Tag: ACC football

Previewing the ACC/Notre Dame for the 2023 season

Previewing the upcoming season in the ACC plus initial takeaways from the first round of the MLB draft.

We are still over a month away from the start of the 2023 college football season for the ACC and Notre Dame but there are plenty of talking points as we march toward the season.

Patrick Conn (College Sports Wire) and Tyler Nettuno (LSU Tigers Wire) return for the second of two episodes this week with a preview of the ACC as well as a discussion on the Northwestern-Pat Fitzgerald situation.

Pat Fitzgerald is out, what is next?

When the guys recorded the Big Ten preview episode, Pat Fitzgerald was still the head coach of the Northwestern Wildcats. The school announced they fired the head coach with cause to try and avoid having to pay the remaining amount on his massive contract.

What is next for both Fitzgerald and Northwestern?

MLB draft takeaways

The huge story for the MLB draft revolved around the LSU Tigers. Paul Skenes and Dylan Crews were the first teammates to be selected with the top two selections. The surprise came when the Detroit Tigers went with top high school prospect Max Clark over Florida’s Wyatt Langford.

The guys discuss the top five and all of the LSU Tigers who were drafted.

 ACC, Notre Dame Preview

It was the ACC’s turn in our preseason preview series. While Notre Dame is an official member of the ACC for football, we added the Fighting Irish to our conversation since they play half of their games against ACC foes including the Clemson Tigers and North Carolina State Wolfpack.

Patrick and Tyler make their picks for offensive and defensive MVP as well as title game picks and who is under pressure in 2023.

Check out the full show on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Tar Heel Twitter predicts UNC’s 2023 football season record

Members of Tar Heel Twitter predict the University of North Carolina’s 2023 football schedule.

While college football fans everywhere are waiting for the season to start in late August, they are trying to keep themselves busy with schedule predictions.

“Week Zero” kicks off with a highly-anticipated Navy-Notre Dame matchup in Dublin on Saturday, Aug. 26, then we get into a full slate of Week 1 games the following Saturday.

UNC’s 2023 campaign, however, kicks off with a tough task in SEC rival South Carolina for the second time in three years. This season, both schools will matchup on Saturday, Sept. 2 at 7:30 p.m. ET under the bright lights of Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, N.C.

The Gamecocks, who won the 2021 opener by a comfortable 38-21 margin, have taken four out of the past five matchups in the series. UNC’s last win in the series came during the 2019 opener, when Mack Brown coached his first game back in baby blue and Sam Howell led the Heels on a 15-point, fourth-quarter comeback.

After a matchup with South Carolina, UNC hosts App State the following weekend in a rematch of last year’s record-setting, 63-61 thriller in Boone. The Tar Heels stay at home on Sept. 16 to host Minnesota, travel to the University of Pittsburgh to kick off ACC play on Sept. 23, then enter their bye week.

Carolina will face a slew of tough opponents out of its bye, including Clemson and N.C. State on the road to close the regular-season out. The hope is, always, that the Heels will be in position to contend for an ACC championship and maybe more.

Another important thing to note about UNC’s schedule: it only faces one FCS opponent – Campbell on Nov. 4.

Let’s see how Tar Heel Twitter reacted to On3 Sports tweeting out the schedule yesterday:

Mack Brown falls in 2023 CBS Sports Coaches’ Ranking

UNC football head coach Mack Brown fell in the latest CBS Sports coaches rankings going into the 2023 season.

UNC head football coach Mack Brown has done plenty since re-taking the reins from Larry Fedora back in 2019 – four straight bowl appearances, several Top 25 rankings and a Coastal Division title last season.

It’s no surprise that because of this success, Brown found himself – again – on a rankings list of his own.

Brown ranked 22nd on CBS Sports’ Top 25 Power Five College Football Coaches’ list entering the upcoming 2023 season, a drop of two spots from 20 last year.

Here’s what CBS Sports’ Tom Fornelli wrote

“I have a hard time figuring out what to do with Brown. He deserves respect for winning a national title at Texas, and while the end there wasn’t great, things have only gotten worse since he left. That said, I don’t know if I’m all that impressed by his second stint with the Tar Heels. His struggles to find a defensive coordinator have put a ceiling on what his UNC teams have been able to accomplish.” 2022 rank: 20 (-2)

If Brown can lead his team to another hot start this upcoming season, cement it with a bowl win and possibly an ACC championship, he’ll likely climb further up the list. Carolina starts its quest for a second straight Coastal Division title on Saturday, Sept. 2, as it takes on rival University of South Carolina at 7:30 p.m. inside Bank of America Stadium.

Brown has one of the best quarterbacks in the country returning in Drake Maye, a trio of solid running backs led by Elijah Green, plus a great 1-2 tight end punch in Bryson Nesbit and Kamari Morales.

The Heels bursted out of the gates at 9-1 last year, locking up a spot in the ACC Championship for a date against eventual champion Clemson. Things looked up – Carolina ranked themselves several times.

