games. So folks, remember, there's 12 teams that are going to be getting in. The first five seeds will be given to the top ranked conference champions. And then from 7 through 12, it's going to be the highest ranked teams, you know, regardless of what conference they're in.

The first four seeds will all get a first round by. Five through 12 will have to partake in the first round of the playoff. So in that first round, you're actually going to get a couple games on TNT. You're going to get two games on ABC, ESPN simulcast. The first of those will be evening game on December 20th. And then on December 21st, you're going to get a noon game on TNT, a 4 p.n game on TNT, and an 8 p.m. game on ABC and ESPN. then you get to the quarter final round.

And all of these games, the locations are set. They're going to be tied into traditional bowl games. On New Year's Eve, you're going to get a 7.30 p.m. game in the Verbo Fiesta Bowl. On New Year's Day, you're going to get a 1 p.m. game at the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, a 5 p.m. game at the Rose Bowl, and an 845 p.m. game at the Allstate Sugar Bowl. Then you've got the semifinals, which will be on January 9th and January 10th. You're going to have a game down in my area. 7.30 p.m. January 9th will be the Capital 1 Orange Bowl.

That'll be the first semifinal. Friday, January 10th will be the other semifinal at the Good Year Cotton Bowl. And then the championship game will be, and I hate that they do this on a Monday. But it's just been a thing. The championship game will be on Monday, January 20th in Atlanta. That'll be their second time hosting the CFP championship game. And so that's a lot of games, Kenton, compared to the old four-team deal. We've got now four, eight, 11 games, 11 games to watch in the CFP.

I'm here for it. I'm so excited. I'm so excited. This is so excited for me. I am wildly, it's hard for me to even come up with the words to describe how geeked up I am about this. Because for the longest, I had been screaming up and down for the Power 5 is great. but the group of five also deserves a shot. The way that the group of five

is now guaranteed a shot at this thing now. The way that that happens now, is phenomenal. But for the ACC, it's absolutely wonderful because you can see yourself having multiple ACC teams in. That's a possibility. If two teams run the table,

one team loses to the other in the conference championship, guess what? Some get back maybe gotten on the back end of this thing. Yeah. And I'm also thinking, I'm also wondering if, and this will obviously depend on like how many, you know,

like 10 win teams are in the SEC in the Big 10 because of course. Of course there's going to be preferential treatment for the SEC in the Big 10. We saw that last year. We're going to see it in the 12th team playoff as well. But I'm wondering if like maybe you might get like, let's say two teams that play in the ACC championship game who are 12 and 0 heading into that game. Right. Somebody leaves 13 and 0, somebody leaves 12 and 1.

and then potentially you might have a team that maybe goes 11 and 1 in the regular season with a loss to one of those teams that plays in the championship game, who could also sneak in. So it's not impossible that the ACC could get three teams in this thing. It's really going to depend on how top heavy the conferences, which I don't know if that's better for us or worse than us, right? Because if you've got like a handful of, you know, we think maybe Virginia Tech could be pretty good this year. Obviously, there's a lot of hype behind Miami with the players that they've added. There's been hype behind Louisville, but maybe if some of those teams you think might win

nine or ten games have closer to a 500 season, then maybe there's three teams that come close to running the table that could get in. But that would involve teams cannibalizing one another. Yeah, and here's the deal, right? When I look at this thing, I say, this is why I say I want the computers to come back because I don't like the idea of waiting teams by name. and that is one thing that I will say the the BCS or not the BCS computers in and of themselves could work to eliminate it could say hey everybody's dead even based on what y'all do that's how I will rank you out for example a few years ago there was a year where the Sunbelt went undefeated against the big 12 and in that year or I don't maybe they weren't undefeated but I know for a fact they beat the actually yeah they did they went undefeated against the big 12th because they beat one of the teams that was in the Big 12 championship.

They beat one of the middle of the pack teams and one of the bottom feeders in the conference. And so I say to myself, all the Big 12 teams should get a bump from that. I'm not Big 12. All of the Sun Belt teams should get a bump from that because they have proven in head-to-head competition, our best against your best, our middle-of-pack is your middle-a-back. We're the better conference. So I think that that is something that could be eliminated by computers. But while the world still turns as it is and while they have the committee acting as all powerful, all-knowing ball sayers,

we will hear that there will be a three or four lost SEC or Big Ten team in over a one-loss team from another conference who didn't win their championship, which of course we're going to get mad at, we're going to yell at, and then we're going to say the playoff needs to expand again. And who knows what they're doing. They're already going to expand it. Right, right. They're already expanded to 14 before we even tried it at 12. Lord knows how big that thing gets, but what I do know is you're not going to upset me by adding more playoff games. By having less players opt out of these things. You're not going to upset me.

Yeah. Yeah. And obviously, you know, we can, of course, people can still be mad about who the 13th ranked team is and then who the 15th ranked team is. But that's definitely better than debating who the fourth ranked team should be, right? Like, it's, you know, the bigger you make this, the more equitable it becomes. So I'm all, and obviously you can't, you can't expand it too far. Like if you're going to make it like a 68 team.

Like there, there are limits for what you can do in college football, but 14 to me, which it's going to be at in a couple of years, completely reasonable. And objectively speaking, you're not going to be looking at undefeated at 14. You're not going to be looking at any undefeated, power five, group of five, independent. They're not going to be 14th, 15th. And even if they are, you're looking at an undefeated with a terribly, easy schedule, which I don't think that's, I don't think that's like fair to them because you can

only be who's in front of you. But also, if you schedule the island and misfit toys, University, Community College of Delta Valley State three times, then yeah, you should be punished for that a little bit. So I think that this is going to be interesting to see, but all teams that are in the conference, all teams that have serious schedules in that 14, in that 12 team playoff that we're going to see this year, Florida State gets in. They get their chance. They get their chance. get their chance to say, you know what, even if you make us the five seed, guess what? We still got a shot. We still got a song to sing.

We still are alive and breathing. And the way that this thing would have shaken out for Florida State in that situation, nobody opts out because, again, y'all still got a championship on the line. So if your best players, if Jared Verbs and company can't get it done, Johnny Wilson and company, Keon Coleman and company can't get it done. They just can't get it done. And you live with that. But you live with going down fighting, knowing you had a full arsenal because the game meant something.

As opposed to, hey, man, this is a glorified exhibition. Everybody's sitting out, you know, not really much here to play for. So more prior to you, but this isn't our actual team. This is our JV team. I don't want to see any more JV teams trotting out for single-digit teams, which I think the playoff eliminates. Yeah, no, that's well said. And listen, we talked about a lot of these, you know, bowl games that now, you know, have tie-ins to more college football playoff games,

they've got to be happy, again, to know that you're not going to be opting out of these games the way that teams were when we didn't have a CFP tie-in every single year. So you're going to get fewer opt-outs. So thank you guys so much for making Locked on ACCC your first listen and your first watch today. You're watching us on YouTube. Smash that like button, subscribe to our channel. If you listen to the audio version, make sure you subscribe on Apple Podcast, Spotify, wherever you get your pods. For Kent and Gibbs, I am Alex Dono. We'll talk to you guys next time

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