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Foreign. Welcome back to the latest edition of the Audible presented by Trader Joe's. I'm Bruce Feldman, joined by my colleagues from the athletic Stuart Mandel and Ralph Russo. All three of us are here today. We're now pretty much neck deep into into college football media days. The SEC is going on right now in Tampa, Florida as we speak. We will get into that. We will get into kind of maybe some closure with the latest Michigan scandal as it relates to AD Ward Manual. We're going to talk about has Indiana coming off a national title elevated itself? Could they be on the cusp of becoming wide receiver? You. All that and some postcards from ACC media days, which Ralph was at. He's got some good stuff from there, guys. Let's start though. Monday morning we woke up to

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Ward

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Manual is not out the door, but he will be soon. Michigan released a statement. They released some summary of their big, whatever $12 billion investigation. Not a ton of details. Guys, where do we stand with this right now? We surprised?

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Well, I mean, of course they released it. Right? They released it right in the middle of the Greg Sankey's state of the SEC speech. Right. They released it like four days after their board meeting. Right. So no reporters were around. They just released a statement from the president and here's some details. We can't give you all the details, by the way, so I don't know. I mean, it feels a little cowardly by Michigan the way they're doing this, but here we are.

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It's. I mean, cowardly is a good way to put it, but I would also just say really insulting, you know, given how much attention has been around that, that athletic department over the last, let's say four to five years and how many NCAA investigations and you know, even worse than that, criminal investigations. I feel like you're. The public deserves answers. I wonder if any media outlets will sue them to try to disclose. They'll probably just say, oh, attorney client privilege. And you know, the report, the air quotes, the report that came out Monday wasn't even really. It was like a very vague summary of the findings. But no, look, at the end of the day, the upshot is Ward Manual is stepping down at the end of the year. He's not completely going away. Seems like they kind of split it down the middle between, you know, the president said nobody had any direct knowledge at the time, like hard proof basically that there was this Sharon Moore relationship going on. But maybe some people should have known or should have acted quicker. Right. So I mean, we can't totally Throw him under the bus for this, but we know we probably should, so we'll just, you know, quietly push him out the door. Yeah.

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The biggest issue there, and we said this on the podcast, I think both times last week, was that there was basically no oversight when it came to the football program at the highest levels. Now, there were people who went to hr. We know that from our reporting at the Athletic, with concerns about the relationship dating back to two years ago. All this stuff kind of leads us back to where we thought we were going to end up, guys. So here we are. I don't know if this is closure, but it's probably the best you're going to get from Michigan at this point.

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So here's the big question. Was it all worth it? Michigan fans, like, you've had five years of scandal. Championship scandal. Championship beat Ohio State four times, but Ohio State fans still think you cheated. It cheated. But you can tell them, you know, blow off. We don't care about our cheating. I guess. Yeah, like, Bruce, like, I don't my sense of this. I've had arguments with Ari Wasserman, our pal, since way back when the cheating scandal started, that, like, listen, if I'm a Michigan fan, I got slapped on the wrist a couple of times. I got a little NCAA stuff, but, like, generally speaking, hey, flags fly forever. We're the champions. Like. Like none of this stuff really matters because we are the champions. So was it all worth it? I don't know. I think that the. If you ask Michigan fans that, the answers may vary. And Ari has. Has told me, well, you know, Michigan does things a certain way, and now they can. That they do the whole Michigan aura. Michigan men, we do things the right way. That's out the window. To which I would say, I don't know, do Michigan fans really care about that?

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You know, so we were. Had our. Obviously our. Our group text between us earlier this morning, and I thought it was interesting. You know, you frame that as such. In my head, I feel like we all talk to fans of varying schools and whether it's Michigan or whatever, and it's like they almost look like the scandal as redacted wins, right? Like where? Or vacated wins. It's like, no, we celebrated when it happened. Whatever. Somebody says years after that, we still got the joy of whatever that is. It's not as bad as the media made it out to be. It's not whatever. Whatever happened at our rival is worse. But what you sent Ralph, I sent it on to. I have a buddy of mine who is a Former walk on. Huge Michigan fan. We talk all the time about stuff. And I asked him this, and this is his response to Ralph's question. If you're a Michigan fan, all this stuff is an annoyance. But would. Would they trade it for the last five years? Wouldn't trade it for the last five years or anything. He wrote back, as a fan, yes. As an alum and former player, I feel, meh. There are some unsatisfying parts of all the wins, the scandals and failures to keep coaches. Makes it feel like a blip instead of sustained, sustained success. And then he added, right now we feel more like the alma mater of Dave Portnoy than the alma mater of Tom Hayden. And a very Michigan answer.

