Roundtable Time on college sports with Brett Friedlander and Conor O’Neill!

Fridays, you like to create a more open forum. And maybe this is my way of just doing less work here, but that's fine. Either way, I love to talk to friends and I have friends.

We have their names and numbers and we know where to find their laptops. And it's the round table. So let's round table.

I want to take just a little bit of a break from the Tez Walker thing. We're going to talk about it. But I want to start off with a little limbering up, if you will.

So assuming that Florida State is one, Connor, who are the next two teams that are going to be in the game? No order, right? No, no, give me no in order. Oh, no, this is not easy. I'm not making this easy on you.

I need him in order. I assume that it's going to be some combination of Clemson, North Carolina, Miami, Duke and Louisville. Unless you really want to go Syracuse. If you go Syracuse, let me know.

You don't. Okay, good. So I've given you the five, rank those five. I would go Carolina, Miami, Duke, Clemson, Louisville. And that is maybe a little biased against Louisville, but they haven't played anybody. We'll see them play a real team this weekend and we'll see how that goes when the Irish come to town with the 30 game regular season winning streak against the ACC.

By the way, that was Connor O'Neill Deacon's Illustrated right there. Let me ask Brett Friedlander, rank those five teams behind Florida State. I hate to, you know, piggyback on Connor, but I would pick the same order except if Riley Leonard is unable to play. If Riley is hurt or diminished in any way, shape or form, I would probably put Duke at number five. But otherwise, I would go Carolina, Miami, Duke, Clemson and Louisville with the caveat that Louisville might be better than we're giving them credit for, but we shall see Saturday night.

Yes, I would agree with that. If Riley Leonard is healthy, I would probably just put them in front of North Carolina on your list. I am bullish on the Blue Devils and I think they blew the game. They should have beaten Notre Dame.

And then, and my reasoning was like, they blew an opportunity, this is the weirdest thing ever, to be talked about in playoff conversations. Based on wins, it would have been, obviously they didn't win the game, but based on who they beat and a healthy Riley Leonard because if they win that game, Riley Leonard does not get compromised. A win over State, by the way, which could be, could look like a LaLiga score.

I mean, that could be 3-2 now. And then going to Tallahassee as a Top 10 matchup, oh man. How awesome would that have been? ESPN wouldn't have known what to do with that. What are your, let's bring in Tez now since we both, we all agree that UNC is great, or at least as UNC might be the second best team in this group.

I don't know about great, but they are undefeated. So Brett, thoughts on how the whole Tez Walker thing played out? Well, how it played out or how it's going to play out now that he's back. I think the way it played out is that Josh Stein and a bunch of high powered lawyers threatened the NCAA with an antitrust investigation or lawsuit. Considering that the NCAA has not won a lawsuit, has not won a court suit since the O'Bannon case, what, over a decade ago, I think that they basically said, okay, we've done enough damage here, let's get out of this without having to pay another couple of million dollars.

So I think that's how that shipped down. And if I'm Florida State, I'm getting the same new information together to get the Jackson kid eligible as well. Because I think that the NCAA has shown that it's got no stomach to fight any of these anymore. Moving forward, I think that this makes UNC such a much more of a viable ACC championship contender. And if they are, that puts them in the conversation for the playoff.

Absolutely. Their defense is good enough. Drake is starting to now become Drake because he's got a receiving core that is already starting to get better. He's starting to get some chemistry with. Nate McCollum coming in made everybody else better because it opened things up.

And adding a wide receiver one to that mix is going to make it even better. So, you know, and when you look at the schedule, beat Miami at home, and now you go into that Clemson game at Death Valley. Okay, maybe the Duke game and then the Clemson game. Undefeated with a shot at really doing something special. Yeah, Riley Leonard will be back by the time that Carolina and Duke clash.

Connor, your thoughts on Tez? Yeah, what I look at is the Carolina offense that is already pretty balanced. And I have to, there's no reason to think they're all of a sudden going to be pass happy because they have a new receiver thrown into the mix, right? So you're still going to be able to hit teams with Amari and Hampton and British Brooks. The offensive line has been better than I thought it would be. I don't know what people around that program thought it would be, but that was always kind of the weak link in my mind going into the season. So that's a dangerous offense.

And as long as the defense keeps playing at this level, yeah, that's where I think this team goes and that's why the ceiling is pretty high. Yeah, they may not throw it 50 times. I mean, they might throw it just 30 times. But I bet they throw it 10 of those times or more at Tez Walker. I mean, I think he's going to have a monster game in his first game out. And look, I'm here for it.

I hope he puts up 700 receiving yards. Real quick to the Attorney General writing a letter. I don't know what impact the letter had because I don't believe the NCAA reacted favorably to that letter to Josh Stein. However, I do think that there were things in that letter that maybe if presented to an attorney in Indianapolis, they went, he's got a point.

And here's the point. If a first time transfer is OK. What's the what's the basis for a second time transfer not being OK? Because legally speaking, that's easily challenged, I think. And that's where when the when they relaxed the rule, when they said, hey, all first time transfers are good, they opened up the door for all of like there's no reason.

All of their reasoning is based on, well, academics, and they give you all these statistics or acclimating to a new environment and, you know, mental health. And I'm like, yep, you're going to lose that case, too. And like I did. So I don't know what the impetus was. But, Connor, couldn't the NCAA have simply said, regardless of what new information, new information was made available to them, couldn't they have simply said, we have we have read over the case and have decided that a four game penalty is enough for Tez Walker and he can play and then grant Darryl Jackson his freedom to play. And then the NCAA could go, hey, we just did a nice we did a good.

