The ACC had a pretty great weekend in football to kick the season off!

I would have to say that other than the Pac-12 going, oh I don't know, undefeated over the weekend, the ACC was probably the most impressive of the conferences and the most impressive of the conferences that will last beyond this year.

Although there is a nuance that could have the Pac-12 with just two teams existing for one more season. Wes Durham joins us. He is the voice of the ACC.

I appreciate your time, sir. Did you hear about that, by the way, that Oregon State and Washington State for at least two more years could be a conference of two? Yeah, I would suggest highly that you get John Wilner on your show. I've tried.

It's not easy to contact, if you have a contact by all means. Yeah, his podcast with John Conzano is excellent and they started into that about a month ago, maybe three weeks ago. I guess I heard that for the first time and the reason the Pac-12 is, as you've probably explained to your listeners, the reason the Pac-12 needs to stay in business is because they're due about 60 million dollars of NCAA basketball money, right? Right.

So here's what I'm going to forecast for you since we can all do this and never be held accountable apparently in our industry now. I'm going to tell you that the Mountain West dissolves Operation and joins the Pac-2. Okay. How about that? I'm going to give you that only on the line of this. The Mountain West would dissolve in about 18 months a so-so television deal.

Yeah. They would dissolve. Now, first of all, the two schools staying in the Pac-12 would have obviously higher slices of the pie, bigger slices of the pie than the members of the Mountain West, but it makes too much sense. It makes too much sense for those schools to join the Pac-12 as opposed to Pac-12. Forgoing that money that obviously could be shared to those members as well.

It actually makes more sense than not when you start thinking about it. If you just take the loyalties and all the other things out of play and they've got a commissioner, you know, Cleofkop won't be the commissioner, so on and so forth. And Craig Thompson, right? No, Craig Thompson retired. And the young lady who got the job and forgive me, I cannot remember her name, but they have a brand new commissioner.

I think she's been, how about this? Been on the job about six months. Perfect. And you start dealing with this.

Perfect. Look, if I were Oregon State and Washington State, I wouldn't, I would just be a conference of two. Well, you can technically. Now, how much status can you maintain? You get two years.

Yeah, you get two years. But the way I like to look at it, AG, is the ACC didn't go eight and two in non-conference football action this past weekend. They went 11 and two.

That is absolutely right. All right, let's talk about, because SMU won at home against Louisiana Tech. Cal and Stanford both had comfortable convincing wins on the road. All right, let's, let's start in Charlotte where Carolina beat South Carolina. I had my doubts as to whether or not Carolina would be able to show anything on the defensive front. Right. But I thought their defensive front was the, to me, the eye-opening winner of the game for them. Yeah, I think what came in Rucker being the Walter Camp National Defensive Player of the Week. It was awesome.

If you'd have bet $10 on that, what would have the tape been? A lot, yeah. Yeah, I, look, I was impressed. I was probably, and I'm curious, because since I've got the game Saturday, I'm going to get to ask this question, I guess, Friday with Gene Chiswick. I'm as curious about the three-man front package as I am anything else I've saw this weekend out of Carolina. I mean, Chip Lindsey throwing the ball to the tight end shocked a lot of people that knew Chip Lindsey. It didn't shock me because he's got three really good tight ends. But the three-man pressure package that Carolina came with against a pretty respectable offensive line of South Carolina. I mean, it's not like South Carolina had two guys and three cones out there, okay? They have pretty good offensive line play.

And I saw that three-man package get a lot of pressure and came in Rucker, came from peeling on one side. I really thought that the way they used Amara Gaynor was pretty cool too. You know, I mean, I just think they did a lot of really good schematic stuff and I'm excited to kind of see how that carryover works. But yeah, the defensive side for Carolina and by the way, losing DeAndre Boykins in the preseason is a big deal.

That guy was a good player for them. But they're playing with renewed confidence and I'm curious how that confidence is if it's schematics, if it's the constant repetition of things. I mean, I'm really interested to talk to Chis on Friday before we do the APA game on Saturday, obviously. Max said, I believe it was yesterday, that their defensive front had been causing their offense problems in practice.