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Very Michigan answer.

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There's always some cognitive dissonance that comes with being a college sports fan. I mean, if you dwell too much on the underbelly of this sport, it's harder to just sit back and enjoy the game.

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So.

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And also, it's hard to Michigan fans, you know, there's a lot of them, first of all, millions of them, I think, and they don't all feel the same way.

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Way.

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Certainly, if you were to get caught up in the comments, in the message boards and whatnot, during the Connor Stallions thing, it was total whataboutism. It was total. Any sort of conspiracy theory you could come up with. Defend, defend, defend. I don't know that that represented everybody. I don't know that it represents everybody today, but I think the text you got pretty much sums it up, right? Like, you're not going to trade those championships. That was a, you know, unbelievable run for Michigan athletics, for Michigan football in particular. But that doesn't mean you don't feel a little queasy about how it all went down. And I hate to say, Ralph, I do agree to some extent with Ari. I mean, was Ari saying they should trade the championships for having avoided all that? Because he's right about the Michigan man. Aura is all gone. It's. It's gone. Nobody, you know, anybody there that used to hold their head like, well, at least we don't cheat like the sec. Like, forget about it. You're. You're one of them now. But that doesn't mean they should have. They should feel bad about winning those championships.

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Well, I guess, yeah, Ari's point was, like, it takes away from the winning of the championships. And I always felt like I'm very cynical on these lines. Like. Like, I don't care one way or the other about Michigan, but I'm very cynical and Think that fans, like, hey, man, as long as we win, y' all can do whatever you want, right? Like, within maybe reason. But even within reason, it's like, you gotta get. Be pretty bad for me to, like, leave you behind and. Right. Flags fly forever. We got our championships. You can vacate our winch, but you can't take away our championship hats and T shirts. So, like, I don't know. But, yes, Ari's point was more of, like, if you're a Michigan fan, deep down, this is probably unsatisfying. And I was like, poof. Come on. Like, they can rub it in Ohio State's face. Ohio State won the damn national championship, and they're still like, but you didn't beat us.

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That's exactly right, because they had that stretch for about a thousand days where they stuck it up Ohio State's. But. And they could. They could also point the finger back at the sec, right? And in their hearts of hearts, if you ask any Michigan fan, I think they feel like the SEC cheats anyway, so we. We bettered them. And I. I feel like there's probably a part of the fandom that clings to that, especially when you have hated rivals like they do, whether it's Michigan State or certainly Ohio State. And I feel like that, like, Michigan. Michigan comeuppance on Ohio State is probably, you know, no matter what they find from Jenner block and $12 million, that's not. That's not diminishing that.

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It's not like Ohio State's, you know, hands are totally clean either. And we all lived through the Zach Smith situation. Urban Meyer got suspended for that. Could have easily gotten fired. This is 20 years ago now, but I covered a basketball scandal where Jim O', Brien, their coach, Tom, just literally handed a recruit $6,000. I don't know if it was in a bag of cash or not. So, like, there was the Maurice Claret stuff. Everybody has baggage, right? Let's be honest. You want to think your school is squeaky clean. Nobody's school is squeaky clean. In fact, if they are squeaky clean, they're probably not winning you. Uh. In fact, we're gonna get into a program that's like that a little bit later in the acc. So

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at least you.

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At least they're moving. Like, what this investigation is. It's the end of the era. It's the end of the Harbaugh, Sharon Moore feeling dirty about everything era. They can move on.

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All right. Perfect segue to the sec, by the way. Or maybe Greg Sankey wouldn't think that's a perfect segue to the sec, but we woke up to Greg Sankey's. It is SEC media days. We are at SEC media days. We have fine colleagues holding the fort down. Matt Baker and Seth Emerson. It's in Tampa for some reason. So that alone is like, what? Why are you guys in Tampa? There are no sec.

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I can't believe they don't do it in Hoover anymore.

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And apparently they're not going to. So, I mean, that's another thing. That's a whole nother thing. So we woke up to Greg Sankey this morning talking about. He was asked. So this whole SEC breakaway thing, we've been hearing about how they're going to make their own rules, and they're going to say if you we can't get governance out of the NCAA and we can't bill passing Congress to sort of give us some national rules, we're just gonna say goodbye and go on our own, and we're gonna make our own rules and we're gonna play amongst ourselves. Now, there's a way you can make your own rules without necessarily, like, breaking away from the ncaa. I know the Big Ten, as I've talked to some sources within the Big Ten and some other places who think that, yeah, we can make our own rules. That doesn't mean we have to, like, not play those guys anymore. However, what Greg Zanke said is, no, this isn't just like saber rattling. We are very with the way things are going, and if it comes to it, we might just say we're gonna start making our own rules and maybe we'll even break away. And I mean, I guess we have to take the threat seriously. But I don't know, man. It still also still feels like a threat. It still feels like more of a threat than reality, even if we should take it seriously.

