kungfoodude

Yep and that is at Texas Tech, who pulls in a massive chunk of money from both of those sports.

Yeah, lot of these chirping fans would quickly find out their real place.

Yeah, that's what I mean. It will basically be a football organization filled with the deepest pockets and best markets. That likely excludes almost if not all the ACC.

If the coaches have freedom of movement and if the regular students have freedom of movement, so should the athletes. Tired of this fake "student athlete" crap that they have pushed for decades when what they meant was unpaid labor. I am perfectly fine with free agency every offseason until real contracts exist.

Pretty much the entire ACC minus perhaps Clemson and FSU would be outside that agreement.

I don't agree. Free agency exists in the pros so if they want that version, then have contracts.

I think he viewed this as his proof of concept for his triumphant return to the NFL. It always seemed drenched in some level of hubris. That he would waltz in, be a massive success and have ample NFL grovelers at his feet. Also not very rooted in reality. Truthfully, he was almost always a terrible personnel evaluator and that doomed New England to being the dumpster fire they are now.

Yeah, I don't think your perception is anywhere close to reality. You are more than welcome to that but I don't think you are going to get much in the way of legit agreement from any sort of football commentators.

I think it was a matter of seeing how difficult it would be to compete with FSU. They had far more resources and football was always going to be a second fiddle. Plus, at that time who could compete with Texass in terms of resources? Literally no one in the ACC.

I am sure it must be nice to have a live arm that doesn't hit the broadside of a barn or a guy lasering a pass into a DB's hands. Dalton serves his purpose perfectly fine. Don't completely get the wheels blown off and potentially have a shot to win a game or two. I think a lot of people are definitely confusing "starting" versus "backup."

I mean, if we are lucky, none of us ever sees the third string QB. Ever. He is washed in terms of being a regular starter but definitely not in terms of being a backup QB.

Agreed. Basically the "free agency" has made every team have something of a shot each year. That was never the case prior. Bad recruiting was death...for YEARS. If college sports is ever to genuinely survive, they have to get a commissioner. That's part of the big difference between pro and college sports. At the NFL/MLB/NBA/NHL level, they all generally operate for the common good(increased revenues/value). At the college level they all try to rip each other apart and take all the spoils they can. You will never survive that way, regardless of the demographic or economic issues that also put them in peril.

UNC's football relevance has always basically been, "Hey, remember how great our basketball program is?" To extent that has worked but they have never been able to capitalize on that towards being a legit ACC power. The closest was Mack Brown 1.0 and that was stopped by prime Bowden FSU. TBH, they should have utilized all these resources they just poured into Belichick into, IDK, a legit college football coach? This is one of the more insane uses of that kind of money I have seen in CFB, which is no stranger to insane, irresponsible uses of money. The SEC and Big Ten have already shot themselves in the foot. The model they are operating on only works if TV revenues continue to go up. Well, demographics aren't working in their favor. Economics either, TBH. The NIL didn't change very much, if you notice. The haves still have and the have nots don't. The only difference between pre-NIL and NIL was the money being below the table and above it. College athletics has never at any point been about fairness. It's the most dramatically unequal system in all US athletics. My only hope is that the collapse is swift, dramatic and most importantly SOON. I would like to see the rebuilding of this all to something closer to what it was 40-50 years ago. Regional and not such money grubbing nonsense.

Somehow he got worse from last offseason where he was fairly middling.

People say the NIL ot transfer portal is killing college football, which is demonstrably false. This is the poo that has effectively killed ALL college sports. The TV contract whoring that has caused the complete destruction of regional conferences.

Easily so. 1 "National Championship", 11 conference titles. UNC can boast 0 and 7. Maryland is less so since they have left the ACC and will likely remain depressed for the remainder of their existence before the Big Ten collapses. I agree about the ACC and its football history but truthfully, it is becoming harder for the ACC to compete in the super conference era with the extreme amounts of money it takes to just stay competitive, much less excel. UNC is very odd case. On the surface, plenty of money to spend to attempt to become a relevant football program but then you spend it on....Bill Belichick??? That's....stupid.

I think he dreams of being begged back to the NFL but it's a false dream. Could it happen? Yes. Is it likely? Definitely not. I don't anticipate him becoming suddenly self reflective or less stubborn although this college experiment is likely to end in a comically massive failure. The real question is how bad will it be for UNC when they have to buy out his son's HC contract?

Most of the ACC would fare similarly. Maryland is a far more accomplished football program historically and they have yet to ever finish above .500 in conference play since leaving the ACC.

Two things I completely nailed in week one: - Arch Manning hype was utterly absurd - Bill Belichick hype was utterly absurd Manning literally couldn't beat out a 5th round draft pick and in one case the current Oregon St. starting QB. Somehow we are supposed to believe that a kid that is being billed as literally one of the greatest QB's in college football history to the extent that they ranked his team #1 yet somehow sat for two years behind an oft injured Quinn Ewers? Never won that job from Ewers last season, either. Three years of college football and this kid still looks like a college freshman. Bill Belichick couldn't get employed in the NFL because the game had obviously passed him by and he has no ability to handle anything less than complete control. What could possibly go wrong when a stubborn, inflexible 73 year old on his first CAREER CFB job gets paired with a historically bottom half/third college football program in a P5 conference??? Well, welcome to college football, Bill's GF. Turns out massive roster turnover and just simply telling everyone you are the "33rd NFL team" doesn't erase the advantages that dozens and dozens of football programs have over you because that's the way college football has always been.

FTFY

No, the reporting of those was in that order. Hence the comment.

Coker also went from "being in the best shape of his career" to being a slug that doesn't work out. This franchise is about as trustworthy as Russian media.

I mean, it's pretty laughable to talk about Allen/Heinecke in "growth." As for Hooker....lol. I supposed Matt Corral is a "growth" candidate too. Pick someone who can actually play the game. That's Dalton.

I am not sure that would necessarily hold up to a large data sample and some in depth analysis. It's certainly an interesting theory. IMO(anecdotally), the better backups are usually older backups that were above average NFL starters for long periods of time. That and just guys that are always fringe bottom third starter, top third backups. Flacco, Dalton are current examples of the former. I think guys like Tyrod Taylor and Jacoby Brissett are good examples of the latter. The issue with Lance/Richardson/Wilson is that they were ultimately big busts. So you have to bank on them being the type of player that can handle that, battle back and make a decent NFL career. I am not sure I would say that is the majority of those type of players. Winston is just a different thing. He is an old school gunslinger that is pretty inflexible when it comes to playing style. If you don't have an old school offense tailored to a Brett Favre type gunslinger AND have a defense elite enough to win when he is turning the ball over like gangbusters.....it's tough for him to consistently win games. It will be damn fun to watch but the W's are gonna be rare.

I disagree if the discussion is this season. Certainly moving towards the next couple of years, Dalton will decline further and perhaps they will eventually pass him. Allen/Heinicke would be pretty far down the top 32 backup QB list. Heinicke would most likely be outside the top 32, TBH. I certainly hope we don't live to see any actual Hendon Hooker starts. I don't really want to have to be doing the "I fuging told you guys he sucked" thing while actually having to watch him suck and lose games. That's possibly when I am going to opt to watch some other NFL games.