WHICH college football teams are looking to be the “best” this season?

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Well, don't. Let's just make sure we focus on that, right? Let's not look at Pitt losing to Cincinnati, right? Well, Cincinnati is probably a future member of the ACC, so.

I mean, let's make sure that we're not paying attention to anything else. We're just doing the ACC-SEC battles, right? We're not paying attention at all to some of those other games that go, we're not looking at Virginia Tech losing at home to Purdue, right? We're not looking at Virginia losing at home to JMU. James Madison. But you know what's funny about that game?

I knew this was going to be a problem. I mean, Virginia was like more than a touchdown underdog at home to JMU. It was like eight points. Yeah, we talked about the Monmouth transfer, Tony Musket, and then the backup comes in and throws for like 350 or something. The thing is, there are positive takeaways to, and of course, here on the unprecedented statewide platform we start off talking about Virginia and JMU, but prior to the late weather delay, Virginia kind of had that game, and much like Notre Dame coming back and hitting an 80-yard touchdown, JMU just started faster coming out of the break when they had to play those final minutes of that game. So you credit JMU, you're disappointed for UVA. And so yeah, look, the top, getting Florida State to look excellent, getting Miami to look competent, North Carolina avoiding disaster, Duke overcoming a slow start, those are the best teams in the ACC. And so they're currently still undefeated and rocking and rolling. Mark the tape, just mark the tape. Florida State, Miami, North Carolina, and Duke, the best teams.

It really is amazing. And look, I went on with our new best friends in Charlotte, WFNZ. I'll wave, say hello, say hi to Chip. And we talked about Duke. Do I think Duke can win, can be in the ACC championship game? No, I don't think they're going to get to that. But I think, because I think they have to go seven and one, probably, to do that. And I don't see that for the Blue Devils in the cards, but I mean, they could certainly win five or six in the league based on what I have seen from them. And I don't want to talk about them just yet, because I wanted to get to the fact that it's apparently ACC Big Ten Challenge weekend.

What do we have? Six. Six games between the Alliance. They looked each other in the eyes and they agreed to tab each other in the backs and steal each other's teams, but also schedule future games on the non-conference schedule. Virginia, Maryland, Louisville, Indiana, Minnesota at UNC.

I want to talk about that. Northwestern, Duke, Syracuse, Purdue, Virginia Tech, and Rutgers. There are six games between the ACC and the Big Ten. What's our record going to be in those six games? In those six? Oh, and one, one and one, two and one, three and one, three and two.

Probably three. Yeah. Syracuse, Purdue might decide it. Oh, so you've given Rutgers the win over Virginia Tech.

100%. Oh, Virginia Tech. The, the opening week against Old Dominion is so fleeting.

We don't even remember that it happened. And Grant Wells looked good. The transfer, yeah, yeah, yeah. But Rutgers, like ACC fans will get to see Northwestern and Rutgers. Rutgers could have beat Northwestern by 45. And I, I really think that Greg Schiano was just doing the, you know, call the dogs off come like mid to late second quarter in that game, just given, you know, given everything that Northwestern's been through. I mean, like, if you are trying to imagine coaches who would cape up for Pat Fitzgerald, doesn't Greg Schiano come to mind as one of the first? He is the, yeah, he is the, he's on the cover of the book.

There is, he wrote the forward on, on how to do that. All right. You talked about North Carolina. And I just want to go back to the app game and bring it over to the Minnesota game. Like, I loved the fact that North Carolina, I thought both teams played well. I think this is a good football game.

And in our time, how much time we were going to spend on these particular issues, I'd love to get your thoughts on these types of games being important for not just the state, but important for North, the University of North Carolina to play and win. But the, cause Mac Brown isn't going to play him anymore, or at least not in a regular basis. That's listen.

Okay. I'll say this. Mac Brown can say that because he's done three and four years, right? Like there will be another two for one in the future, but it just might be down the line. 10 years away, do sign up for it again, after I retire, like let's let another coach go out.

And he's talking about passing the Baton. There's like, let NC state go play him. Like they are. I think that, you know, having that wake forest has played app state, you know, I'm not concerned with wake. I'm not even concerned with Duke. I'm concerned with the two, the two state schools playing East Carolina and app on a regular basis. Yeah.

Just take, take turns swapping back and forth. It's what it should be. But like, I think people should smart people look at the win North Carolina's win. That's a hell of a win.

I think smart people look at that and say, that's a good win. And a loss to app state is not a terrible loss. I mean, it might've been last year when they were six and six, but for the most part you lose to app, you've been beaten by a good football team. And I think smart people recognize that, but too, too often in college sports, we catered to dumb. So isn't an analysis of that game that North Carolina did not play as well?