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So, Ralph, what realistic chance are we talking about? Is this a Hail Mary? Is this 10% likelihood of this happening? And it feels like it's a little bit of bluster and pound our fist at the table. I mean, I get where Sankey or the Big Ten would be coming from. I mean, I get it. They're the ones who should have the most power in college football because they're the ones who are the most committed to it and they're the ones who honestly play it the best. But if this goes in the direction they don't want it to go, then what? Then what do you think actually happens?

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So I think that first of all, we have this bill that may Go to the floor next week. Or it may not, because they're still negotiating some terminology with the. Some wording with the SEC and Big Ten. If the bill gets passed and it's to their liking, I think a lot of this goes away. If the bill gets passed, but it gets passed without the things they want in it, which is a possibility. I think we could start hearing a little more about this. Like, hey, we're gonna make our own rules. But again, I don't think the. We're going to make our own rules and we're going to break away from the ncaa. That's a big jump. And I would just want to make sure that we understand you can make your own rules and still play. Like, you can have transfer. Like that's been done in the history of college sports. Do. Like, these conferences have all had some of their own rules. So my guess is if the first step of this would be, we're going to make our own rules, but we're not going to completely break away. We're going to set certain standards within our conference that we will hold our conference members to. But, yeah, we'll still play in the NCAA Tournament, in the College Football Playoff and all that other stuff. We'll still take part as an NCAA member. I think that's the first step toward this.

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I guess my question is, if they do decide to make their own rules, what rules are they looking to make? Because if you say, okay, the CSC doesn't work, you know, just within the sec, like, we're going to have a hard cap and we're going to limit transfers and all this. Well, and the Big Ten doesn't. How quickly do they realize they're putting themselves at a disadvantage? There used to be a rule in the SEC when. Back when grad. When the only, like, flexibility in transfers was that grad transfers could play right away. The SEC had their own rules. You couldn't do that within the conference. If you try. If somebody wanted to transfer within the conference, they still had to sit out a year. And of course, they eventually got rid of that because the other conferences could do that. They were putting their own teams at a disadvantage. So it's. Look, from what I understand from people in the conference is that there are presidents in particular, I don't know about ADs and coaches who genuinely want this. They do want to be able to make their. Their. They were counting on CSC and the house settlement. I mean, sorry, the settlement. Yeah, in the house, which hasn't happened. It probably won't happen. And. And it doesn't. And they're getting frustrated. And so they want to. They basically want the.

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The.

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I guess, the. The spirit of the csc. And if. If it's not doable, but, like, your own conference teams are the ones. How about, you know, do you want. You know, if you want rule, like there are rules, you're just refusing to follow them. So I think it's just one of those things that sounds good in theory until you actually have to do it. And then you get like. I could see them going to Destin and saying to the coaches, all right, this is how it's going to work. And the coach is going, wait, you're saying all of my competitors in the other conferences can do this, but I can't. Sorry, guys.

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That is the biggest problem, right? If the SEC says, well, we're going to have a hard cap of 45 million, and the Big Ten says, oh, we like 55 million. What? Okay, that doesn't sound great, Right? So, yes, Stu, you nailed it. You hit on the perfect things. And I still think there's some possibility there, but I think you kind of nailed it. When you start doing your own thing, how do you avoid doing your own thing? But it puts you at a competitive disadvantage. And then if you start doing the exact same thing as the other conference, well, now you're colluding anyway.

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All right, so with Sankey's comments, day one kicked off. But even really, before any of it, Eli Drinkowicz, head coach at Missouri, he's done a good job there, and he's definitely not shy of the microphone. He had a conversation, I believe, with our friend Brett McMurphy, because Brett had tweeted this out early in the morning. Missouri's Eli Drinkwood said part of the reason the Big Ten has won the last three national titles, Quote, when you don't play a non conference, a four game.

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Wow.

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Okay, so with this, it feels like the start of. We're going to hear four days of a lot of grousing about the SEC shifting to its conference schedules. Do we think these are like, is this just more whining or is there something to this? I felt like Eli, starting out the week, setting this tone, you know, again with this start, this tweet got a bunch of traction. And then I felt like I saw him. I watched some of the coverage where he was at the desk with the SEC network guys, then he was at the podium. I think we're going to hear a lot more about the scheduling as it relates to strength of schedule as it relates to the cfp. Where do we think this is all headed? Guys?

