Where are the ACC schools when looking at football playoffs?

It's the first ever NBA in-season tournament. All 30 teams going for one brand new trophy. The stakes are the highest. Only eight teams advance from the group stages, then it's down to single elimination. It's winner go home. The last four stand, they will battle it out in Las Vegas, baby. They're going to go all in on the hardwood for season-long bragging rights and the first ever NBA Cup.

Hope everyone's feeling lucky. The NBA in-season tournament begins November 3rd on ABC, ESPN, and TNT. I was at the Duke game, but I was able to watch it on my laptop using DirecTV. I was at the Duke game, so I did not see all of it. No, it's fine.

It's quite alright. Let me get to the Blue Devils and Wake Forest last night. I was watching it here as I was watching the Hurricanes, and it felt to me like Wake was running up and down the field on Duke.

They had 400 yards of total offense, and I kept looking up. And Wake's kind of either leading by a touchdown or not leading at all. I kind of feel like Wake probably got the absolute least out of their effort last night. Even before the final drive, when Wake absolutely threw the game away, it was crazy because it felt like Wake was dominating the game, and Duke couldn't do much at all. And yet it was 14-14.

It was close. A lot of that has to do with the two missed field goals. Duke turned the ball over and tied its own 20, and Wake misses a field goal. Wake scores 14 points there.

It's 28-14, and we're not having this conversation. Certainly we're not talking about the final drive, when the ball fell out of Mitch Griffiths' hand and he threw an Eafus pitch right to Ryan Smith. And then the two penalties on the same dude, on the same drive, one on third and 14, the other a pass interference penalty that moved Duke into field goal range for the eventual walk-off field goal. So as I wrote in Middleby, I guess it'll be in tomorrow's paper, it's online now, from Wake's perspective, they gave it away, from Duke's perspective, they took it. Kind of depends on who you ask.

I think they're both right. I think Duke showed tremendous fortitude with a third string quarterback who didn't really throw the ball that well in the first half, better in the second half, with its best receiver having an absolute, almost fatal case of the drops. Jalen Calhoun couldn't catch anything.

Wide open passes bouncing off his chest. I mean, that's just not something Duke's used to dealing with. And yet they were right in that game at the end, so when Wake did trip over its own shoelaces, Duke was there to pick things up and take advantage.

Definitely one that Wake will wonder how it got away. Mitch Griffiths threw three interceptions all night, and one of them was an absolute knuckler straight to a Duke player where the ball just came out of his hand. It was a bizarre game, but a huge win for Duke, bowl eligible, second year in a row under Mike Elko, and Wake just can't get out of its own way. A nine win season for the Blue Devils is still out there, and I absolutely don't want to ignore the possibility that it happens. I thought they looked a little tired defensively from what I was able to see last night, and they get a couple of extra days, although Carolina is just scrimmaging Campbell this weekend. Can North Carolina still have a great season?

No, no. I mean, the chance for a great season is gone. They could still make it to the ACC Championship game, but they're never going to live down being undefeated and losing to the worst Virginia team in a generation. And Georgia Tech, which has been the Tar Heels Achilles heel for a number of years now. I mean, everybody thought that if they were going to screw this up, it was going to be at Georgia Tech.

They actually moved it up a week and then screwed it up at Georgia Tech anyway. So no, everything was out there for the Tar Heels. They had a chance to beat Florida State in the ACC Championship game and play for a national title.

I mean, that was well within reach. They have a legitimate or had a legitimate Heisman candidate. They had Tez Walker in and having an impact, changing the way teams defended the Tar Heels, and they went and screwed it all up. So no, the special season's out the window.

They're in salvage mode now. Whatever they do, even if they win out, they're never going to live down those two losses. Yeah, certainly the first one. I think the Georgia Tech one is easier to stomach because I've seen Georgia Tech and I've seen Georgia Tech create problems for teams. Maybe the problems were created by themselves. Maybe Miami created their own problem against Georgia Tech. Miami, you want to talk about giving one away. Well, yes, they literally, Miami figuratively took a knee and lost that game. But, you know, Georgia Tech made it, I guess they put themselves in position for Miami to screw it up.

But yeah, I tend to agree. Although, I think if North Carolina were to win out, I mean, I'll give Drake May a puncher's chance in the ACC Championship. A team as good as North Carolina, with playing for the stakes that North Carolina was playing for, can't lose those two games. It just can't happen. It just can't. And after that, you're just rearranging deck chairs.

Maybe you can make a sandwich out of this, but it's never going to be a meal. I felt, I feel like I was responsible for it because going into the Virginia game, I was like, man, there's no reason why we shouldn't be walking up to Carolina Duke with the Tar Heels 9-0. And in the top, oh who knows, six of the college football playoff conversation. And as soon as I said that out loud, apparently it was never going to happen. Hey man, I put that in the paper after the Miami game.

So, I mean, to whatever blame there is to go around, there's plenty of it to share. Alright, let me ask you this question. You are a man who follows not just our league, but other leagues. What do you make of, because I've been talking about this for a week, even last week, I think it's way worse than anything that other schools have done. What do you do with Michigan if you are Tony Petitti and you are the commissioner of the Big Ten? The NCAA isn't going to do a thing. I don't even, I'm not even mad at Boo Corrigan, now the chairman of the college football playoff selection committee, for saying it's an NCAA issue and not a college football playoff issue, because he's right. So what does the Big Ten do? What does Michigan do?

It's really interesting because Dan Wolkan has a great column on the CUSA today. You're setting, whatever you do now, by acting before this has been investigated and adjudicated, you are setting such a dangerous precedent. At the same time, you've got an ongoing situation, which is clearly not a accidental violation of the rules, but deliberate systematic cheating. I think, to me, if this is a civil case, a preponderance of the evidence indicates that Michigan has been playing squirrely with this for a while.

