Roundtable Time with Randy Slack and Brett Friedlander!!

Friday afternoon, we like to kind of open the forum, get, you know, some friends of ours, come in, kick it around, chew on some topics.

We call it the Roundtable. Let's hear it. Camelot. Camelot.

Tell me a model. How old does using Monty Python songs make me sound? Fred Friedlander, saturdayroad.com, ACC columnist, and Randy Slack. It's timeless, Adam.

ESPN Wilmington in Wilmington, don't you know? He joins us. Randy, I'm going to let you answer that question. How old do I make myself by using Monty Python drops?

Well, I can tell you this. If it makes you feel any better, my wife is in her 20s and she understands Monty Python references that occasionally I use. So I don't think you're necessarily super old if you're if you're throwing out the Monty Python from time to time. Brett, a couple of, about what, two weeks ago we used the four Yorkshiremen where they were all basically saying that they had it tougher growing up. So I kind of know, I kind of feel like I've made myself old. So I'll start with you, Brett.

Duke, North Carolina, saturday night, eight o'clock at Keenan Stadium. What's at stake here? First of all, you're still younger than me, so there's that. I think the bar is low, but I don't really mean to take a shot at you. I just think the bar is low. I own it, man.

You and I are about the same age. So what's at stake? I think after watching Louisville last night, I think the ACC Championship game is still at stake because I don't necessarily have a lot of faith right now in the way Louisville's playing. And I mean, they could lose to Miami and if that's the case, then we go to tiebreakers. And so if Carolina wins, it's still on the table.

So there's that. And with Duke, you know, this is, this could have been, this is a season of what might have been. If Riley Leonard, you know, if they would have stopped Sam Hartman on fourth and 16, Riley Leonard doesn't get hurt. Riley Leonard doesn't get hurt. Maybe they beat Louisville, maybe they, you know, so you have to salvage something because this team is way too good to have the kind of record they still could have.

Randy, answer that first question and then we'll talk about where Duke would have been if Riley Leonard, if they had just stopped Sam Hartman. What's at stake at Keenan Stadium? Well, first and foremost, as someone who grew up in the Ohio Valley, it's Louisville, it's not Louisville, no offense to you guys. Louisville! Louisville! It's Louisville, yeah.

The quicker you can say it, the better it is. Right. Well, there's a lot at stake because for Carolina, this is, looked like a season that could be had some promise again. And here we are again where we're feeling a bunch of disappointment with this team where it's like, wow, they have a lot of talent.

They should be good. And it just turns into another season where they could have been good, but they're not. Then is this all we're ever going to get out of the Mac Brown era 2.0 with the Tar Heels? No, but in terms of exit polling, fans were very disappointed in the current coaching staff.

Hey, there's also a victory bell that's going to get awarded after it too, so there's that. What, four in a row? Is it four in a row or five in a row for North Carolina? Four in a row. And actually, Mac has won 12 in a row if you go back to his first tenure. That is true. And look, I'm not going to say that it doesn't matter.

I think it matters. I remember when Duke won it for the first time in forever when Jamison Crowder made just an incredible catch under duress in the end zone at Wallace Wade Stadium. I mean, they went bananas, and I also remember a time I was at North Carolina. They won at Wallace Wade Stadium and then redecorated the visitor's dressing room.

I'm surprised anybody really found out about it, since I think the dressing room is in Virginia, if you ask Dabo Sweeney that question. I think Duke would have been 9-0 going to this game if Riley Leonard was not injured. Am I crazy, Randy?

I mean, yeah, you're crazy. I don't know if you go, I don't know if they go 9-0. Definitively 9-0. That's tough. And look, they got game day this year. That's good enough. That's good enough. Yeah, man, if they just stopped Sam Hartman, they win that game.

They have no problem. They win by 1,000 at Louisville. And then, look, they were better than Florida State with me at quarterback. Brett, what happened to North Carolina's defense? Maybe they went back to the norm.

Yeah, water found its love. That's another thing I can think of, because they were looking so good, and everybody was gushing all over Gene Chiswick and talking about him as a possible Frank Broyles Award winner as the top assistant in the country, and then this. I don't know.