After Carolina’s 36-34 win at Wake Forest, however, no one saw what came next. The Heels lost four straight – one to a struggling Georgia Tech squad and a 2-overtime thriller against in-state rival N.C. State, both at home, a 39-10 whooping against Clemson in the ACC Championship, then a 1-point defeat against Oregon in the San Diego County Credit Union Holiday Bowl, bring their bowl record to 3-7 in their last 10 appearances.

Follow us @TarHeelsWire on Twitter and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of North Carolina Tar Heels news, notes and opinions.

Top ACC players Notre Dame will be playing in 2023

Keep your eye on these players when the Irish face them.

In exchange for retaining its football independence, Notre Dame plays a certain number of ACC opponents every season. The only other sport in which Notre Dame is not an ACC member is hockey, which plays in the Big Ten. While old-school Irish fans might long for the days of the program being able to schedule almost anyone at anytime, some often forget that this arrangement means some thrilling football. The home wins over recent powerhouse Clemson in 2020 and 2022 are two examples.

College football isn’t back yet, but you still can look at the rosters and see which quality players play for whom. Twitter’s Big Game Boomer has done just that and come up with a list of the top 50 ACC players for the upcoming season. When you look at the list, you’ll see the Irish have many of them set to face them. Let’s see who the Irish are playing when you take away the players whose teams aren’t on their schedule:

Big Ten opponents Notre Dame should play annually if it ever joins

Just picture at least some of these games happening annually.

The Big Ten has unveiled its “Flex Protect Plus” scheduling model, which will take effect when USC and UCLA join the conference in 2024. Eleven particular matchups will be protected and thus played every year, and every school will play every school at least twice over a four-year period. There will be both annual and rotating matchups over each team’s nine-game league schedule.

Which brings us to Notre Dame. We all know about the Irish being denied entry into the Big Ten in the 20th century’s early years, but times areMidw changing. With college football’s landscape radically changing soon, questions about the feasibility of the Irish’s longtime independence are being raised. Plus, with their next athletic director currently heading NBC Sports Group and the Big Ten about to start a long-term TV deal with NBC, the Irish almost seem destined for full-time Big Ten membership.

Now, before you Irish traditionalists hang me from the top of the Golden Dome, really think about this. Many of the Irish’s most frequent opponents in their history are based in the Midwest. This would revive annual or semi-annual rivalries that largely have been discarded to fulfill obligations to the East Coast-centeric ACC. Nothing against that conference, but Wake Forest, North Carolina and Georgia Tech just seem to be awkwardly forced upon the fan base by the arrangement and don’t exactly rile anyone up.

In the event of a Big Ten membership, certain parameters will have to be set for the Irish. They definitely would need to keep Navy as one of its nonconference opponents because any season not completely compromised by COVID that doesn’t have the Midshipmen just seems wrong. Other than that, there are some opponents that need to be scheduled every year or at least merit consideration for that. Here are the ones most worth considering:

Ranking the best ACC wide receivers ahead of the season

Florida State, Virginia Tech, and Wake Forest duos headline our top wide receivers in the ACC.

There is no shortage of talent in the Atlantic Coastal Conference. The quarterbacks are led by North Carolina’s Drake Maye and Florida State’s Jordan Travis. They have a pair of studs at running back with Clemson’s Will Shipley and Florida State’s Trey Benson. Can the Seminoles go three-for-three with a top-tier wide receiver?

Before we dive into our preliminary rankings for the wide receivers, there are several teams that have formidable duos ready to take the field. Florida State, Virginia Tech, and Wake Forest each have two wide receivers among the best in the ACC. Virginia Tech had to go out and address the wide receiver position after a poor showing in 2022.

With that said, we dive into the best pass catchers at wideout in the ACC.

Ranking the schools: What ACC programs could be conference expansion targets of the Big Ten?

Looking at the Big Ten’s options from the ACC.

Could the ACC be set to see some of their members join the Big Ten? ESPN analyst Greg McElroy believes so.

A former NFL quarterback who won a national championship with Alabama football, McElroy believes that the Big Ten is the most likely of any conference to start expanding. In addition, he thinks the conference will go East Coast next and not be fixated on the Pac-12.

So how do the ACC programs stack up in terms of their appeal to the Big Ten? Which ACC programs are the best fit for the Big Ten.

Now let’s outline some of the criteria first:

  1. Preference is given to AAU member organizations. This is important since all Big Ten members that have entered the conference have done so as AAU members. Only Nebraska isn’t a member but they were at the time of being added to the Big Ten in 2011.
  2. Television markets matter, they really do.
  3. Football, not basketball, drives the bus. Although basketball and the Olympic sports do factor in significantly to the Big Ten Network’s programming and overall bottom line. There is one caveat to this statement and it is addressed in the list.
  4. For purposes of this exercise, Notre Dame is considered an independent and not an ACC member.

With the Big Ten set to add UCLA and USC and rumors of Oregon and Washington next, it looks like the Big Ten might make a push for 20 programs overall.

