Does the ACC in football have an “easy” schedule?

All right, Chip Patterson is joining us as he does every Wednesday here.

My friend, this is the best part of my Wednesday every day, although a big act to follow, Auntie Ronta the Acrobat, he was on earlier and we just talked to Duke defensive lineman Dwayne Carter, who was also fun to chat with. Let me start with, we had Jerry Palm on the show yesterday and it was predictive obviously because the rankings don't come out, didn't come out until last night and the rankings were the same. And we talked about the fact, and you and I have had these conversations, that they really don't care who you play. It doesn't make a difference unless you're a team that we don't know about.

Like, it matters who, like, TCU plays or Baylor plays, but it doesn't matter who Georgia plays because there's really no reason to rank Georgia a head of Florida State unless you don't care who they play. And Jerry's response was, well, you know, the ACC isn't that good. I'm like, how do we know?

Compared to the SEC, the ACC's record is better in head to head. So, how do we not know? We can't just assume. So, I mean, what are your thoughts on that particular part of the conversation?

I know you didn't hear it, but what is, what are your thoughts on that particular topic? Jerry hates the ACC. Jerry hates all conferences. He's clearly biased against the ACC. He goes, yeah, the schedule's trash. ACC's trash. He throws dirt on the Atlantic Coast Conference a lot and has been in the basketball side too, you know, especially in recent years. Oops. It's deserved. Not living up to the standard that was set when you had four hall of fame coaches going at one time.

Funny how that works. Yeah. Look, I think that you can look at, to get a little bit low hanging fruit, you can look at Georgia and you can understand fundamentally that they are a very, very good team, even with the backloaded schedules. Look at Carson Beck and I can say that's an upgrade on Stetson Bennett. Passing attack is better now than it was when they won two straight championships. I think that you can look at Florida State and you can say that that run defense had some holes.

I think that you can say, you know, Jordan Travis is a very productive quarterback, but is he all that accurate? There are ways that when you're stacking up Georgia and Florida State and you're being challenged to put the two best teams out there or put the four best teams, then, you know, I can, I can understand why, you know, you can start to go through it. And remember the team sheet is not just a resume, right?

The team sheet includes all of your relevant statistics. And that's why I've often said that what you want to be is you don't want to have any outliers that are bad and what Florida State is. For example, what Florida State has that Washington does not is that it is pretty good to really good, not elite, but pretty good to really good offense, defense, most statistical categories.

Washington elite offensively, but very middling defensively has something that stands out. And I think that Washington coming off the win against USC, a trodden theme that this committee had higher than the AP poll at number 20 last week, I would argue that Washington, if we were only going resume, probably could have moved ahead of Florida State this week. But the same reason why Florida State's ahead of Washington is the same reason why Georgia's head of Florida State is that I think that the analysis of those teams includes an understanding of being well-rounded and an understanding of, you know, being very good with very few holes. I think Florida State has a few more holes. Chip Patterson is joining us here, but I understand what you're getting at. But I think the product of your schedule either exposes those holes or allows you to paper over them. So I'm not surprised that Georgia might look better analytically on paper because their schedule has not been as good as Florida State.

They haven't played as many good teams, loseable games as Florida State has. So to me, that's a self-fulfilling prophecy there. No? I don't think so.

OK. Yeah. And look, this is also looking at a Florida State schedule that is based on you try to put everything in perspective. There's always a what about ism when it comes to stacking up these teams. But Florida State schedule is slowly starting to, you know, hurt. It's starting to be hurt by some of the results that have happened since then.

A lot of that's out of their control. But I think they're using Georgia as a bad example for this. Georgia looks like a really, really good football team. And I think that that being able to I thought Georgia over Ohio State for number one was one of the only places where I thought that you would have had a change this week. Washington had a Florida State I would not have agreed with.

That was something else that I was curious to take a look at. I think that Tennessee is sort of fraudulently being thrown to the top of a pile where you can mix up everybody from 11 through 18. And I thought that you could literally put any university with a winning record between 22 and 25 this week. That if you wanted to have the talk about they just fill out the bottom of the rankings to satisfy what they need at the top, this is a week to do it. And I don't know what North Carolina is there to satisfy considering who they played and who they have left. But this this is a this is a set of rankings that at this point in the season based on all the resumes. I would I would understand you being able to make the argument not just for Georgia being ahead of Florida State, but for Georgia being ahead of Ohio State.

Chip Patterson is joining us here. See, and this is me looking at it without without knowledge of the team sheet and what's on it. And this is also general skepticism that the analytics matter, right in the grand scheme of things. I don't care, right? I don't care.

What I care about is can you beat them? I don't I don't like the statistical measures of how good your defense is. Or to me, the most important thing is, is can you win the game now? If we're simply splitting hairs at the very end, that's fine. And none of these rankings matter here.

