00:00Welcome back to Newswire here on Sports Grid.
00:02Let's bring in Josh Graham talking some college football.
00:04He's getting ready, of course, for the ACC schedule.
00:07Going to check out some preseason game in North Carolina and Charlotte coming up this weekend too.
00:12Josh, great to have you back here on Newswire.
00:14I know it's been a bit.
00:15Thanks for coming.
00:16It's good to see you, Craig.
00:17Yes, we get to see the Shador Sanders show, the Cleveland Browns quarterback circus in Charlotte later tonight.
00:24And, yeah, we're a few weeks removed from ACC football media days.
00:28And don't look now, but a couple weeks from now, we're going to be looking at week zero games.
00:33It's kind of crazy.
00:34Yeah, can't wait for that.
00:36And I know we're in it here now in college football.
00:38I mean, certainly once the preseason kicks in, it's like all systems go for football.
00:42So let's take a look at the ACC's preseason poll.
00:45And you tell me if we're missing something going into the season.
00:49Now, obviously, Clemson is stacked and ready to go.
00:52Miami is at number two.
00:54SMU coming off a great season number three.
00:56We have Georgia Tech at four, Louisville five, Duke six, FSU seven, the fighting Belichick's eight from North Carolina, Pitt nine, NC State ten.
01:08I'm not going to go through the back five here because I don't think that they're going to have such great seasons.
01:12With Vatek, Syracuse Boston College, of course, Cal is going to round it out, former PAC team there.
01:18So lots of entry going into the year.
01:20I mean, a lot of expectation that Clemson is back on top and dominant, which they haven't been in years.
01:25Miami's got quarterback changing with Vatek coming in and, of course, Cam Ward leaving.
01:30When you look at the schedule and you look at the teams, who do you got underrated?
01:34In terms of value to win the ACC championship, it's Clemson and then everybody else.
01:41But the three teams that you might look at as potentially having enough firepower to push the Tigers and maybe pull off an upset is Miami, Louisville, and possibly SMU because we saw how great that championship game was last year and SMU getting to the playoff.
01:58But there's really not a great value pick to win the ACC championship in terms of getting to the title game.
02:06Don't sleep on the Pitt Panthers, who are picked ninth because this was a team last year that started 7-0 that brings a lot of guys back.
02:15The schedule isn't great.
02:17But in terms of a value play, just to get to an ACC championship, that might be one to keep an eye on.
02:24Wake Forest is 16th out of the 17 teams.
02:28That's a new coach in Jake Dickert.
02:30But they have the easiest schedule in all of high major football.
02:34So when you look at their over-under of four and a half wins for the year, you're going to win three of their non-conference games, maybe all four altogether.
02:42So all they'd have to do at a minimum is win their two league games to get to that over.
02:47I think with some of the talent on that roster that returns, they might be able to get over that mark.
02:52All right.
02:53Good call there.
02:53We'll see if that plays out.
02:55Now, what will play out when the ACC battles the SEC on August the 30th?
02:59This game is in Clemson.
03:01Good thing for them.
03:02No one wants to play in Death Valley at night.
03:04But there's a war of words as to whether or not playing in Clemson at night is more difficult.
03:09The Tigers are four and a half point favorites over the Tigers, four and a half point underdogs.
03:15Total of 57 and a half.
03:18This number has moved a little bit in favor of Clemson.
03:21I could not tell you why.
03:22Maybe you can.
03:24But needless to say, I'm expecting a fun game to open up the season.
03:27I know where I'll be on Saturday night.
03:29When you're talking about this game, be careful of mentioning the word Tigers to be more specific.
03:35And be careful on using the expression Death Valley as well.
03:40This game is going to be in Clemson's Death Valley.
03:42LSU has their own idea of what Death Valley is, of course.
03:46I think the reason why there's some movement in favor of Clemson is because I think college football is starting to catch up with the fact that there might not be a team more talented in the country than Clemson is this year.
03:58Texas might be in that classification if Arch Manning can hit the ground running right out of the gate.
04:04But when you look at mock drafts, which obviously isn't the end-all be-all, pretty much all of them have five Clemson players going in round one, maybe even six.
04:13There was one mock that had that.
04:15When you look at the ACC preseason poll that came out or the preseason all-ACC, you're talking about 13 Clemson Tigers offense and defense out of the 26 or so or 24 or so.
04:28That are on that list.
04:29So this Clemson team is the most talented team since the one we saw go 15-0 with Trevor Lawrence winning the title in 2018.
04:39So that might be why you're starting to see some movement in favor of Clemson.
04:42Obviously, it's hard to win at Clemson any time, especially at night.
04:46Yeah, and you have two quarterbacks who are among the favorites to win the Heisman Trophy Award.
04:52Although, Josh, I would tell you, if my memory serves correct, it seems to me that none of the favorites who have been up there on FanDuel and DraftKings at the beginning of the season the last few years have ended up winning the Heisman.
05:02I feel like that shift has come in October and November.
05:04So Arch Manning is the favorite, but I think that the oddsmakers are sort of catching up here and saying, hey, look, we got a bunch of this up here because we don't know who's going to win the Heisman either.
05:14You see Klubnik and Nussmeyer will go against each other.
05:16Jeremiah Smith from Ohio State is 11-1 as well.
05:21So, I mean, look, this is a tough one to call every year, but I personally don't think betting the favorite has been the way to go.
05:27I don't think so.
05:29Like, if you want to look at some of the odd value, you got to get at least 20-1 odds to look at something like that.
05:37Because when you consider the guys who win, to your point, it's seldom ever the players going into the season.
05:43So you'd be better served doing your homework, looking a little bit deeper at some of those 20-1 or longer odds.
05:50Because you're right, a lot of the awards are dependent on voters, what they think about a guy, and how you meet those expectations.
05:59And if the lofty expectations are set so early, that's a bar that you have to clear that is already pretty lofty, and that's hard to do.
06:06Yeah.
06:07Josh, you mentioned the Miami Hurricanes.
06:08I want to shift over to them real quick.
06:10I live in South Florida.
06:11Previously covered them for many years, in the winning years, by the way.
06:15In the winning years, the group of South Florida, very familiar with them.
06:18This is a polarizing team for me.
06:20I know that you call them a little bit, Josh, a sleeper for me.
06:23I mean, something is just bothering me that the fact that they had Cam Ward and didn't go as far as they should have, you know?
06:30And now, they don't have him.
06:32I understand that Beck was okay at Georgia, probably above average as a quarterback.
06:36But I don't know.
06:37Something seems off for me to have them so high and their win total so high as well, nine and a half wins.
06:44I mean, the pressure is on every coach.
06:45But Mario Cristobal has got to close out some late wins, I think, to get rid of that narrative that he's had in the past.
06:50I'm with you.
06:51The number's set too high.
06:52Nine and a half wins.
06:54You've got Notre Dame to open up.
06:56You go to Florida State.
06:58Florida looks really good this year.
06:59It's not an easy schedule.
07:01They go to SMU.
07:02And yes, I do think it's a slight downgrade at quarterback.
07:05The one plus you'd point to is that they are really good on the offensive and defensive lines.
07:09And that obviously is key with any team you project going into the season.
07:14Fair enough.
07:15Josh, enjoy the NFL season.
07:17And of course, we'll talk more about the college football season coming up.
07:20Thanks for appearing on the show.
07:21Thanks, Greg.
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