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This is just a continuation of Destin. I mean we were hearing about this in Destin. They are going to hammer the hell out of. We play nine game different schedules now it's they were already where the hardest league in the country. Now you play a nine game conference schedule. I think the coaches may have feel like they kind of were sold a little bit of a bill of goods with nine game conference schedule. But a 12 team playoff, that doesn't work very well. The the big tens kind of going out there and demanding their teams play a fours. So Sankey followed this up, not directly followed this up with this idea that the CFP still hasn't really answered our questions about like properly valuing strength of schedule and properly valuing our strength of schedule Stu. So I know this feel we're ramping this up again. But for me who was in Destin this is just more of the same now. We're just elevating the rhetoric.

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They were already doing this a year ago, right in, in Destin. I remember there was presentations, there were slides about how difficult their schedules are and that was before they went to nine conference games. But here's the thing, like they have any, you know, number of any. They have several sets of data that say that they absolutely are right. And you may disagree with that or, or poo poo it. But like the the FPI preseason strength of schedule. Top teams are almost all SEC. It's, it's 15. 14 of the top 15 strength of schedules are in the SEC. The exception being Ohio State. People are going to roll their eyes because the SEC has not been as strong the last few years. But we've talked about this many times out here. We think the top of the Big Ten is stronger than the top of the sec, but the middle of the bottom of the SEC is still stronger. And so if you're playing nine games and you' more of those types of teams then yes, your schedule is going to be stronger. I do think it's interesting the sentiment we're hearing and it was even before media days that hey, when we agreed to nine conference games, we were told the thing was going to 16. You know, the SEC, the Big Ten wanted 16, the SEC wanted 16 and then as soon as we did it, the Big Ten moved the goalpost to 24. And so now we're stuck playing these nine conference games and it looks like we might be stuck at 12 for a while. So selfishly guys, as a, as a anti 2014 playoff guy. I hope the SEC gets all the bids this year. I hope, I hope they get everything they want and more because if they don't, if their nine and three teams get excluded for teams they think played a much weaker schedule, you know what they're going to say? Well, we need a bigger playoff.

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This is why I've been telling you guys for, you know, for months that like telling you the folks in the SEC like they're, they're feeling a little duped here. They need more playoff spots. There's definitely coaches and ADs in the SEC who think a bigger playoff is, is better. Yes. And it is interesting, Stu, because I do think like this idea of what the playoff looks like when a bunch of SEC teams that would have finished 10 and two now finish nine and three is fascinating to me. I think it will hang over the whole season. Bruce, I wanted to give you a pop though on something that you had mentioned when we our over unders and then we can get on out of here, you had said, I think the, the brunt of this will be taken by the bad teams. The teams at the end, like actually the teams at the top will be okay, but the teams at the bottoms will just be crushed. The Arkansas and the Mississippi State. And I've talked to a couple of other people. Our buddy, my buddy Bud Elliott, who hosts the COVID 3 podcast who kind of looks at things through a little bit of an analytical lens because he likes to bet a really agreed with you. And the more I look at it, the more I think you might be right. I think that it might be the, where the SEC feels it is. Fewer teams get bowl eligible and some of the bad teams all of a sudden go from like five or six wins, four wins maybe to like two or three.

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Yeah, I mean look, we're doing our conference or college football preview and I started working on it. One of the teams I have is Arkansas. They were a two win team last year. You look at their schedule. Yeah, they're going to beat, I think North Alabama because that was a bad FCS team and they have a 4 Tulsa after that. Where are you getting the other wins? Right. So I don't know. I like I said I definitely see it going that way.

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Guys.

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A lot of whining though, a lot of whining out of the SEC this year. It just, I'm just preparing everybody expect a lot of whining out of the SEC this year.

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And on that note, we're going to take a break and when we come back we're going to talk some acc. A little bit of whining in the ACC as well as some Indiana talk.

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all of our games@nytimes.com joingames. And we're back on the audible presented by Trader Joe's. So last week guys, Indiana landed a five star wide receiver like Indiana. In the evolution of Indiana, the next step is. Oh, now they're doing the recruiting thing too. And there they landed a five star wide receiver. Bruce, fill us in on the player and what it means.

