North Carolina and Duke football get Christmas gifts out of the transfer portal

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Visit the Amazon.com slash Amazon Prime for details. While you're out doing all those things over the holidays, there were a couple of Christmas gifts that were given out. One, Manny Diaz got himself a quarterback. Now, what does this say about the Duke Blue Devils and their quarterback situation? Well, they got themselves a dude. They got themselves a dude from Texas. It was unusual for this to happen because remember, Texas is in the college football playoff, right? Texas is still going for a national championship. But they have Quinn Ewers there and Arch Manning is also a backup. Arch Manning now not going to go anywhere because he is now kind of second, so to speak, deep in the heart of. But Manny Diaz got himself a replacement. He got himself a dude. Malik Murphy from Texas says he is transferring to Duke.

Hit the portal. Again, bad timing for him. Not like he had a lot of options where he wanted to go, but knew with Ewers and Arch Manning there probably wasn't going to get going. Murphy is a physical specimen. This is a young man who can throw the ball 60, 70 yards from a knee. Don't believe me? Google it. Check out the video.

It's there. Played in the spring game. Played against BYU, I believe a couple of regular season games. He can run an offense and throw. Based on what we know, what Diaz wants to run at Duke, and he's going to go hire a guy.

Let me check my notes here. He's going to go hire a guy, the SMU offensive coordinator. Apparently this was a report out about ten days ago that he's going to go get Jonathan Brewer. Jonathan Brewer is the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at SMU. He's like the co, whatever. Everybody's got like a co-offensive and defensive coordinator these days.

There's like two people that have to run that because it's complicated. The offense that he runs is a variation of the air raid. SMU, so if you're not familiar with the air raid defense, a little quick education here, air raid defense, the oop de oop. Four wide, one back. We're going to throw the ball three out of every four times, no matter what.

The back is there. It's almost CFL-ish. Mike Leach was one of the kind of big guys for it. You might remember Phil Longo is a name Carolina fans will know.

Phil Longo was a disciple of the air raid offense. But Brewer, if he is hired. Now SMU has a bowl game on Thursday. They're playing in the Fenway Bowl.

He and I love me some bowls. But if Brewer is the OC and comes on, they're going to run air raid. And they need a guy like Murphy to make this stuff happen. And Murphy can make this stuff happen.

Now he could use some weapons, so imagine that Diaz is going to hit the portal a little bit more. He's going to go find a bunch of guys that are going to run four twos and four threes. They're going to stretch the field, like stretch the field. So they're going to run the oop-de-oop at Duke, or at least a variation of it. That should get Blue Devils fans excited. That should be a good thing. Also a Christmas gift up the road at UNC announced on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day.

I can't remember. Shaquen Harris, who state fans will remember, safety, struggled with some injuries this past season, but grabbed a red shirt. He had a great season back in 2020. He is going to UNC, yes, from state to Carolina.

Going to go get himself some Air Jordans. Jaquen Harris is going to step in, needed safety from Mac Brown and Carolina, who are in the Dukes Mayo Bowl coming up tomorrow afternoon in Charlotte. So Jaquen Harris is going to NC State. So that is a pretty big deal.

Now you might remember, transfer portal wide open, one of our words of the year, the portal. Jordan Waters, Duke to state. So this is not unheard of. This is going to happen more and more and more where fan bases are going to have to figure out, like this is a weird situation for a lot of folks. You know, there are in the professional ranks, baseball players, pitchers, basketball players or whatnot will come back after leaving in free agency, go to a city, get traded. They'll come back. They'll do the warm and fuzzies, right?

You get the video, you get the, you'll see on like interviews and whatnot. Hey, it's great to have Mark back, you know, here, but you know, he's on the opposition team, so, you know, we'll welcome him back in the way we know how and whatnot, but they'll still get the cheers and the love. With the transfer portal, it may make things differently in the college ranks. Like, like Jaquen Harris, this is like his fifth season, like fifth season playing, started at state, joined the Wolfpack in 2019. In 2024, he'll be playing in Chapel Hill. So does he come back and get love from state? Like, do they wrap their arms around him and go, hey, you know, you started a bunch of games for us, you had this, you had an awesome season for us, you know, really helped us out, got us to a bowl game that year and, you know, we're going to love you up.