That's a really good question. Now, watching Virginia yesterday, their offense is pretty good. They've got a couple of receivers who can really get open and do some things. So there's that, but I mean, not being able to stop Georgia Tech running the ball was a really bad look.

It's 300 and, what, 50 yards roughly on the ground? Yeah, and Paul Johnson wasn't anywhere near the place. That, to me, was the most alarming number that I have seen against any team, either way, the fact that North Carolina was run over like that by Georgia Tech. I'll go back to you with this again, Brett.

I'm not ignoring Randy, but I'm just going to start with Brett. What happens with M.J. Morris and N.C. State? That's a really interesting question, and it would really be nice if M.J. would come out and make a statement or explain why he did this, because otherwise we're going to speculate.

But there are two ways of looking at this. If you're a glass-half-empty kind of guy, even though his dad has said he's not going anywhere, maybe he's holding out for a better NIL deal. He's got some leverage now, and maybe if he doesn't get it, he goes to the portal.

The other question is, maybe if you're a half-glass-full kind of guy, this was the plan all along for him. He was the good soldier. He stepped aside when they brought in Brendan Armstrong, didn't complain. When the team needed him, he stepped up.

They're three and one. He helped him save the season, and now he's going to look out for number one by saving a year of eligibility. And maybe it's just a matter of hey, listen, I helped the team get there.

Now I want to save my eligibility for when they bring in an offensive line that can block anybody and some receivers that can get open. So maybe there's that. I don't know, but it would really be nice for him to say why he did this and what his plans are. What do you think, Randy? Yeah, I think this is a guy where he's weighing his options.

This season isn't really going to go, you know, you're not competing for an ACC championship here, and maybe for him this is an opportunity to go somewhere else. But I agree. I think you got to just lay it out there. If you want to leave, if you want to explore your options, if you want to go somewhere else, great. That's fine.

Just be honest with people. This is the era of free agency, and while an NBA player can hold out and say I want to get traded and I'm not going to come to practice like James Harden, a quarterback after four good games can say, you know what, I'm redshirted. So here's the way I look at this because I think this issue goes back much further than this year. MJ Morris, I realize he was hurt at the end of last season, but MJ Morris showed up after Devin Leary got hurt and after they exhausted a lot of other opportunities, obviously, and we all looked and went, hey, this guy, this guy could be pretty good. And at least I was under the impression, and then maybe this is just my fault, I was under the impression that MJ Morris would be good this upcoming year at NC State to the point where, and I wasn't alone because I had heard rumblings that State was worried that he was going to take, go into the portal and end up, because he's a Georgia kid, not that he was going to go to Georgia, but that he was going to go to the SEC. I had heard Auburn was interested in MJ Morris. And then NC State goes out and gets Brennan Armstrong, and I knew Armstrong was good two years ago, but he wasn't good last year. Regardless, guys had bad years. I was just surprised that they dipped into the portal because I thought the reason why Devin Leary left was because MJ Morris was going to be the guy. And I just wonder if at that point, MJ Morris realized that he should always be thinking about MJ Morris and not anything else.

And maybe that kind of laid the groundwork for where we are. I mean, am I nuts, Randy? No, I think everybody has their own priorities, you know, for some guys that you want to go to the school and you want to, you know, do as good as you can there, you love it in some places. It's like, I just want to go pro.

I want to, you know, have the best experience for me. There's, I don't think there's a wrong answer either way. I guess it just depends on, you know, what your, if you're a fan of the team or not, if anything, things like this maybe leads to, you know, boy, if these were, uh, if college athletes were employees and there were some sort of collective bargaining agreements and rules to this stuff, then we can put safeguards in place.

So teams aren't left in the lurch on a guy like that. And by the way, I do believe we are headed that way. Uh, we are absolutely headed that way. Brett, real, just, just on the last point I made, uh, does that seem like this, that might be where everything started at NC State?

I think so. I think everybody's got to look out for themselves, but the other, the other way of looking at it too is, you know, maybe Dave Doran and also MJ realized that there wasn't a lot of talent around him this year. So it was going to be a bridge year, bringing the, the, the, you know, the experienced guy, maybe he can squeeze some lemonade out of lemons and then we'll bring you in next year. You'll be our guy and hopefully we'll have some better, more experienced people around you. But yeah, I think you always have to look out for yourself because it's coaches, they're going to leave. Uh, and, and, you know, the transfer portal, you know, they're going to forget recruiting over you. They're going to bring in guys to replace you and you're going to get stuck.