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Call 1 888 S O T Y K T you to learn more. Yeah. And it's I mean, isn't that what we've come to expect? The logical answer is never the right answer.

OK. It's so painful because it's just such low hanging fruit. It's it's on the ground, basically. But they they make it that way.

They they continuously step on their own feet. And it's it's always been this way. It seems like it's always going to be this way until there's a separation of at least this sport from the NCA.

That was probably happening. And we'll just wait until they declared Dartmouth basketball players employees. All right, Brett Friedlander, the M.J. Morris experience, the decision, it starts tomorrow at two o'clock on the CW, by the way. Your thoughts on the move and what difference it might make?

Well, it's a move they had to make. And it's really kind of a no lose situation for Dave Doran, because if it doesn't work out over the next three games, you can still put Brendan Armstrong back in there to play out the string and still redshirt M.J. Morris as long as he only plays four games. I don't know how much of a difference it's going to make, because while Brendan Armstrong has not been good, I mean, he's been throwing the ball at receivers feet.

He's been bailing out much too soon without going through progressions. But his offensive line can't block anybody. His receivers don't get open, and when they do, a lot of times they don't catch the ball.

And the only running game that they've had is Brendan running for his life. So, you know, Dylan McMahon coming back is going to help the offensive line situation, because it'll let Lydon Cooper move back over to guard. But, man, you know, M.J.'s going to give him a spark.

He is. But I don't know how much of a spark he can give him and how much of an effect it's going to have. It'll be fun to watch, because Marshall's got a good defense. Marshall's good. I mean, they're just good.

They're not great, but they're good. Connor, let me throw this to you, and I'll use an analogy here. Sometimes the head coach in hockey pulls the goalie when it wasn't the goalie's fault. Can something like this, you think, maybe just kind of trigger everybody to play better in red and white? Yeah, there's always a different energy with a different quarterback, as much as these coaches want to say that the offense doesn't change no matter who's behind center and all the clichés that go along with it. Yeah, when you're in a rut, there's always something to be said for changing what's not working. But I'm with Brett. I do think that a quarterback switch in this position is not going to solve the fact that your receivers can't get separation other than one freshman and your line struggles and everything else that's wrong.

You know, Adam, I think what they should think about doing is going the Pat Narduzzi, Phil Jurkovic way, not moving Brendan Armstrong to tight end, but moving him to running back, because he's probably the best running back they have. Yeah, just run wildcat. Right?

Which is, I guess, kind of what they're doing now. They're just kind of running wildcat. Connor, is weight done? I don't know if there's so much done. I just... Is it a Mitch Griffiths problem right now?

No, it's not. Mitch Griffiths is a problem. His play is a problem.

It's a lot of the same stuff that we just talked about with state. It's an offensive line that struggled. It's a receiver core that doesn't get open very much, runs the wrong routes. It's a running back room that can't pass block. It's a systematic failure of an offense. And it's not like they're horrible across the board on that side of the ball.

It's really just the breakdowns that crush them. And so, yeah, as much as Wake fans want the change to be, that they become the fourth ACC team. Oh, frozen. All right. Brett, your thoughts on Wake before I ask a final question. And we have lost Connor for the time being. It's all right.

He'll come back. Sometimes we just do this on purpose. So, your thoughts on Wake Forest and where they are. Well, if they don't turn the ball over four times against Georgia Tech, we're not having this conversation because they're 4-0. So, I think that they've got issues.

As Connor was saying, I mean, Mitch Griffiths is not Sam Hartman. His offensive line is not as good. And he's got really good receivers who aren't giving him a lot of help. But I think right now, the biggest thing is self-inflicted problems. If they can keep from turning the ball over, they're good enough to win games against, say, Syracuse and NC State and still get to six wins and be a bowl team. But, yeah, this is a bridge year for them. And you see that there are issues that they've got to deal with. And I think we've got Connor back.

We do have Connor back. And I'm going to close this with one final question. And it's not even mine. It was asked of me on Elon Musk's website.

But I found it interesting. So, I'm going to ask it to both of you. I will start with you, Brett.

And Brett Friedlander from Saturday Road, ACC columnist, is here. More likely to happen, or what happens first? A Major League Baseball team from North Carolina plays in the World Series, or the Carolina Panthers win the Super Bowl?

I would love to say the Major League Baseball team, because I would love for North Carolina to get a team. You and I both. But I think that's an incredible long shot. So, I'm going to have to go with the Panthers, even though that's a pretty long shot as well. Connor, your turn to tackle this hard-hitting question.

For the sake of debate, I'll go with baseball. I will swerve, and I will note that NFL owners can't be fired. Unless there's something that I'm unaware of with that. Well, they sort of can. We fired Jerry Richardson. We fired Daniel Snyder. But strange things have to happen.

They fired him with a $6 billion going-away package. See, here's the problem. The question was a trick question.

The answer is neither. Sorry. But I'm with both of you.

I would love nothing more than Major League Baseball to be in North Carolina specifically, right here in my backyard in Raleigh, North Carolina. That's Connor O'Neal. Connor O'Neal underscore D-I for either Deacon's or Duke Illustrated. I think today it was Deacon's Illustrated shade on Duke. And Brett Friedlander, ACC columnist, Saturday road. He didn't throw shade on Duke.

I'm just giving him a hard time. Thanks, fellas. I appreciate your time, man. We'll do it again. Thanks, guys.