Biggest takeaways from North Carolina, Florida State, and Duke wins this past weekend

Ask Sherwin-Williams during the Endless Summer Sale, September 1st through the 11th, and get 30% off paints and stains with prices starting at $31.14. That means 30% off our most popular color family, blue.

Psychologists have found it to be soothing and relaxing, which makes it especially great for bedrooms and bathrooms. And of course, get 30% off all of our other colors. Shop the sale online or visit your neighborhood Sherwin-Williams store. Click the banner to learn more. Retail sales only.

Some exclusions apply. See store for details. Chip Patterson joins us as he does every Wednesday from Cover 3 Podcast, CBSSports.com. Let me just start real quick with that. I'm not that shocked that Colorado won a TCU because I didn't think TCU was all that great and they were preseason, what, 17th in the country? So I'm not that shocked.

But that surprised me. Basically for a guy to play every snap on offense just about and every snap on defense and be a star really on both sides of the ball. That was eye-opening and I don't see why anybody would fade him for the Heisman regardless of record. Well, he's going to have some stiff competition in terms of actually going out and winning the Heisman Trophy. But Travis Hunter should not be a surprise to anybody. This is the former number one overall prospect.

Somebody who was so special and identified as someone who could be in that Chris Gamble, Charles Woodson, playing on both sides of the ball, never leaving the field. He is individually excellent in a way that should surprise no one. But Shadur Sanders should surprise people. That is an example of somebody who has worked at his craft and gotten better and better every single year.

His measurables are not unique. His arm talent was not identified early on as something that was really special. But everyone who looks at him now and certainly what we saw on Saturday against TCU, like Shadur Sanders is as much in the Heisman Trophy conversation as Travis Hunter is. And he's going to continue to put up 400, 500 yards per game because of the way that this Colorado offense goes, which brings me back to where Colorado is. We released our CBS Sports 133 today. Colorado jumped from number 85 to number 24.

That 61 spot jump is the one of the largest since we started this back in the 2015 season. And I think that we have to change our expectations for Colorado because look, the defense was leaky to you. They did give up 42 in this game, but it's, you know, North Carolina fans should feel very comfortable, like understanding what it's like with a team with an explosive offense and a defense that can't stop anybody. Not this year, of course.

You know, we'll get to that, I'm sure. But, you know, we can even look at their Pac 12 brethren there. USC, like USC's highs are higher, but they still gave up 28 points to San Jose State. USC is going to be in the Pac 12 title hunt because no one can outscore them. And I think that their defense is a little bit better than Colorado's, but Colorado can put up as many points as anyone on its schedule, including USC, thanks to the way that that offense runs and the special players that they have at the core of it. Pac 12, by the way, undefeated in week one of the college football season.

First time that any league has ever done that in week one of the season. And I'm like, you know, it's the last year for it pretty much unless, you know, there is a loophole there that Oregon State and Washington State because they'll fly the flag for a couple of more years, even as a conference of two. And I would love to see it be like Champions League football, home and home, and then the winner on aggregate, you're declared the conference champion, or maybe they play a third time for the six. There's a game. There is a, you have to play six conference games.

Okay. There's a game requirement in the loophole where it would have to be a home and home and home and home and home and home and home and home and home and home. Do it six times Oregon State, Washington, we have a series. The best of best of nine. Chip Patterson is here. Um, ACC was pretty good.

Yeah, this, this opening weekend. So we'll work. We'll work chronologically start with the tar heels. What impressed you? What's what jumped out to you over in the win over South Carolina? Um, I mean, the headline stuff is, you know, we've gotten to at this point in the process talking here on a Wednesday, you know, the idea that you're going to get more than half your sack total in a single game. I liked some of the comments from the players talking about a mentality shift, you know, like a mindset that has changed. And there, there might be something to be said for, um, how a lot of those players have matured, right? You know, like players that came in with three star, four star, some of them blue chips on national signing day, your fist pumping because max getting it done, you know, bringing in some, some good players on the defensive line. And then you wonder why the defensive line looks like it's a little bit, uh, small and maybe getting pushed around in recent years. Well, guess what, you know, whether it's player development, um, the, the physical maturation of human beings, uh, weight room. That, that group does not look as, as small and like it was getting pushed around.

And so that was important. And in the mindset thing, like we've got a lot of players left in the transfer portal. Some players came in from the transfer portal, you know, we were talking about pulling players from like Florida state, right?

Right. Who are coming in and getting a fresh start and being able to really impact. And I, I think that that's what stands out to me as we talk here and start to spin this thing forward with, you know, app state coming to township on their shoulder with the Minnesota game coming up in a little bit. And of course, one of the nastiest offensive lines, North Carolina will face all year having to go play pit and week four. You know, that's where the maturation of this defense and what the players are saying is like a mindset shift, uh, within the way that they approach things.