So I'm not really I'm not bent out of shape about anything. We've got four weeks of football left. And one thing that I have I've said over and over and over again is the committee is undefeated in getting the right four teams. They don't always get the right order. They do whatever the order is to satisfy the TV show that that are the two semi finals and potentially the national championship game. But they haven't gotten any of the teams wrong yet. So I ain't worried about whether or not they're going to get the right teams. If Florida State isn't one of the best four, Florida State will fall out. They'll lose a game because it's hard to do. It's hard to go undefeated unless you are one of those types of teams. But to me, it's most important about who like they do that in basketball, too.

Who you played, when you play them, where you play them. I just think Florida State's resume, because that's what I use. I think Florida State's resume is better than Georgia's. I think it's I think it's arguably better than Michigan's. I know Michigan has completely laid waste. That's the other thing about it is that Georgia's kind of played with their food, too, haven't they?

Haven't they? So on the team sheet, there is a category for there is a scoring offense, total offense, rushing offense, passing offense. And right underneath it is relative scoring offense, relative total defense, relative rushing offense.

And what relative is doing, it is trying to eliminate what you're saying, which is that the schedule allows for you to be able to look much better on paper than you really are. Because what relative is saying is that we've got the information that shows what all the other teams did against your opponent. So how much better were you in the case of these teams at the very top than the average team that they played when Missouri went up against all the other opponents on its schedule? How did each of those opponents do against Missouri?

And how did Georgia's performance against Missouri relate to that? I do think that they have ways to be able to look at you on paper. And again, this is the balance, right? Like, are you just your wins and losses? Or are you how you look while doing them? Are you just a statistical measure of excellence?

Or, you know, are you also looking at you're trying to balance all these different quality wins? I just think Georgia's been great. And I'm not throwing my arms up in the air about that, especially as it relates to Florida State.

Nor am I. And again, four weeks from now, that's when the rankings will matter. And maybe they'll change, maybe they won't. Back to back weeks, the top eight didn't change. I would like to know what they did in that conference room. Like, hey, just bring out the numbers from last week. Let me ask you about the latest in Michigan, Chip Patterson, as always on a Wednesday. So Michigan has data that shows that other Big Ten schools not only scouted them and had their signals, but passed them around like answers to the test in ninth grade history. Is the is the Big Ten just a big cheating conference? What's going on?

Is it NASCAR? Forget ninth grade history. I mean, let's talk about going to the sorority house and opening up the library, allegedly.

What's going on there? Look, I think Michigan is trying to build the case that this is tea leaves here because it has only been reported about Michigan using this information. The fact that Rutgers and Ohio State coordinated with Purdue to help Purdue, which remember was playing Michigan in the Big Ten championship game that they coordinated to give their signs to the Boilermakers defense going into that Big Ten title game, which interestingly enough was closer than expected for about 30 minutes. Neither here nor there. And so Big Ten punishing Michigan, which is very different from the NCAA, like as you and I have had this conversation every single week for about the last month, I think that you and I are on the same page of an NCAA rule was violated by Michigan and the violation of that rule will have punishment from the NCAA when the NCAA process concludes, correct?

Yes. The only thing that continues this is a push for Michigan to be punished now, which can only happen from the Big Ten where there are some executive disciplinary powers from the commissioner's office or if Michigan as a university decides it wants to punish it. From the letter that the Michigan university president sent to the Big Ten saying that in the name of quote, fairness, the Big Ten should do absolutely nothing until the NCAA process concludes.

It ain't going to happen it ain't going to happen in Ann Arbor, right? So what's going to happen from the Big Ten conference and the Big Ten can or can argue based on its own investigation or collection of facts that, you know, under the sportsmanship policy, the integrity of the game was compromised by Michigan. What Michigan will do is it will present this other argument and say what integrity, right? There is no integrity. There's no honor among thieves. Yeah. And I think that that's what is it, flood the zone, muddy the waters, just turn in as much evidence as possible to as much, you know, allegations of time feeling it's possible just to make it look like everyone's doing it.

And in doing so, you look like less of the individual singular villain in the story. Um, I'll tell you what I still think, and this is where I differ with my colleague Tom for Nellie, he thinks it'll be a fine from the Big Ten and he doesn't expect anything, any suspensions that could come down for any member of the coaching staff, Jim Harbaugh included, which is going to require, you know, extensive approval to go beyond two games. I would not be surprised if Jim Harbaugh or a member of the coaching staff does end up serving a one-game or two-game suspension before the end of the season, but I do think that's the extent of the punishment that we will see the Michigan football program face for this scandal before February is earlier. Yeah, I don't think there's anything. I don't think that anything will happen to Michigan.

I don't see if you, whether you and I talked about it or not, in this, in this regard, and I want to move on to one other thing with Chip Patterson here. Um, the NCAA, too slow-moving, they're a sloth, they're not going to do anything and they probably can't do anything right now anyway. They've got a 90-day window. Yeah.

They could serve the notice of allegations tomorrow. Right. And we still wouldn't even have anything happen until February.

Right, and those are always, takes longer than 90 days anyway to do anything. They can't order, they can't like do Uber Eats at the NCAA because it takes like six months. Um, but the Big Ten could do it, but I don't see the Big Ten costing themselves money. Uh, and Michigan has already said that, you know, we don't care. Uh, look at them.