If it's a criminal case, I don't know that you can say, at this point, beyond a reasonable doubt, with that degree of security. The ACC used to discipline its own teams all the time. If you go back to the Gene Corrigan era, the ACC was in the business of disciplining its teams. Everybody outsourced that to the NCAA because university presidents didn't want to be in the business of judging each other, which is the kind of wishy-washy thing that university presidents like to do. The Big Ten doesn't have that option here. It has a competitive issue. It has a malignant member that is clearly not abiding by the rules of the conference. But I don't know what you can do without setting such a dangerous precedent that it becomes more damaging than actually addressing the situation.

I think you're right to an extent, because this is not a criminal matter. It doesn't even matter if Jim Harbaugh didn't know. Of course, the chances that Jim Harbaugh didn't know what was going on are the chances of me dunking a basketball today. That ain't gonna happen. Harbaugh knew.

Well, on an eight-foot rim, I might. But Harbaugh knew. And we all know, I mean, this has been going on for a while. This guy who made, what, $60,000 as a low-level analyst? I mean, he's not only flying all around the country to go to college football games, paying for other people to fly all around to go to college football games and take cell phone videos. By the way, Central Michigan might be complicit in this as well. Former Michigan assistant Jim McElwain, the head coach now of the Chippewas. So I think if the Big Ten had any level of integrity, I don't think they do. I think they simply say Michigan's ineligible for the postseason. They can still send a team to the college football playoff.

I mean, they can still do that. You just say, Michigan, you're out. You can't play in the Big Ten title game and it doesn't make a difference what you do against Ohio State. Somebody else is going to the Big Ten title game. I think millions of dollars. It's a Lollapalooza lawsuit.

Look, I don't disagree with you. I think that the Big Ten has to do something. What's the lawsuit? The lawsuit is if Michigan didn't do anything wrong. No, the lawsuit is does the Big Ten have the right to do this? Does the punishment fit the crime? You get an injunction. Whatever you say this is, it is a multimillion dollar penalty by forfeiting participation in those games. Absolutely, you have grounds for a lawsuit.

I mean, you might not win it, but you can drag this out and you can warrior up. You can sue whatever you want. If you're the Big Ten, what's your mandate if you're being sued by one of your... Look, there is a Pandora's box here.

There is no easy solution. Michigan will defend itself vigorously because they'd be stupid not to. Look at UNC.

You can win these things sometimes. Yeah, but with the UNC thing, whichever UNC thing we're talking about, if we're going back to 2010 and the academics, the other members of the league, there's no crime committed on them. In this case, we are talking about the integrity of the game. We are legitimately talking about that. Yeah, I don't disagree.

My question is, when you look at the way these conferences are set up, how they're administered, how they're governed, there is not a way to do this that is by the book. You are going to be making this up as you go along. And that's a dangerous place to be when you're talking about tens of millions of dollars.

You cite the Dan Wolken piece, which I read today, and it is great. And he's right. There are no good options for Tony Petitti.

There are zero good options. He's going to make somebody mad. But there's a right thing to do if they choose to do it. Actually, you know, the real right thing to do is Michigan, to call it on themselves. That's the real thing to do. The real right thing to do is say, you know, like all the presidents meant, hey, we screwed up.

We're sorry. And take some sort of action that will mollify their conference brethren. The Big Ten is not exactly the cleanest league in the world. I mean, you're talking about Larry Nassar and the stuff at Ohio State. And the other, you know, the sexual abuse stuff at Michigan. I mean, this is a conference that has been riven by scandals over the last five to ten years. I mean, this is kind of a drop in the bucket. And now, you know, obviously a competitive issue.

So you want to deal with that. But nobody's got clean hands in this league. On a human level, it pales in comparison to Penn State, to Michigan State, to Ohio State, right? Pales in comparison to that on a human level.

But it is literally it. We have victims in this case, and those are all of the opponents that Michigan played and got an unfair advantage against. But of course, it won't happen because nobody has the guts to do it. Michigan doesn't have the guts. And the worst part about it, as we say goodbye to Luke Tkach of the News & Observer, is the fact that Jim Harbaugh will never have to deal with the consequences of this. He'll be coaching in the NFL next year, just like Pete Carroll left USC to go to Seattle.

He'll never have to deal with it. So whatever happens in his wake, Michigan will deal with it, not Harbaugh. We thought Kansas was going to have to deal with the wake of Bill Self, and that never happened. Didn't they vacate the title?

Who cares about vacating the title? I know. Are they one of the top four teams in the country still? Yeah. Are there any real repercussions from anything that happened? Was the whole thing stupid in the first place? Yeah.

There's a lot to unpack there. But my point being, everyone thought that there was going to be some sort of comeuppance here for Kansas and Bill Self, and there never was. And I think the same thing could be true of Michigan, because when you get down to it, and you want to talk about future lawsuits, what competitive advantage did Michigan actually get? How do you define it?

How do you determine it? It's really hard to do unless you can show specific plays where Michigan knew what was happening and acted on that information. The legal standard on that is pretty high. We all know it was hinky, but to actually prove that is something else entirely. I don't know. I don't know what you can do as a league that doesn't open yourself up to more and worse consequences down the road, even if we all believe that Michigan's guilty as soon.

Oh, they absolutely are, allegedly. Luke Tkach, not allegedly. He's here. I appreciate your time, man. Alright, I'll see you. It's probably Tuesday. I'll see Luke Tuesday at the hockey game.