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So the player is a local kid from Indianapolis Showtime Sales. He is a five star. He is a big receiver. Everybody in wanted him, including all the, you know, Ohio State who by the way got Terry McLaurin out of that same area of Indiana, Alabama, LSU, all the big ones. Well, Kurt Signetti got him and it feels like, guys, this is the next step in where Indiana goes, right? They went in the portal and got some big gets out of it this year coming, you know, on the national title run. What's interesting to me is now we have something of a track record here with Indiana, not just for developing quarterbacks and elevating them, but with the receiver position, right? You look at what they just had on that team. They produced a first round pick in Omar Cooper Jr. Charlie Becker. I think our friend Dane Brown who does a great job on the draft is very high on Charlie Becker who is back showtime sales. Looks like he would be one of those guys you'd say, oh, that guy can be a future first round pick. Now that's not to say all of a sudden they're going to be wide receiver. You in the Big Ten and Ohio State's not. I mean Ohio State obviously still has Jeremiah Smith, they just got Chris Henry Jr. Into the program. But Brian Hartline, the guy who helped stock and develop that receiver room that has been incredibly loaded in Columbus, he's now the head coach at usf. Now they're recruiting well, I don't want to diminish that, but it's, it's interesting of like how big of a deal do you guys think this is? Is it a warning to the rest of the, to the rest of college football that they are here to stay? As if they didn't need that. Is it going to change? How is it going to, is it going to change the recruiting landscape in the Big Ten that they were able to keep this kid home, I think kind of indicates that they, it will shift it a little bit.

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Bit.

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It's been interesting to see the evolution of Indiana from okay, we're doing it with James Madison guys at first to oh, now we can go get a Fernando Mendoza and now a Josh Hoover to oh, maybe we can get him out of high school too. Now to your point, Bruce, I think we have to see is this a one off because unique situation, local kid, by the way, not a lot of it's like Indiana. The state of Indiana is loaded with big time recruits every year, right? So it was, and frankly it's I guess very huge that they don't get that opportunity very often and they did get him. So was it a one off or are we really going to see their entire recruiting profile change? Because by the way, that rarely happens. You know, if you look at a top 20 or let's say top 10 recruiting rankings from 1995 and now they're probably going to be a lot of the same names. It's hard to break that cycle. But if anything could break the cycle, it's a 16, 0 national championship season. I think if they have another really good season season and your third in a row of being this kind of a level of a program. There's, you know, now you're starting to get into the kids who don't remember when you were. When Indiana was bad. Right. So, Ralph, do you think.

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What?

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What do you. What do you think? Is this a sign that, hey, in a landscape where everybody can now pay the players, the built in advantages of an Ohio State or LSU or whoever aren't as strong.

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I feel like it. That has been the case for a while. Or we're starting to move to that point right? When.

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When.

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When money is the deciding factor. All your banners don't mean as much. And with. With Indiana here, where I come in, is this like, you know, it's the Happy Gilmore line. Oh, Happy learned how to putt, right? Like, is this. Is this is Indiana? Is this Indiana's like, hey, now we can recruit five stars too. Now we have this other thing that we're good at. Again, I don't know if this is a Dr. Change, but there does seem to be a little bit of like, Signetti learned how to recruit five stars. Happy learned how to putt moment here. We'll see if it actually plays out that way. But the thing that is already happening is your tradition, your banners, your helmet. That doesn't mean as much in college football anymore. And you know what? For all the people who are out there, like, well, they're just paying players. Yeah, everybody pays them now. It doesn't matter. Like, I don't like, that is not. That complaint lands with me. Me, not at all. I do not care about these people who are like, Alabama fans and Ohio State fans who feel like it's their birthright, as if their five stars were going to their school. Because we really love Alabama and Ohio State so much. Come on. Like, that's never been why they came to your schools. They came to your schools because they thought they were. That was the best place to go to the NFL. Like, that dynamic is changing. There are a lot of places where they'll send you to the NFL. And Indiana, having not just Omar Cooper, but like nine other draft picks is also proof of concept.

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Yeah, that's exactly what I was gonna say. You hit on those three, those three words. It's proof of concept. I mean this is. You've seen a first round receiver. It's not like somebody can say who have they developed. Because that comes up a lot with recruiters when they go into the home. And it's like if you can show that, I mean, how often did we hear, oh, we're gonna be, you know, we're nflu. Jed Fish tried, has tried selling that at Washington. Bill Belichick's obviously tried to sell that at, at, at North Carolina. A lot of schools try to try to harp on that. We can get you ready for the NFL and obviously sign has not just that he's won, but he can also say, look at the guys I've developed and sent to the NFL as receivers.