What about, they're, they're playing the whataboutism game. So I just don't think anything is going to happen. And I'm not even suggesting that it has to happen. Uh, I just think that we're, uh, we're, Michigan has kind of exposed itself as having low integrity and that's, that's, you know, that is what it is. And Harbaugh won't be around to deal with any of the repercussions of any of this.

So it'll be the next coach or the next players that will suffer because of this. I also, there's no chance on this earth that Jim Harbaugh didn't have knowledge of something because if he, if he gets the signals, he's got to be somewhat curious. So how did we get these? Like, did, did we just decipher them like by luck? Did, how did we do this? Who's responsible? No, that's the thing.

All right. So have you seen the sheet on Michigan signals? I, yeah, I've seen the sheet, but right. It's illustrated, you know, got its hands on the sheet that the other staff that used and Jim Harbaugh probably doesn't feel any differently about that because about like, you know, seeing somebody have the signals because, you know, coaches have showed us on like, on the cover three podcast, like we've got friends in the coaching community who have showed the sheets that they have on how to decode other people's signals. And, you know, the idea that it would be information that is compiled is not against the rules. It's just a method by which it was obtained that is against the rules, which is why, you know, like a lot of, you know, gray area or illegal or nefarious activity, you don't ask where it came from.

And I think that that would be the, uh, that would be the method, at least when I think about it, because this, everything that we have found out from the vacuum repair business to, um, I mean, this, this is an irrational individual who is inefficient with this method. Cause you know, what you can do that is not buying tickets for people to go scout someone else in person. And it literally obtained the exact same information, pick up the damn phone, all your friends that you worked with three years ago and be like, Hey, you guys just played this team.

You and I are buddies, right? All the signals and guess what coaches do tell their friends, all the signals. And that's a situation where, how upset am I about the big picture stuff? I'm not that upset. I acknowledge Michigan violated an NC double a rule and it will likely likely face some kind of punishment for that. But even in terms of the punishment, we're not talking about a post-season ban. We're not talking about anything that's going to, you know, be much, it will probably like assistant travel or something, you know, like that. But, um, but I, I think that it was reckless. The methods by which Connor stallions used, I think it was inefficient. I think that you could get the exact same information without going over the top. But we're talking about somebody who has a 500 page manifesto for how he's going to become the next Bill Belichick and lead Michigan football into the future.

So I, I can't, I can't say that this is someone who understands how to get things done efficiently. One quick thing for chip Patterson before we have to say goodbye. JMU wants, is trying to appeal to, uh, eliminate the, uh, I guess the two year waiting period to become bowl eligible to be eligible to play in a bowl game. They're more than bowl eligible. Um, shouldn't should the NCAA say to JMU? Yeah, of course you can play in a bowl game. Absolutely. And I thought there was no chance they would, but Danny brought, Danny canal brought up something on the show today. It's already live on YouTube.

As soon as I get done with you, I'll be hitting publish on the audio side. Um, he brought up the test Walker situation and he said the, while the NCAA came out and said new information Walker is eligible. We also heard enough of the opposite to wonder if it was public pressure. And in that case, JMU, which by the way has already been told no three times throughout this process of different levels of appeal, maybe this 11th hour with big public campaign and public pressure works in other situations for this NCAA, uh, maybe the NCAA does end up, uh, caving on this one too. The Sunbelt conference based on my understanding is only waiting at what the, um, you know, NCAA does. If all of a sudden we get JMU eligible for the postseason, then they're in the college football playoff rankings, especially with the zero in the loss column, not up in the top, but we're talking about a potential new year six bid. If they win the Sunbelt and a rematch against Troy, Troy, JMU was one of the best football games, Sunbelt conference that has delivered bangers all season long. Tough that JMU doesn't have Jalen green, their superstar defensive lineman and doubt for the rest of the year with an injury. But I think that the Dukes based on this NCAA, which obviously is aware of public pressure, do have a slim chance, uh, much more of a chance than I would have thought if you'd asked me the same question in July.

Uh, I wonder if it matters that they just went to, uh, East Lansing and beat Michigan state in basketball. I probably doesn't, but it's cool to just mention that, uh, chip Patterson. You're the man.

I appreciate your time as always. My friend sounds good. Y'all be well, chip Patterson here on the Adam gold show. Um, I was, uh, I was mansplained. It's fine. The main mansplained me. He mansplained me the team sheet. It happens. Trust me. That's fine. It doesn't bother me. It's so good.

That's what happened right there. I got mansplained about the team sheet. I have never seen the team sheet. Uh, but I will also say that to say, I don't care about the team sheet is not really a hundred percent accurate. I think there is some value to it, but man, you're only, you're only asked to win the game.

You are not asked to do all of these other things. You're only asked to win the game. You ask any coach and they will tell you winning a game is really hard. Yes, of course you have a 50 50 chance going in. Somebody will win. Somebody will lose. We have winners every single game in college football, but man, coaches will tell you it is hard to win a game.