I mean, I don't think they, I think that the opponent has something to do with that. I think app is really good. I know they're using their backup quarterback, but I think app is really good. A backup quarterback might be your best chance to win. That's true. But look, low floor proposition. He's going to make some backbreaking mistake that he is going to be able to throw that ball around with a lot of confidence.

And that's, that's where you'll have the learning curve. I think with him overall, I think more than anything else, what we learned with North Carolina is that the, their, their defense is not awesome. It looked awesome against South Carolina, but it's not that awesome. And maybe that was more about South Carolina, which is something I think we talked about last week that we're not a hundred percent sure until we get the fabric of the season, South Carolina might just have a trash offensive line, which is why Carolina looks so dominant on the defensive side of the ball upfront. I think apps offensive line is probably better, which is why they had success running the ball. They had success in a lot of different ways. Again, I think they're good, but I was not disappointed in what I saw out of UNC.

I don't know. Maybe, maybe I'm looking at it the wrong way. Well, I think that there's a, um, there, there is the frustrations defensively that you weren't able to come up with more stops.

I think that there is, you know, still a little bit of a yearning, you know, whether that is fair or unfair to see something that is going to be, uh, a little bit sharper, a little bit more productive. I mean, like for example, when we look at the passing game, um, one fourth of Drake Mays total yards for this game came on one play in the ball down the field vertically. And look, I know like defenses are going to play a certain way when you're going up against someone with the talent of Drake May, and that's going to open things up for a Morion Hampton. And that's when you're so excited to be able to see him go out there, run for 234 yards. One of the best performances by running back in the entire country in week two, I like there is a North Carolina only that says, I don't care what Drake May stats are. All I care about are wins. And you know, Drake may not necessarily be in prolific or productive.

If that means more wins than everyone, maybe even Drake May would sign up for that. But I do think that if we're talking about North Carolina being in that top tier of ACC teams, you would like all of the tools to be utilized and operating at peak efficiency. And I, I think that the past game, which, you know, we can no longer blame the absence of Tez Walker.

This is where you, you want to find your rhythm. You want to be able to know that even if a team is playing off of you and then they've got to react and they've got to respect the run game more. Now, are you going to be able to deliver on some of those downfield shots? Like this is a, it's a really important part when you've got someone with the talent of a Drake May that the passing attack represents that talent that's under center.

But I mean, you can only be as good as the weapons that you've got. And I don't think Carolina is, I think Carolina has got some good players and maybe some players who flash here and there, but who are their best receivers? I don't think there's a lot of like awesome out there, which is where I still think it's a valid, it's not an excuse, but I certainly think it's an explanation why they're not as dynamic in the passing game, even with Drake May, because you don't have a Tez Walker.

I mean, if you had two, like if you had last year's wide receivers, right? If green and downs were here and they still were just mediocre through two games, I think we would certainly have more of an argument. I don't think they really know who they're throwing to at this point and lean on the running game while you can until you figure that out. But I, I just think there's, you're, you're limited, even if you, even if you do have a pivot, Minnesota's defense is coordinated by someone named Joe Rossi.

PJ Fleck is so cheesy with all of his saying, he takes up a lot of oxygen. We don't talk about the Minnesota coaching staff or why they're actually good. And it's because of that defense. And that is a group that is going to force North Carolina into third and long and Amari on Hampton run. The ball's not going to get you out of third and long all the time. There are going to be some tough throws and tough contested catches that have to be made in Chapel Hill on Saturday for North Carolina to win that football game. And right now that passing attacks average in about seven yards per attempt.

And that is close to the definition of average. I completely agree, which is why I think there are some limitations on North Carolina. But they have to figure that out. And this is why I guess they were so mad about the ruling on Tez Walker, which again, I think we talked about it last week. The NCAA forecast this, they forecast it with their, I guess their opinion of Walker leaving Central to go to Kent State. They didn't buy that as pure. They thought, eh, he just wanted to go play somewhere else. They just viewed it as a regular transfer. They just they said it wasn't unique because I think the fear of the me act not playing in the fall for the second year in a row is anything.

I mean, it's to me, that's a unique situation. Let me ask you about the Wolfpack. This is two weeks in a row now. Now, granted, Notre Dame's different than Connecticut, but we haven't really seen an offense that screams good, even with Brennan Armstrong and Robert O'Neill. We're not. Hey, Carolina Panthers fans, Chris Lee and Dennis Cox here. We're at all of the Panthers wins. Touchdown, Carolina Panthers playbook.

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Discover the ultimate cloud gaming machine, a new kind of Chromebook. Yeah, that's my statement. Chip Patterson to react to it.

React to it. There are going to be some growing pains because young players are going to have to grow up like it. It is so disappointing when talented players are out on the field and they make mistakes that we've seen through generations of watching college football that young players make and, you know, bad read, not knowing where to go, drop here or there. They've dropped some passes. No question.

