ACC Football: The Bottom 10

We do a top five, bottom five every week. We try to make it fun. This week, we're actually not going all the way to the bottom five to spare Panthers fans of hearing woes of their 0-6 team. I'll tell them that when I go see them this Sunday.

Exactly. You are consistently in our bottom five Panthers. They've been number 32 for a while now.

We're going to do 27 through 31 as opposed to 28 through 32. But our friend Ryan McGee from ESPN.com does a bottom 10 of college football. It's not really a poll, but it is a great, funny, hysterically funny opinion piece. And the headline, I don't even know if Ryan writes the headline, but I kind of feel like this one he might have.

Nothing beats a North Carolina fall. My gosh, Ryan McGee, you had me right there. I laughed. I didn't read it yet.

I cackled like crazy. Just reading that. Did you write that headline? I did. I did it in conjunction with my great editor, Mary Ulmer, who I've worked with for years that he has been.

And she and I were kind of brainstorming around and we literally blurted it out almost simultaneously because I had written I had written. So for folks that don't know and in judging from the reaction out of Chapel Hill, a lot of people don't the coveted fifth spot in the bottom 10 is not the fifth worst thing in the country. Right. But it is a team that had a terrible weekend. So I mean, USC has been in this year. My alma mater, Tennessee's been this year. I mean, there have been some amazing schools. Notre Dame has been in there this year.

So so it's good company. It's a team that is supposed to be really good and should have won a game. And then they did not or they stumped their toe in a big game or whatever. That's why Carolina's in there. But yeah, I had written the whole thing about, you know, I'm a native North Carolinian and there's just certain things you can count on and I've enjoyed, you know, the neighborhood killing barbecue, you know, shagging the Carolina Beach music. And I said, and you could always count on, you know, North Carolina having a great team that does not want a conference championship because the last time, as you know, and I know you discussed this week, the last time in North Carolina won a conference championship, Lawrence Taylor was a co camping on the team. So it's been a minute and I was living in Raleigh as a kid back then. And so I it's been a minute and this is just this is what they do is why Mac Brown left there the first go around because there was a ceiling and he wanted to go somewhere where he didn't feel like you had that. And so just when you thought that they had it in cruise control and I had just I do the college game day podcast.

Yeah, we could reach Davis and Pete that when I told those guys couple weeks ago. Why is no one talking about North Carolina? I had seen them in the South Carolina. You know what? They're really good.

Yep. And you know, because everybody knew they're probably do this. You know, it's funny because last week for me was spent telling North Carolina fans. It's okay to dream, right? I honestly didn't believe that Virginia and this this is all credit to Victoria.

I think it's so brilliant. Virginia was the Lego piece on the floor that you step on that you didn't see it, right that just brilliant way of thinking about it. I thought next week at this week upcoming at Georgia Tech because Carolina has traditionally struggled especially lately with Georgia Tech. They lost the game last year for the basically their first conference loss was against the Yellow Jackets. I thought this one would be the hurdle that they needed to get over before their closing stretch home against Duke at Clemson and at NC State. I thought that one the Georgia Tech game.

I thought that would be the problem. But this one, I mean, it's it's almost chef's kiss on brand for North Carolina. But why why for yeah, there was and they should have won it. I mean, they had plenty of opportunities to win like Virginia just, you know, own the game. I mean, Carolina just kind of let them hang around and then all of a sudden it's like it's like, you know, a one versus a 16 in a basketball tournament. Well, it's funny that you even bring that up because I actually again, Reese Davis and I were talking about this on the college game day podcast Monday. Reese knows I'm a native North Carolinian. And so Reese, you know, so the way that deal works is recent Peter already doing the show that I kind of jump in on zoom halfway through the show. And I always hear whatever they're talking about and Reese is just going off on North Carolina. Like this is how could they do this? And then they brought me and I go, how could they do this is what they always do. And it's just it is what it is.

And the numbers are what they are. But yeah, it is chef's kiss. But you know, if you know the history of Virginia and North Carolina football, and I've told the story many times, my first sideline credentials in my life were a huge game between North Carolina, Virginia in 1983. I mean, I was a preteen and my dad got me a sideline pass.

He was officiating in the game. And that's the day I decided I want to do this for a living. I'm like everybody on the sideline is getting paid to be here today.

How do you just do this when you grow up? That was the day that changed my life. But but even that game, I mean, I mean the history of that series, we all know how old the series is, but there's been some amazing games in that series. And a lot of this, a lot of Virginia, you know, contending for a title and losing to a bad North Carolina team. And obviously, as we just saw vice versa, and then the flip side of that too is, is that as painful as it is for probably most of the people hear our voice right now, where we are, man, that was big for Virginia. I mean, those those guys deserve this, you know, everything they've been through off the field, you know, obviously I saw them week one.

I was actually the Virginia, North Carolina or Virginia, Tennessee game, jumped on a plane, went back to Charlotte for the North Carolina South Carolina game that night. And and just them, what it has taken for them just to get back onto a football field, and then they had their first win of the year a few weeks ago. But to get this win against a ranked team, I mean, this team will be forever remembered in Charlottesville, and they should be. Yeah, and I think one of the guys that scored a late touchdown for Virginia was wounded, right, in that in that incident in Charlotte. Just, I mean, yeah, what they have gone through in a human level, I think everybody, even the biggest Tar Heel fan on a human level, you can understand how cathartic that must be, how that must feel to finally break through and win a game, because obviously they have had a very tough season. You do point out, and we'll talk about ECU before we get out of here, East Carolina is also here, deservedly so. Actually, Mike Houston is going to be on with us today. He has been going through it this year. If you go back and you look at East Carolina's games, in almost every game, if they make one play, it changes the course of the game and they might win it. Like, not that they were ever going to beat Michigan, but early in that game it was tight, and they had the ball at midfield, and I think they went for it on fourth down.