If they are aggressive, if they can stand tall, and if that becomes the way that they're going to take care of business, the rest of the way, it's good that they found this form now because they need that defense to stand tall, be strong and be aggressive. Here in the next couple of weeks, two, two things that I was looking for going into that game Saturday night, one was all right. It's one of those bright lights moments. It's the opener national TV, all of that ABC, the whole thing, uh, knowing that you weren't going to have the season you wanted to have if you didn't win the game. And it's an opponent that it means in the same ballpark as you, I thought, uh, Carolina probably had a little bit more pedigree in terms of, uh, terms of talent, although some of the wide receiver talent wasn't on the field. So it was one of those bright lights games. And I was also looking to see something from the defensive front. Didn't have to necessarily be a defensive lineman, but you know, nowadays, uh, you're, you're your edge rushers or linebackers.

Um, but I wanted to see disruptors and we saw a lot of disruptors. My only fear is that maybe South Carolina is not that good. Um, because they could not run the ball, a lick on North Carolina and forget about rushing, whatever the rushing yard total was, they handed it to a running back 18 times. I think they went for more than five yards once, maybe twice, and they gained 20 total yards on those 18 carries. There was no success in the run game. And that was impressive to me. Start and tackle went down and what, like the fourth minute of the game for South Carolina.

And if you've been listening to the cover three podcast all through the summer, you will have heard her say multiple times. Offensive line depth is a real problem. And for the real degenerates out there, the way that we phrased it is if you see any South Carolina offensive lineman carried off the field, you just hammer the live line on the other side. Like no algorithm is going to be able to keep up with the drop off when South Carolina has to go to its backup offensive lineman. They lost players to injury in the spring game.

They lost players to the transfer portal. And then it's like, it truly is a situation for South Carolina and Spencer Rattler, where if you don't have one of those top line guys, the person you are sending out there should not be playing power five football yet. And so, you know, it's one juice wells. Wasn't really a factor in play. Really?

I don't think he barely plays. It was a, it was a limited South Carolina offense, but I don't think that that should change us adjusting the way that we consider North Carolina's defense and what we should expect from that group. Um, I, I think that South Carolina probably is the 12th best team in the sec. So it's good for if you're North Carolina, maybe the third best team in the ACC, right? If not the second, then you're coming out of that. We'll get to that.

We'll get to why they might be the second. You're coming out of a 31 to 17 game having made some mistakes, right? You're coming out of a 31 17 game being like, well, you know, that could have been 45 to 17 before, before we get to the team that is maybe third on chip Patterson's ACC rankings, or, or maybe fourth on your ACC rankings.

Real quick. Was that more about Florida state or more about LSU? Oh, more about Florida state. I thought so too.

Yeah. LSU just got out coached in the second half. I thought that they, I thought their game plan was poor. LSU led that game at halftime and then they just totally bungled it and Florida state running it up was very much like that was vintage Florida state.

Do it, man. The vintage Florida state is just pedaled to the metal the entire way. And that was what that looked like because 21 points was not the down to down margin. 21 points was not really the way that that would go if those two teams played again. But in terms of Florida state, being able to create some real confidence, I mean, they just, they just out coached them and out executed them. It was, it was really, really impressive. It's much more about Florida state, a team that is deserving of jumping into that top tier conversation at the very top of whatever your power ratings, your rankings, your polls, whatever they are, that's a top five team.

All right. Now is Clemson the third or the fourth best team, probably the fourth best team now in the ACC after the Duke blue devils put one on them. I, you know, we, I'm joking, obviously a lot of circumstances there still think Clemson is very good.

But what did you, what did you take away from that game as much as anything? Oh, Duke way, way, way more about Duke and the, a lot of the intangibles. I thought they brought the fight to Clemson. I thought that there was, uh, a nastiness, an edge, a litlessness about the way that they were handling their business and Clemson did not meet them. And that is like why everything started to fall apart. Clemson did not.

And Dabo Sweeney, you know, of course has been all on this inside the game on a down to down basis. Clemson was not awful. It's just at the worst possible moments. They were worse than awful.

Yeah. The fact that you have, I mean, so final score 28 to seven, but there's a two lost fumbles in the red zone. There are two turnovers on down in Duke territory. There are two missed field goals. Those are six legitimate scoring opportunities throw in the interception, which I think was near midfield Clemson left 30 points.

Maybe. I mean, like if you want to be not that aggressive minimum 20 to 24 points on the field with their own miscues in a 21 point loss, uh, they led at halftime. It was seven to six, but again, like they led at halftime, but the Mo I mean, Riley Leonard, I, I was actually wondering if air link, the, uh, the tool that we use for me to connect, it was really, really slow. I was wondering if air link was trying to prevent me from eating crow since I knew I was, since I knew I was going to be discussing this game with the number one Riley Leonard supporter, Adam Cole. I mean, he was phenomenal that the third down where he sort of breaks out and get scampers off for the 44 yards.