All right. I'm going to ask you to pick a game here. Uh, and then we'll, uh, we'll close on, uh, thoughts on, uh, the professional team in the state of North Carolina. Um, Randy, are we headed for the most ACC thing ever?

Miami beating Florida state. Is that the most ACC or is that the most biggie thing ever? Either way, either way. Um, yeah, I think we'll see lots of clips of wide left or wide right or wide whichever way it was, uh, coming in after this, uh, after this weekend. Gosh, God, I hope not. Uh, Brett, are we headed for the, the, the go ACC moment of the year, Miami knocking the ACC out of the college football playoff? Not a chance. Keyon Coleman will be back. Johnny Wilson will be back. Their offense will be, uh, in fine tune.

And after what I've seen the last couple of weeks of Tyler Van Dyke and, and Mario Cristobal is still coaching Miami, right? Oh man. Yeah.

Yes. There's no, there's no chance. Not a chance. According to Brett Friedlander, I feel so much better. All right, now, uh, we'll do this. I like to play these games and we'll go back to Randy to start this one. Uh, three words to describe the Carolina Panthers. Here we go again.

Here we go. I'll tell you this though. Um, which, which of those words did you bundle together? Cause you gave me four words. Hey, I'm not good at math either.

Just call me Frank. Right. Um, I'm just curious here. Uh, I pointed, I saw something on my, I realized something on my way home, the kick at the end of the game. Well, with a minute 40 left for a 59 yard goal that was way too short, I believe. And I just did a quick pro football reference search. Is that the earliest in a half that a kick of that distance has ever been kicked in the history of the NFL? Oh, I 59.

I don't know. You're, you're only kicking those 59 plus when you're looking the last 10 seconds and a half, nobody in the world ever says, you know what? There's two minutes to go in this game. Let's kick a 60 yard field goal. So should they have gone for it?

Should they have gone for it on fourth and 10? Absolutely. Okay.

I'm not arguing with you. I like, that's a viable option. Which, which do you have a better chance? Here's my question before I get Brett and I gave him way too much time. Plus you broke the rules. Uh, you, you did a university of Michigan thing. You gave me four words when I asked for three, but the, um, the cat forgot who we were talking to the Panthers. Uh, uh, they would have run they would have run a two yard crossing route to Adam Thielen that would have maybe gained three yards on fourth and 10 based on what we have seen from this offense before.

But I think in theory, maybe with a different, uh, offensive scheme, uh, you would be right. Uh, three words, three and three, three, they were three for three on fourth down in the game. You got to go for it again. Uh, they were three for three on fourth then you, uh, you've done your homework there, Randy slack, uh, Brett three words to describe the Carolina Panthers. Tepper's dumpster fire.

Here you go. I like it. I like that. That is true.

It is a, it is a complete, uh, it is a tire fire at this point. Smells bad as well. And he was at the game. Well, I guess he's always at the game. Uh, but he was in the visitor's owner's box and it looked like he had had a bad Chicago dog or any deep dish pizza, bad dogs.

I don't know. I don't hate a Chicago dogs with a deep dish pizza. So we don't even go there. My biggest problem with deep dish pizza is not the actual deep dish pizza is that we call it pizza when it's not.

Thank you. It's just, it's a loaf of bread with a lot of really good stuff on it. Like it's delicious.

I just hate calling it pizza. Uh, Randy, David Tepper, the winner, winner circle. Oh, that's a great bit. I had the first time I'd seen that bit. That is a great, great bit.

I hope they said that woman, uh, all the jerseys, all of them, she was hysterical last night at Jason Kelsey. Does he have a future in TV or what? He has a future wherever he wants. He's a delightful human being. He is going to make tons of money on TV.

He'll be the first offensive lineman, maybe to be a lead NFL analyst somewhere, uh, at, uh, at our Slack 37, cause he's a big Andre Spestikov fan. That's Randy Slack at B Freid, ACC, Brett Friedlander, Saturday road, ACC, columnist. Thanks. Both of you. We will do it again. Thank you. Awesome. Love, love talking to both gentlemen.