There were some drops, boy. And I, I think that this right now, Brendan Armstrong, to me, gives you the best chance to be able to steady things as much as possible, because he did show you in that Yukon game that he is willing to go out there and just throw it all out and be like a just downright. I mentioned, I think it was with you that Dave Doran, he's like, I got to join Lynch out there. I mean, just somebody that's just going to go like, give me the ball. We're going to go and figure this out.

Third and three, I'm just going to go get it. And you don't always get that. You get that out of a 12th year senior who's out there, like willingly putting his body on the line when he could go and be a, you know, real estate salesman in Charlottesville right now. But instead he's deciding to come and suit it up and sweat and take hits behind an offensive line that is underperformed my expectations and others and try to go get those hard yards. So I think that it's just going to be a little bit of growing pains with the skill players when it comes to the Brennan Armstrong, MJ Morris debate.

I still say you ride with Armstrong just be unless there's injury, of course. And that the offense is going to be limited. It's just, it doesn't scare a lot of defenses right now.

And until those young players start making defenses, respect them, they're going to continue to face difficult situations, pretty much every possession. Yeah. Yeah. By the way, I also found it interesting when Bradley Rosner caught the touchdown pass that, uh, so for somebody playing in his eighth college football season, I think it is interesting to juxtapose that against the NCAA denying test Walker eligibility. I'm like, what doesn't doesn't that was the one at the very end? Uh, yes.

That was transferred from rice. Yeah. NC state's best drive was in garbage time.

No, no, no, no, no. He caught a touchdown pass earlier with, before the break, like when they, was it that to score right before or did he catch one against Connecticut? I don't even remember anymore because I had my own two and a half hour delay on, uh, on Saturday afternoon. Um, let me ask you about, uh, we just go national here for a second. All this shade being thrown at Clemson, uh, under losing to Duke, maybe a team that's almost as talented as them. I'm kidding. Um, should we be saying the same thing about Alabama?

No. Um, Texas like that's, I'm not ready. Maybe Texas is that good. Yeah, no, I I'm on the other side. I was, you know, I was drunk on Texas coming into the year.

I was coming out. I was saying the fact that they were not a top 10 team in the preseason rankings, disrespectful. So top 16 in terms of roster talent by my preseason analysis and not putting them in the top 10 was just taking a false narrative because we have not expected Texas to be the best team in the big 12 that often. I mean, we've talked about this, right? They've only been picked to win the big 12, um, only since 2009. They haven't done it at all.

Right? We have only expected Texas to be better because of resources because Texas football, the results have not been on the field suggesting that this is other than a just fine big 12 team. And this year we looked at the roster and the people close to the program said, yes, this Texas team should be the best team in the big 12 and should be able to be, have an outside shot at the college football playoff. Let's see what happens in Alabama. Well, we just saw what happens at Alabama. This is a team that's contending for the college football playoff with its best roster that it's had in more than a decade.

And we've got a chance to have a really, really special season. Same old Texas would be to lose to Kansas or Iowa state later in the year. So those are going to be the games where we find out whether this is same old Texas or whether we are really in the midst of something special. I'll tell you Mack Brown probably has something to say about beating a blue blood on the road and what it can do for a campaign as it is the biggest for my mind, the biggest road win for this program. Since Vince Young took the Longhorns into the shoe to beat Ohio state early, I think it was week three, not week two.

I thought it was week two. It was eerily similar that everybody kind of woke up cause you know, Texas finished the year strong. I think there were nine or 10 win team and then they win that game and we saw what happened after that. I, I would not be surprised if we're in the midst of something special for the Longhorns.

Cause again, this is the best shot that they've had to do something special. I think two things can be true. I thought with all of that, it was still a very close game in Alabama, took the lead in the fourth quarter. But it always just looked to me like Texas's offense came easier than Alabama's offense. And I think Alabama's offense is fairly ordinary.

Now it'll be good enough to win a lot of games, right? It's flawed. Yeah.

I just think it's just okay. Yeah. Alabama's offense is either a deep shot or Jalen Milro running the ball. It's like the intermediate game is, has nothing. And when those, when that's the, if then proposition, then you're just playing roulette and some people make a lot of money on roulette for a night. I actually there's a, I think there's a book out on how to beat the, no, it's, it's Billy Walters, right? The Billy Walters book. He had a system on how to win it, how to win it roulette. How do you have a system on how to win it roulette? I don't even understand that, but we'll talk about maybe that book and other things like that another time.

Chip Patterson always goes fast. Thank you, man. Sounds good. Y'all be well. Before Sarah discovered Chumba casino.com, she enjoyed chamomile tea and being in PJs by six, the new fun.

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