He goes, but I didn't know what it was. I didn't know if it was real or that we would see. But I mean, I thought, you know, the pass rush is one thing, but I thought the South Carolina had zero success running the ball. To me, it was even more surprising because I just assumed that South Carolina would have success on the ground against UNC because everybody has seemed to. It wasn't so much to me about the pass rush. I know 17 sacks all of last year and basically half that many against South Carolina Saturday. South Carolina couldn't run it and I thought that was the most impressive thing. I agree with that part and then the only pause of concern I have is that the Gamecocks had some drops. They did. And Carolina allowed 350 yards of passing. Yeah.

I mean, how much of that is a concern now and what can you do to tune it up to match? But here's the reality. Rattler was hurried all night, never got comfortable in the throw game. He did throw for 350, but you know, the plays that he made downfield seem to be busted plays or plays where he improvised out of what was originally caused. Now you can look at that and measure it any way you want to, but nonetheless, Carolina got to him nine times and they slowed the rundown, which is more than you can say about any Carolina defensive unit, what really in the last couple of years.

So there you go. Does Walker going to be on the field against on Saturday? I think he is. I think he is.

I do too. I think that the kid at Arizona State, the kid at Florida State and the three other kids that are involved in this type of rewriting of the policy or re administrating of the policy that the NCAA has been getting publicly flogged for the last month or whatever. I think they revert and reverse course on all those kids.

At least I hope so. Which makes what I said over the before the weekend even started that if I were North Carolina, I would have put him on the field. I would have put him on the field and dared the NCAA to do something about it because ultimately they understand he's going to be eligible.

The NCAA is just doing NCAA things. All right, Western voice of the ACC and I know you're going to have the app Carolina game coming up. Hopefully some people here will be able to watch it, but I know I can't.

YouTubetv.com. Go check it out. The Blue Devils did the thing last night. I know Clemson was not at their best, but I don't think Duke was either. So I mean both teams left points on the board or gift wrapped points for the other team as Duke did. Duke was minus 10 on their mistakes in the first. We lost West here for a second.

I'll just I'll point this out to people as we get West Durham back on board here. Duke was minus 10 on their mistakes in the first half. The muffed punt that set Clemson up for their only points of the game and the field goal that they would have at least attempted late in the first half that was erased when they fumbled. Now I'm crediting, you know, Clemson gets credit for making a play there, right?

That's okay. But Duke had mistakes as well. It wasn't just Clemson derping it up. Of course, Clemson's mistakes happened in the second half, which were which were more alarming for people, especially if we go into the game with preconceived notions that Clemson should win the game.

Paul Finebaum actually went as far after the game as, oh, the Dabo dynasty is over. Well, I mean, you could have made that statement last year or the year before and been correct too. I'm not convinced that their offense, and it's not about coaching, I'm not convinced that their offense has good enough players to be great.

And that's the bar that Clemson has established for itself. Just not sure that Klubnick is good enough, that their receivers are good enough. We know Shipley is good enough. I think the offensive line is pretty good. I don't know if the offensive line is great, but I think it's pretty good. I just don't know if the rest of it, if the skill position package other than Shipley, I don't know that that's great. Of course, it is just week one, so maybe it will prove to be great.

No clue. But Duke made just as many mistakes in the first half. Maybe not just as many, but they had costly mistakes in the first half too, not to mention pre-snap penalties that took them from third and two to third and seven twice. And they ended up one time kicking a field goal and the next time, I think, going forward on fourth down and turning it over on downs. So they had mistakes too. Mistakes weren't just one way.

And it is what it is. It's week one. Clemson in the past has been good enough to overcome themselves. And right now, they weren't. Or last night, they weren't. But I'll be curious to know what Wes feels like about the Blue Devils and the Tigers going forward.

All right, let's continue this, Wes. I pointed out that Duke had their own mistakes in the first half. It cost them ten points. But Clemson's mistakes were in the second half and they're more glaring.

How did you see that? Well, I think the first thing I noticed was that I thought Clemson, and this is going to be funny because we're talking about a guy making what, $3 million as an offensive coordinator, but I thought Clemson looked like a team playing in a new offense for the first time. I guess the biggest disappointment, if I'm a Clemson fan this morning, is I didn't think our defense played very well. And I thought your defense was going to be one of the better defensive units in the country. Now, some of that credit goes to Kevin Johns and the offensive Duke. And I don't think you can ever forget that Riley Leonard returned everybody that caught a ball last year from him.