So what ACC programs could the Big Ten be looking to poach? And who makes the most sense for the Big Ten, were interest to be mutual.

ESPN’s Greg McElroy on college conference expansion: The Big Ten is ‘far more likely to expand right now’

Greg McElroy thinks the Big Ten is likely to expand again and will do so soon.

The Big Ten might be set to expand in the not-too-distant future, this according to ESPN’s Greg McElroy. The conference, which added Maryland and Rutgers in 2014 and is set to add two more programs next year, might be aggressive in the open market according to the former NFL quarterback.

The Big Ten, which will welcome UCLA and USC next year, has been on the front foot in the past few years in expanding the conference. The moves, calculated to tap into media markets, has worked in that the Big Ten now has the most lucrative rights deal in college sports.

This gives the Big Ten and its member institutions an arsenal of resources with which to compete within the Power Five.

For McElroy, a former Alabama quarterback who spent four years in the NFL, the Big Ten has no plans to stop growing. The now ESPN analyst and college football insider said as much this week in ‘Always College Football.’

“I don’t have a sense that the SEC is really mobilizing to expand. The Big Ten, however, would be very open to expanding,” McElroy said on ESPN.

“But the place that they would be most open to would be in the state of Florida. That would be advantageous to NBC that’d be advantageous to FOX, and that would also be advantageous to CBS – those are the three media rights holders for the Big Ten. So that’s something to keep an eye on the big 10 I think is far more likely to expand right now.

“The SEC? Not so much. They will kind of see exactly how this all plays out and what these ACC schools ultimately decide to do.”

The nugget from McElroy about Florida is interesting. With several large television markets, headlined by Miami, a push into Florida could make sense for the Big Ten. Adding North Carolina and Virginia would make sense as well for the Big Ten, giving them an impressive geographic footprint.

A footprint that would make sense for the Big Ten for their next media rights deal.

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The ACC met this week in Florida to discuss their future with conference expansion at the center of the discussion.

Due to a media deal that is now antiquated in scope and size, the ACC is set to fall far behind in terms of the rest of the Power Five (at the very least, the Big Ten and SEC will dwarf the ACC’s current package). Could this lead the ACC to fall apart as programs leave to find better deals?

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McElroy thinks so, citing the ‘Magnificent Seven’  (Clemson, Florida State, Miami, North Carolina, North Carolina State, Virginia and Virginia Tech) “will be out of the ACC.”

If that happens, it would seem that the Big Ten, at least according to McElroy, could be set to swoop in and cherrypick the top ACC programs.

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The best conference fit for each of the ACC’s ‘Magnificent 7’

We take a look at the ideal fit for each of the ‘Magnificent 7’ out of the Atlantic Coast Conference if they opt to leave.

The landscape of college athletics is changing in terms of teas moving conferences. With money being the big motive, we have already seen USC and UCLA announce a move to the Big Ten as well as Texas and Oklahoma joining the SEC soon.

And now it appears as if the Atlantic Coast Conference is next up for changes.

Earlier in the week it was reported that seven ACC programs had explored the option of leaving the conference. The ‘Magnificent 7’ featured UNC, NC State, Miami, Florida State, Clemson, Virginia and Virginia Tech.

While things aren’t official, there’s momentum for changes in the conference with teams pursuing other options. The Big Ten and SEC come to mind right away for a lot of these programs. However, which conference is the ideal fit for the seven?

We took a look at each program and the ideal fit they would have with a conference.

UNC among “The Magnificent 7” ACC schools to examine grant-of-rights

Seven Atlantic Coast Conference programs are starting to examine the grant-of-rights with the conference to potentially move on.

The college athletics landscape is starting to look a lot different with the moves of programs to other conferences, headlined by USC and UCLA heading to the Big Ten.  And now, seven Atlantic Coast Conference programs could be on the move.

On Monday,Ross Dellenger of Sports Illustrated reported that seven ACC schools have met in the past several months with lawyers to examine the grant-of-rights to determine if they can leave the deal with the conference which runs through 2036. This is significant news as it shows that half of the conference has an internal rift and are looking to potentially move on.

The seven schools are North Carolina, Clemson, Florida State, NC State, Miami, Virginia, and Virginia Tech and have earned the nickname “The Magnificent 7” with the efforts behind led by Florida State and Clemson.

Here is what Dellenger had to say about the situation:

More frank discussions are expected about the growing revenue gap between it and the SEC/Big Ten. Handcuffed by an ESPN broadcasting contract and grant-of-rights that extends another 13 years, ACC schools could find themselves more than $30 million behind the SEC and Big Ten in annual distribution by the time 2026 arrives. …

A subset of seven schools in the 14-member conference has coalesced over what many of them describe as an untenable situation. Officials from the seven schools, led by Florida State and Clemson, have met a handful of times over the past several months, with their lawyers examining the grant-of-rights to determine just how unbreakable it is.

The $240M deal that runs through 2036 with ESPN is fifth among Power 5 conferences. So it makes sense as to why these seven schools are looking for a potential out and to make more money with TV revenue.

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