Or is the fan base going to go, dude, hey, loyalty walked out the door when you walked out the door and that is it. And that's the weird bit about the portal, especially in cases like this, maybe not so much for waters going from Duke to state because there's a rivalry there, but truly Carolina and state, you know, button heads, I've already seen some of the comments like Harris might get scorched, like it might be scorched earth. This was a scorched earth is how it's being reviewed, but he announced it on Christmas, so hey, a Christmas gift for Carolina. The only call people got in their stocking over the holidays was announced on Saturday in between the Duke's Birmingham bowl win, and that night's festivities that Peyton Wilson decided that he did not want any pop tarts. Peyton Wilson says, you know, I want to plan, I'm going to plan for the next chapter in his career, which he didn't say NFL outright in his message, but you know that's where he wants to go and listen. You're an All-American, a consensus All-American, you win Lineback of the Year awards, you're ACC Defensive Player of the Year, no one is hurt that you want to give it a hard shot at the NFL.

All the mock drafts that are out there, the ones that I've done a handful of researching into suggest that Wilson's a day two, day three guy, but I think the encouraging news about Peyton Wilson, folks, is that the fans are writing about him. Not just state fans, I'm not talking about state fans, but fans of professional teams. They're like, this guy would be great in our system. Motor, motor, motor, totally runs. Mature motor, motor, motor.

So you're not getting a car that just rolled off the line that as soon as the first thing goes wrong, it's like, oh man, I got to replace the circuits because it's an all dashboard. No, you're getting like the work truck here that has been consistent and reliable, and when you need it to go into the field and do the work that it needs to go into, that's what you're getting. I think that's what the realization or maybe the hope is for a lot of fans of NFL teams right now, is that Peyton Wilson is going to be that guy, is that the choice that he makes today to not play with his team in the Pop Tarts Bowl, and don't get me wrong state fans, it's a hard pill to swallow. This guy has been the dude for the entire season defensively, but the cupboard is not bare when it comes to the offense. You look at this matchup between state and Kansas State, the two states, and Kansas State, they're a little bit depleted when it comes to offensive guys. They've got a couple of guys going bowling, not portal guys, but they're going to go, sorry, go to the NFL draft, including their starting quarterback, but they have a freshman quarterback at state, at Kansas State, I got to mix up my states here, a freshman at Kansas State that started a couple of games that they're super high on. Kansas State's actually favored in the Pop Tarts Bowl by six and a half, according to some of the lines that are out there. Now that is, you know, I'm not a big fan of the bulletin board material, but if you need the bulletin board material, I think that would be it. Like Kansas State is down a receiver, down a center, down a quarterback, down an offensive coordinator.

Correct. And it's still, it's still pretty much a touchdown. So if state fans or state needs some bulletin board stuff, that would be the way to get up for it as they play in that Pop Tarts Bowl. And if you haven't seen the trophy, you need to go check that out, that trophy.

It was silly, but it was fun at the same time. Again, this is why I like the holiday bowls because this new tradition, and I'm not saying the dumping of potatoes or whatever it is, or mayo on somebody is the most amazing thing. Like it's what they're trying to do to build some tradition and some buzz, because really after all is said and done, if you've got a 45 to seven bowl blowout, the only thing that's making highlights that night is the fact that something got dumped on a head coach, or got dumped on a coordinator. I'm like, when you think about it, when you can bet on the Gatorade in a bowl game or bet on the Gatorade in the Super Bowl, the color of said nutritional liquid or replenishing liquid, you know that's what the focus is going to be on.

But they had the head coaches both at Kansas State, North Carolina State, Dave Doran, they tore the Pop Tart wrapper off the top of the trophy to unveil the trophy. I was like, that's clever. I'm like, that's a good way to get people going. Yeah, yeah, I might just want to see that. Unfortunately, they don't want to see the game. You should want to see the game.

But if you're going to catch the end, catch the end credits because really, as all the superheroes movies have conditioned us to, it's really all about what happens after the movie is over. Let's be honest. Cash prizes every day. Adds up when you play at Pulse Casino.

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