I don't think you can forget that. And I think the other part about it is, you've got a draft pick in Graham Barton in the offensive line. You've got guys who they have mixed in there nicely. And secondly to that, I think you've got a quarterback who's a first round pick. Might be a top 10 pick by the time they have the thing next spring.

And yeah, I'm taking them out a year early. Sorry, Duke fans. But to me, Adam, Duke is the one that played with a lot more confidence last night. And that part is concerning if I'm a Clemson fan this morning. If I'm a Duke fan, I'm excited because we've got a football program. We've got a football program. We've got a football coach. We've got a direction. We've got some stick to it.

And this we've got some continuity, right? And yeah, we've got one of the harder, we've got one of the harder conference schedules. Hey, Carolina Panthers fans, Chris Lee and Dennis Cox here. We're excited to offer you all the inside information on your team with the newest member of the Capitol Broadcasting podcast network Panthers playbook twice a week. We'll keep you updated on your Carolina Panthers. We're talking about lacquer room insight, exclusive interviews, and of course, in-depth looks at all of the Panthers wins touchdown Carolina Panthers playbook.

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See store for details. But you got to feel like you got a chance every week, right? Um, Clemson's concern for me is not just three out of four, but look at the margins of those three losses. That's a big, big difference in the Clemson that struck fear in the hearts of college football's landscape a couple of years ago. And I think between now and Florida state, you know, to kind of paraphrase some Adabo, there might be a prayer meeting or two, right? Because they, Adam, this is, this is kind of now become a thing, you know, and it's carried over. That's scary.

I think, isn't it? If you're a Clemson fan, I think if you're a Clemson fan, this is the way I looked at the game and I love the, I mean, I love the Clemson tigers program. They're they're just, they've been awesome. I just don't think their offense is good enough.

I think they're, I have not seen, I didn't see anything dynamic on the outside last night. I mean, Will Shipley can play for any school and most NFL teams in the country. He's that good, but I didn't see anybody else that looked that good to me, including the quarterback who, I mean, that was a terrible pass behind Shipley that, that ends up being the, the, the final turnover, the interception off the tip drill.

But I didn't think he was great. And I think in order for them to be great, they have to have an offense that matches. I think Florida state looked much better offensively than Clemson did.

Yeah, no, I'm with you on that. I think it's a, I think it's a big deal. I, I, the, the concern I would have about Clemson is you got, look, they could be Charleston Southern pulling 11 people off the Hill. Okay. The question Florida Atlantic comes in there in two weeks, Florida Atlantic throws it around now. Right. I mean, and then Florida state who arguably as, as poorly as Clemson maybe looked or played last night at the end of the day, the question is going to become Florida state's momentum is building here, man. And it's building in a way that it's going to be, it's going to be pretty interesting to watch how this goes down, to be honest with you, I think. Yep. So it's, it's going to be a tricky time for Clemson.

And in fact, you know, and, and see, here's the other thing, the static and the noise with the program is going to be about the transfer port, right? Because that's been kind of the, the open-ended whipping boy, if you will, of Clemson football, when they lose or struggle, like, you know, fine bomb shovel dirt on them again, dynasties over the whole bit, you know, eight noted ACC authority, Paul, never an agenda there. Right. So to me, I just think that Clemson probably has more soul searching to do right now than say Georgia tech or Carolina or NC state. Who's got to figure out a way to run the ball, probably a little bit better.

But on the whole, look, let me just give it to you. It's, it's the best opening weekend. The ACs he's had since they won 10 games in 2016 and went two and one against the SCC. And the other loss was Virginia with Mike London to Richmond. That's, that's the last time the league has had a weekend.

It was as good as this weekend. They won 10 games in 17, but Carolina lost to Cal and they went, Oh, and three against the SCC, right? This is a two and one mark against the SCC and eight wins. And, but now here's the thing you doubled down on that and look at the games you've got this week. I mean, a and M goes to Miami. You really want to be that league.