I was like, Clemson should not look like that. Well, Jeremiah Trotter had him and then Riley Leonard said, no, you don't. So if he's going to break, I mean, there was a little bit of Daniel Jones in that play, right? Daniel Jones was an elite athlete at Duke.

Of course, most people wouldn't recognize that because for obvious reasons and for maybe a lot of people, they, the same thing with Riley Leonard. Um, he made some good throws. Duke did not, Duke did not show any aggressiveness offensively in terms of trying to get the ball down the field. I didn't feel like they believed that they could get time for Leonard against Clemson's pass rush. And then when Clemson started bringing, bringing blitz after blitz after blitz, it really took Duke's vertical passing game out.

I'm not sure Duke has much of one anyway. Uh, but Duke did a lot of misdirection. They got their running backs out of the backfield in space, uh, some busted coverages. Uh, but my takeaway from the game was yet Riley Leonard is, uh, is an outstanding football player, but man Duke was impressive on the defensive front. They were, they were impressive in the secondary. They were physical.

They were nasty. Like, all right, it's awesome. How about, and that's, let's, let's slowly blow this out here because everybody spent the off season, myself included. I wrote a feature talking about, uh, you know, Clemson's absence of the transfer portal, Florida state loading up and let's compare these two. Let's compare these two. I don't, I, I don't think Al blades, the starting defensive back for Duke. He didn't start at Duke Diddy or, or, or, or, or Jake Hornibrook on the offensive line. No, no, no, he didn't.

No, no. Duke had transfer portal contributors helping win that game. Yep. Also defensively, zero respect for Clemson's wide receivers. They was manning up on Clemson. This is what happens. It's like, we're going to pull in free. We're just going to go with one round. Like we're just, we are going to run complete disrespect for your wide receivers winning one-on-one battle battles against our defensive backs, which again for Duke.

That's why the, what was your initial reaction? Like Duke, we said could be better schedule is going to be tougher. They might not win as many games. I don't think that's the case anymore.

I don't know. I mean, they certainly, they should win their next two, right? They should do in their next two. Like Clemson looks regular, right?

They, but they're still really good. Like Clemson is a like regular Clemson is still on the same level of Duke, North Carolina, NC state, you know, the teams that are all occupying a similar tier in the ACC. That's just not the Clemson standard to be occupying that fine, really good, good tier.

And that certainly is where it looks like right now. I'm going to ask you about four games and we'll let Chip Patterson go. I think Clemson's offense is just, isn't good enough. Whether it's, whether it's the quarterback, whether it's no dynamic players on the outside, I feel bad for Will Shipley.

Who's taking a, is going to take a beating again this year because he's the only thing that they've got. I think offensively that can be great, but I don't think they can beat really good teams with the offense that they've got unless their defense just completely shuts teams down. It's just the way I look at Clemson's offense. So let me ask you about, there are four top ACC games this week, and we'll see what you think about these four games.

Notre Dame's at Carter-Finley at noon on another network. Chip Patterson, thoughts on the Wolfpack's chances there. Yeah, I'm with you.

Yeah, I want it more than I think it, if that makes sense, right? I mean, the ghosts of Hurricane Matthew aren't coming through that door, you know. Well, we are supposed to get a lot of rain here, but it's not until next week, I think. So I'm, I am looking at, well, number one, are you so Notre Dame, one of the things that's going to make them very dynamic and difficult to defend against most of the opponents on their schedule is obviously the presence of Sam Hartman. And I do think that in their group of wide receivers, the players who are back have gotten better and the young players like Great House will continue to come along throughout the year. However, I do think NC State is one of the best secondaries that they're going to face the entire season. So maybe you're able to neutralize some of that, but the defensive line against UConn at times, not it.

That's my word. So they weren't a hundred percent. I think that they are getting healthier. I think that on the offensive line and defensive line, we're going to see, we're going to see some improvements from NC State from the injury report, injury report perspective. But then on the, on the other side of this, for the NC State offense, it's going to be, it's going to be really difficult. This is a, this is a Notre Dame defense that is nasty. And I think that they've done a better job. They lost a player named Isaiah Foske, who was responsible for a lot of their havoc plays last year.

And I wasn't sure if they were going to be able to replace him. The Heights weights and speeds didn't jump off the page to me, but it was named is it is as great a test for Notre Dame's defense as anything else for me to figure out what's going on with Notre Dame defensively. But I'm, I'm a little bit concerned overall about them being able to just control the game, control the line of scrimmage, just hand the ball to SMA all, all day long. And I don't know how state's going to stop it.