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And I agree with you, Ralph, the money thing, it's frankly outdated because now you have rev share. So everybody at least on the Power Four has at least $21 million as their starting point. Right? And this is why it's frustrating to me that the salary numbers aren't public because it would be so fascinating to know how the various schools are allocating that money. Right? We don't know. We don't even know if Indiana made the best offer. First of all, you know, it might have been, well, he just needed X to feel comfortable staying home. But you also, but every program has their own big board. They're not just like going down the 247 rankings. And for all we know this, he was Indiana's number one receiver target and he was Ohio State's number three. Like we have, we have no idea in the NFL you would know that because you would see how much they're allocating to this position versus that position. And um, I've said this within the end of the last couple years, right? This, you know, it's not as obvious with a five star, but how Signetti got it to here is that this new way of the world rewards coaches who are really good at evaluating and really good at prioritizing how to allocate their resources. So, but those are details. We're just, we're just unfortunately not going to know. But yeah, don't, don't use the money thing as an excuse. I don't anymore. You're all, this is how it works. Nobody's, no, literally Nobody, even your 25th guy in the recruiting class is coming to your school for free. It's just who's spending it the most. Who is spending it smartly versus maybe just throwing money at whoever the big name is to, to get that recruit.

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All right.

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We're gonna take a break and when we come back, some interesting news and nuggets from ACC media day days.

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And we're back. Okay, as I said earlier, Ralph was at ACC media days last week. There was some interesting comments, especially from Dabo Sweeney, who's not going quietly into the night.

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Ralph, no, listen, ACC media days were very fun, very productive. Thanks to all the folks at the ACC and all the schools for helping us not just with what was publicly available, like the, you know, the podium stuff, but also helping us get some time with some coaches and players offline. But Dabo sort of stole the show of all the things that were going on down there. You know, he's very easy to get fired up these days. You know, we got him, myself and our colleague David Ubin by ourselves for a little one on one time. And like, it doesn't take much to sort of wind Dabo up and get him rolling on all the things that have been on his mind over the last few years, which is what is the direction of Clemson. Can he get it back to where they're a championship program? Especially after last year where the expectations were kind of high. They had nine, eight or nine guys drafted. They had two first rounders and they only won seven games. But Dabo is again, like, Dabo is defiant. Dabo is very much like, hey, what am I going to do? I'm not going to. I'm 56 years old, by the way. I'm 56 years old. I told Dabo, like, you can't retire. You're the same age as me. But Dabo not retiring. We're in great shape. Clemson's in better shape than it's ever been before. So while it's fun to get Dabo sort of wound up a little bit and he does it himself. It's also when he goes off like this and starts defending himself and defending his time and telling you like, Clemson's never been in better shape, it also allows his critics to pass.

B

Imagine if Clemson was a publicly traded company and, you know, publicly traded company has a earnings company call and the CEO gets on and either has to say like, this is why Things are going great or this is why we had a rough quarter. And every time they had one of those and they weren't doing well, the CEO said, but guys like, remember what I did in 2019? Remember when we had that, you know that, that great year of business in 2019. Come on, give me credit for that, right? Like, the further we get each passing year that we get from his peak years, people want to hear that lesson.

A

Less.

B

It just, it just. Look, you're going to. He's going to go in the hall of Fame one day. He had the greatest running Clemson history and he deserves all the accolades for that. But that doesn't explain why you went 7 and 6 last year. How are you. You went 7 and 6 with a bunch of dudes that got drafted. You have a question at quarterback this year. Like, tell, tell us about that. Tell us what you have done since the end of your disaster season to write this thing. Because we just, we don't want to hear anymore about your accomplishments from 10 years ago.

C

You bring up great points, Stu. And that was, you know, again, like, it's not like he's saying anything where you go, the light goes on and you go, oh, yeah. Like, he. Well, listen, he did change coordinators, right? He brought in Chad Morris, new guys on the defensive side.

A

Chad Morris did a really good job for him the first time. Yeah.

C

Brought back Chad Morris on the offensive side, like, to bring in this new quarterback now. The quarterback who's likely to start this year. Chris Vezina or. Yeah, Chris Vezina. I don't know if he's the guy, but I mean, again, like, they talked about how, hey, Leah, like, I got a guy. It was typical Dabo. Like, he's been here. We like our guy. There was no reason to go into the portal. Okay, we'll see. Guy was, you know, sitting. Sitting around for four years, not. Not playing. I do think Tate Reynolds, the kid behind him, there's been a lot of buzz that maybe he is the next next big deal at Clemson at quarterback and he's a true freshman. But I would just say this, Stu, you know, again, like the playing the resume thing. I also wonder if we're just entering into a new phase of Dabo's career and I'll maybe throw this to you, Bruce, where maybe should we, like, is he going to be okay if he just contends for ACC titles? Like, are we going to be okay with the fact that maybe it's not going to be what it was, but it could still be okay?