Now you want to reduce another league and enhance yourself. Miami needs to hammer Texas saying it. Yep. They do hammer just win. Just, I mean, anything win by one, win, win five, four.

I don't care. Just win the game. An NC state needs to find a way to beat Notre Dame. And then all of a sudden we got ourselves a situation. Yeah. My, my fear for the Wolfpack was that Connecticut had some success running the football against NC state.

And boy estimates a handful, man. No question about it. And Notre Dame's just got pro after pro after pro. It would seem on the offensive line. And I'm look, I love what I saw from the tar heels.

I'm a line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball app. State's not going to be easy as you're going to find out nor will Minnesota the following week. And then they go to pit. And I think that's going to be that, that who knows the winner of that game might end up being the, I guess the plan B for the, for the conference championship game. If it's not Duke, let me tell you this. I think Carolina pit is for like, you know, get ready to spend the fall in the top four of the ACC. Cause I think they're going to be, look, Clemson is going to have a moment. Is it going to be Florida state? Is it going to be somewhere after that? If Clemson loses to Florida state, there are two losses before they get to October one.

And essentially they're out of the college football playoffs. Okay. Yes. Think about that. Okay. So Clemson's been out of the college football playoffs, but like last year, it was when they lost to South Carolina.

Right. So now how do you handle that? How do you handle a scenario where, you know, and like Carolina a year ago, Carolina played great. The other night is an important game to win. Fan base football team all over, but now all of a sudden, how do you, it's like the old skins game in golf.

You know, that analogy I've given you before where you got to go validate what you did. You got birdie on the last hole, but if you don't make birdie here, nobody remembers what you did. And I think that's kind of where some of these teams are going to be until like Carolina gets to Pittsburgh or Clemson gets to Florida state or like NC state right now. But Miami has a chance to answer a question, you know, down the line, Virginia tech Purdue this week at Rutgers, the following week, they got chances Pittsburgh, the same way you got Cincinnati. We're forgetting Cincinnati Pittsburgh's this week. That's a game pit. You want to stay in the game nationally, you win the game. And I think this league has learned some hard lessons of, you know, stubbing your toe, walking around and kicking trash cans. And in the first couple of weeks does not do you any favors nationally.

They answered the bell a little bit. Quite frankly, I thought Thomas Hammock was going to beat Boston college Saturday. Okay. I'm not surprised that DC lost. I'm not surprised Virginia lost.

No. Well, I think Florida state has put themselves in a situation to be a factor all the way through the calendar. Absolutely all the way through.

I a hundred percent agree. That's going to be interesting. That's going to be interesting given the landscape they created in August. Yeah.

And even even a loss at Clemson doesn't take Florida state out of it as long as they do take care of their business the rest of the way. Final thing on October 30th, will college game day be at Wallace Wade stadium? October 30th. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

September 30th, not October 30th. Between you and me, I think there's a chance. My gosh, my gosh, I'll lose my mind.

That'll be just hysterical. Because they've never been. Well, that's one of the schools. Well, you know, there's probably reason for that.

Is that not one of the schools? I don't recall them ever being it for. That's what I'm saying. They've been in Cameron a few times.

They have. Well, yeah, but come on. I mean, and by the way, and God, I love Dave Pass and Dvorak and Luganville last night, but the basketball analogy start rolling out, you know, when the fan, the kids are getting ready to run on the field. Right. And you know, it's, it's, and it's a credit to Mike.

It really is. And he's just a terrific coach. He's perfect for Duke because he played at Penn. He's worked at wake. He's done it the right way.

Correct. And, you know, and now he's caught lightning in a bottle with the kid at quarterback and a terrific coaching staff. And I think they're going to benefit from that, but, you know, we're just, we're just getting started guys. We are just getting started, but we're excited because it's the first, first show after the first weekend of the season. And we talked to West Durham, the voice of the ACC, the reason the conference turns a profit.

And it'll have 515 app state coming down from the mountain to take on the Tar Heels in North Carolina on ACC network. If you can find it, man, say, come on, we got to get that. We got to get that work.

Yes. I'll, I'll do the best I can. I'll place a phone call. All right. Talk to you, man. Be well. You got it. West Durham here on the Adam Gold show.