Hopefully they will. And maybe you can force them into some mistakes because this will be the best team by far that the Irish have played. I'm going to go a little bit further ahead in the, in the day, Carolina and app state. We're not going to see 63 61 like we did a year ago. I don't think apps offense is going to be as good as it was a year ago. And Carolina's defense clearly isn't as bad as it was a year ago, but I think, I think Caroline has got to back up what they did last week with another impressive game. And I think for, for Carolina, they probably have to win comfortably might be the wrong word here, but I think they have to be emphatically better. It would not be a surprise if this is a sweat, it would not be if in the hangover spot with the mountaineers coming down the mountain chip on their shoulder, they did not start good backup quarterback comes in and is able to lead them to a victory. So you've got all of a sudden, a little bit of a scheme change, a little bit of a spice or uncertainty in terms of what you're going to get from app state offensively. I, I would not be surprised if North Carolina plays down a little bit and app state plays up.

However, that should still be a Tar Heels win. No query gets concerning for me would be if, um, Drake may has a couple of, you know, like I don't want Drake may to have a Jamis season and obviously Jamis Winston won the Heisman trophy in 2013. Uh, Drake may was ninth in the Heisman trophy voting Jamis Winston won a national championship. Drake may went nine and five, like, but what I'm talking about is you have that first red shirt, freshmen superstar, announce yourself to college football year.

And everything's amazing. Cause you look at Drake May's whole profile from last season, it is on par with Heisman trophy winners in the years. They want it like a Kyler Murray, Lamar Jackson, uh, Johnny Manziel terms of his prolific production, throwing the ball, running the ball. All of that adds up that he had like a Heisman trophy ish season, but then the next year Jamis threw a bunch of picks.

It was, yeah, it was not good. He was very shaky. They won a lot of those games. Florida state still won a lot of games, but it was, it was with some mistakes. And so I would say that the, the next level North Carolina app state storyline is Drake may and just cleaning up a few of the errors from the South Carolina game. And look, North Carolina wants nothing else but wins, but to have him playing at his peak is the true difference maker for the toughest games on that schedule. Chip Patterson is here.

Final thing. I just need you to give me winners for these two games. Um, Purdue at Virginia tech. I know Virginia tech, uh, old dominion's not supposed to be good, but at least Virginia tech won the game. No, no, no, no.

Even better. Grant Wells had a good game and I did not think he was a good quarterback and grant Wells was out there. He only had like five or six incompletions. He had three touchdown passes. They went to the transfer portal and they brought in some good players at wide receiver.

My response in spring practice was that's great. Who's going to throw them the ball. Wasn't sure that Brent pride fixed any of his issues, but they're playing at home.

They should be playing with more confidence. I think that they exceeded my expectations against ODU and Purdue is coming off a really heartbreaking high scoring loss to Fresno state. You want to talk about a sneaky good for the ACC type game. Let Virginia tech win at home against Purdue on ESPN too. And that'll be like, I won't change my expectations for Virginia tech in terms of where they fit in the ACC picture, but it will help the ACC look better. Right.

I need that. And the other one is Texas A&M at Miami. Miami was good, effective against Miami of Ohio, but that's just Miami of Ohio, Texas A&M.

What are they doing in Coral Gables? Oh boy, Mario Cristobal and Jimbo Fisher under. We got ourselves two head coaches that love to limit what their offenses are able to do with their own decision making.

This thing is going to be, it's going to come down to something dumb. Here's my big thought on Miami. I think that Miami's defense is awesome. I think late injury, their defensive coordinator that they hired.

Um, I think that that was a really smart and savvy hire. They have multiple, like almost a handful of players who I think are going to be in the NFL. Leonard Taylor soon, Cameron Kinchen soon, James Williams soon. Uh, maybe a few other players, Maui Goa, the brother who's the linebacker.

He might be out there soon too. They run full rotations. Their pass rush combos are sick. Got a freshmen named Reuben Bain.

I think Miami will lead with its defense. I am worried that Tyler Van Dyke is just a guy. And we thought a couple of years ago, he was really good, right? And the last year he wasn't very good. He was the offensive rookie of the year in the conference. But I'm, I'm a little bit concerned that that might've been a, a good marriage of scheme coaching and player.

He has a great arm and arm talent, but I am worried that he might be just a guy. So, I mean, I'm looking at seriously 17 to nine again, like low scoring because Texas A&M, I think even with the upgrade of Bobby Petrino as offensive coordinator will struggle against a Miami defense, I think is excellent. And I think that Miami's offense almost limits itself against good competition just because they don't have it. Wouldn't it be great if the ACC could get a third win against the SEC in the first two weeks of the season? Chip Patterson, my friend, I appreciate your time as always. We will talk to you next week. Sounds good. Y'all be well.