A

I mean, Whatever it is. But like, I mean he won two national titles. He did stuff nobody thought he could do. He beat Alabama head up. You know, he's a Hall of Fame coach. He is a legendary. Yes, twice. He's a Hall of Fame coach, is a legend for that. You know, a lot of stuff changed for him. It wasn't just the portal. It was like the staff shakeup. He lost a lot of good assistance. There was a, there was a kind of a core to that and I think it moved on, moved on from him. My gut is, and I don't. I know Stu feels the same way. Even stronger is that he probably will never win another national title at Clemson if he can get back to where they were a couple of years ago, which were at least winning 10 games and competing for playoff spots where the playoffs big. There's certainly no shame in that. I think what also has changed, and we're going to get into a little more of this in a second, is that right now it feels like Miami is running at the superpower level. I mean they've won like five games in a row against sec, ACC teams or programs. So I think that may be shifted within the ACC where Clemson was the heavyweight with FSU running on the side of it a little bit. I think that's what has changed. Stu. I don't know how much, if you feel much differently but again, you can't take away what he has done as an all time great coach in the acc, no matter what happens from here.

C

Let me just jump in for one second still, let me ask you this because I think that's what you just said is interesting. It's not up to me, it's up to Clemson fans, right? It's up to like will they accept a new reality? And I guess I would also think, and I'm putting you on the spot here, Stu. Like I can't think of a coach who made that transition like he hit the highest of high notes. You could have argued that Clemson's five year run was one of the greatest five year run quite literally in the history of college football. Are you allowed to age out of that and then just become like another good coach and another very good pro player?

B

Generally once it starts to go south, it keeps going south. And you know, Ralph, you asked if he, if he wins the acc, is that enough? You know, right now he's, he's, I mean he went 4 and 4 in the ACC two of the last three years. So I think Clemson fans are still very appreciative of what he did, he's very, he's still pretty beloved there, even if they're frustrated. And if so, if he were to just start going 10 and three, make the playoff, losing the first round, like they're going to be okay with that, really. I mean, I don't think anybody expects them to go back to being the dominant player. His problem is, what if 7 and 6 becomes the norm? How long are you willing to put up with that before saying, you know, maybe it's time for a fresh start? And it just, it's starting to remind me of that last decade of Bobby Bowden's run. And I realized his run went much longer than Dabos, his, his superiority. But he, he stuck around for almost a whole another decade where there were a lot of seven and six type or eight and five type seasons and every. And. But it was awkward, right? Nobody wanted to run off the greatest coach in, in history. Ralph, the other one that really, I think the story that interested me most from there is everybody teeing off on Miami, but in particular Pat Narducci, who is not afraid to speak his mind. The pick coach Pat Nard, who flat out accused Miami of tampering with their quarterback, who have ended up staying. And then of course, Mensa ended up going. Duke, obviously not thrilled about that either. There were some comments to that effect. I don't think Manny Diaz said they tampered, even though we all know they did. But he said, you know, he had started to get rumblings even before Darian Mesa actually went in the Portal, that he was going to go to the portal and go there. So what was the vibe like?

C

Yeah, so our time with Pat Norduzzi, who, you know, is never shy, at some point, he just, as we're talking about a bunch of things, he's like, yeah, you know, Miami talked to our guy, our guy being Mason Heinshill, a couple of days before the portal. And then, you know, I called Manny, I said, they're coming after your guy next. And I, I suspect Heinschel was, he did not say this, this is me connecting dots. I suspect Heintzschel was like a part of backup plans, like, if the Mensa thing does not happen, if we can't, this is where we might pivot. But Pat was very proud of saying we, we, we held him off and we kept our guy, you know, with a couple of things. Pat had mentioned this in, like, a local availability earlier in the off season, but because it wasn't covered by national media, it kind of got, it kind of got Ignored a little bit. The other thing was like, he walks out of the room and I talked to his sid, who was kind of with him. I'm like, he knew he was on the record and the SID is like, yes, yes, he knew he was on. We kind of had a feeling he was going to bring that one up. So do what you want. So, yeah, it just speaks to this idea of like, first of all, there's the tampering aspect, which I'm like, I don't know, man. Like, I feel like everybody does it and I don't know if you can control it. But it also is like, is everybody in this conference pissed off at Miami? Is it. Like, is it the. Is it Texas Tech level of pissed off? I don't think it's that, but there definitely is. Is an absolute recognition that Miami is playing by. Not by different rules, but is playing this new game differently, that they are pretty far out ahead of everybody else in the paying players portion of college football now. And I do think that there is an element of frustration that comes with that because they can sort of swoop