If they get it, maybe the drive keeps going, but no, man, they have, you know, they were no good against Charlotte. Ryan McGee is joining us here on the Adam Gold Show. So, you also do that show with Marty Smith on SEC Network.

I know it comes out on the radio as well. It's a brilliantly done show, and you guys are a blast to listen to, have spoken to you about it, spoken to Marty about it as well. What is the SEC beyond Georgia this year? Well, I think if you'd asked that three weeks ago, I'd have told you the complete hot mess. But now they have, everyone has made the mistake of giving Alabama time to get their act together because I just saw Alabama in person against Tennessee, and they're really good. And now, you know, Jaylen Miller, their quarterback, who was cocky and decided didn't think the program could do it without him five weeks ago, and was benched, and he was missed on purpose.

And the attitude reset that he's had, in fact, you told Marty, Marty just spent the week before the Tennessee game, Marty went out there and spent the whole day with Jaylen Miller, and he called me and he goes, man, this guy's a different kid than he was at the start of the season. So, Alabama's really good. LSU is really good. I think Jayden Daniels at LSU is the best player in the country.

All due respect, they're one out of the pack, 12 and all that. I just, I think he's really, really good, and they play Alabama in two weeks. Ole Miss, who learned that Alabama was getting their act together.

They're really good. I mean, you know, Tennessee's lost two games, and they're really good. I think Florida's good.

So, I think that everyone is much better than they were a month ago. And again, but I think the mistake they made was, they left the door open for Alabama to get their act together, and now they look really, really good. And, but, you know, Georgia's good. There's a great story on ESPN.com today that Mark Slabaugh, who lives in Athens, born and raised there, and he wrote this great story today about, you know, what do you do without Brock Bowers on offense if you're Georgia? And the reality is, they had Vanderbilt, and then they had a bye week.

So, they've had time to kind of figure it out. And it's going to be really interesting in November in that conference, because I think there is the potential for a mess, but I think they'll still end up with an undefeated or a one loss team as a champion, which will be enough to get in the playoff. So, can the SEC get two teams into the playoff?

But not this year, I don't think. I mean, they could, they absolutely could. Listen, the ACC, as we see, is in the process of cannibalizing itself. You know, the Pac-12, if the Pac-12 had done, had Septembers like they just had five years ago, they'd still be the Pac-12 next year.

Right. But the reality is, you look at that schedule, there's a lot of, but Rice playing each other. And so, it's going to be really, really difficult for anyone to come out of these leagues undefeated. You know, I mean, we're talking about Carolina. I, Carolina is still really good.

Greg May is still really good. They could beat Florida State here in Charlotte where I live in December. They could. And so, that's a long way of saying, yes, it is a mathematical possibility that the SEC could get two teams in, but I believe that their chances would be better if it was Georgia with the loss and Alabama undefeated going into December than the way it is right now. Yeah, I, if Florida State does what they're supposed to do, then we'll get to the ACC championship game and Florida State will be playing for their spot in the Final Four of football. The Pac-12, the Big-12, Big-10 rather, will likely weed itself out before we even get to the conference championship game because the three best teams are all on one side. Penn State's already lost to Ohio State.

So, Ohio State and Michigan. This conference play has just started. Michigan hasn't, has literally played no one. They played no one. That's why, that's why I don't, I'm not putting JJ McCarthy on my Heisman ballot right now. That's why I'm not, I don't have Michigan in the playoff right now.

They have to play someone and now they're going to. And so yeah, these things will all start taking care of themselves. But as you know, I'm not just saying this because I will host a show on the SEC Network on Saturday. It all usually works out in the SEC's favor.

We'll see how it all lands by the time we get there. Before we let Ryan McGee go, do you think Jim Harbaugh had somebody electronically scout Rutgers? Yeah. That's my question is if you've had this scout going, like they had clearly, the evidence says now due to the work of Pete Fanwell, we know they had someone in the stands watching PCU. Yeah.

I believe I'd have done a better job. You know, you got the guy buying tickets and you got him getting scouts. But I look at the way they perform to some of these games.

I'm like, I'm not sure. I'm not sure those scouts were worth the 200 bucks. You paid on StubHub to get them in the game. I mean, they were in Tennessee. They scouted a couple of Tennessee games, right?

According to stuff I've read. I mean, in a serious moment, to me, this is way worse than any of the recruiting violations we see. Because this speaks to the integrity of the competition.

It's flat out cheating the competition. And I don't know what the NCAA could do. But if I had the goods, I would throw them. I would just, here, Michigan. This is what we have. And let Michigan deal with that.

Because to me, I think it's the worst thing you could possibly have. Well, the problem is, is this was isolated. That'd be one thing.

But Jim Harbaugh was just suspended. And so that's the problem. The problem is where you, where do you wander into the question of institutional control? And, and Walton cheating, you know, when you thumb your nose at them, that's the quickest way for them to keep coming back on your campus. And the rule is, you keep them off campus.

Once you let them on campus, they're going to find something. And so it's just, that's the part of it that, that the, there's an arrogance level to it. That whether it's Harbaugh, whether it's the people that he hired, he's the CEO. And yeah, I'm with you.

I think there's going to be trouble at some point. I don't know if it'll happen this year, but it's certainly going to happen at some point. And by then he'll probably be back in the National Football League because he's done a great job with Michigan.

And their season starts right after Thanksgiving when they play Ohio State. Ryan McGee from ESPN.com. I appreciate your time, man. Thanks for doing this. You got it. Yes sir, thank you. You got it.

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