B

in controversy at the time. Wasn't that. That they just. That they took their quarterback. It was that Mensa was under contract for another year, right? His. His four million dollar a year contract and Miami still got him. Now Duke ended up suing the kid and I think got close to what, you know, what. What got. Ended up being able to, you know, scrape back close to the $4 million. But, you know, it's. It's when you can do that. And, and I think there was frustration that Jim Phillips behind the scenes didn't, didn't really do anything about it, you know, just kind of stood back and let it happen. Yeah.

C

Can I also say something that was interesting? Is like the way like again, Narduzzi comes out because he's Narduzzi and is like, yeah, Miami tried to steal our quarterback. And Manny and Duke, I think have very much tried to take a. I think they have. My sense of this is they are trying not to get involved in this. They're. They're trying not to get dragged into like accusing, hey, like it happened our money back, not thrilled, but like, we're not going to get into the public back and forth of it all. Because when Nor Doozy says, hey, I called Manny, then I got to go over to Duke and say, you got any comment on this? And I think the general comment out of Duke was like, we're not going.

B

We're just at least probably ticked at their own. They didn't get ticked at Miami or they didn't try to accuse Miami or anything. They just got mad at their court at Mensa for. For bailing on them.

A

Yeah, well, they also got mad. They also got mad at me this week. It sounded like for some revisionist history of some of the comments he made at media days about when he got there from Tulane. He was kind of this money guy and how that's set in the locker room because from the comments I saw from their tight end, they weren't thrilled at how he categorized that this past week at acc.

B

Yeah, Mansa said there was. He. He indicated or hinted that there was some resentment toward him when he first got to Duke and that he wasn't fully accepted because of the big contract. And then I guess the reporters then went to the Duke players and they're like, no, that's not. That's not a thing.

A

That wasn't a thing.

C

Yeah, Mintz is an interesting character. Was the first time I had a chance to talk to him one on one.

A

He's a very, like, he is a comfortable talker.

C

Yeah, he's a good talk. Super comfortable in his skin. Very confident kid. Like, I think it'll play well. Like, I think it'll serve him well throughout his football career. We'll see. Ultimately, talent will play it out, but I think it will serve him well throughout his football career.

A

Ralph, I just wanted to finish on this point with you. You're there for you talk to a lot of coaches and players around the league. Was there one or two schools that now look at maybe a little differently coming out of this, or maybe you're more optimistic, maybe you're a little bullish or maybe you're down on something that you heard.

C

I think two, that I was a little more down on that. I came out thinking like, yeah, I could see that. I could see that. A little more optimistic maybe now after talking to some folks. Georgia Tech, when we did our over under game, I had picked them as one of my unders at six and a half. If they're talking to Brent Key, like, I think he's got it down on what he wants to do offensive line wise. They change offensive coordinators. We'll see how that works. But I don't know, maybe just being around Brent Key, he's a pretty confident and cool customer too. And he got. Got me feeling like the most interesting thing I heard out of Brenke. I asked him what went wrong last year and he kind of looked at me as like, I don't know if anything went wrong. We just lost to some good teams and I kind of like that because what it tells me is like he didn't look at what happened at the end of last year as like a system wide failure. Clearly things need to be improved. Clearly things need to be tweaked. The other team sitting down with Fran Brown, I really do like, you know, he's an intense guy. They have a tough schedule. But I do wonder if the change of defensive coordinator to Vince cares who came from, well, previously coach Mount Union, but he was at Toledo. The change, the change of defensive coordinator bringing Angeli back, I think that maybe might have been underselling how Syracuse could conceivably take a step forward this year. Again, it's going to be rough. They play most of the best teams in the ACC on top of Notre Dame at the end of the year. But I felt like I came away after talking to Fran a little more confident that he might be able to bounce back this year.

B

Okay, it was good to get some ACC talk into the podcast. We had Big 12 last week. I assume when we come back for our second episode this week we'll be talking talking more SEC because by then 16 coaches will have talked. And of course our Thursday episode is Mailbag episode. We had some great questions last week, so let's keep it up guys. Send your questions to theaudiblepodmail.com and don't forget to subscribe to the Audible wherever you get your podcasts. And while you're at it, give us a five star rating. We'll see you next time.

F

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C

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