Speaker 1: Hello, Welcome to This Week in the Atlantic Coast Conference,
the podcast for All Sports Discussion dot com. This is
Jeff and you can follow me on Twitter at Talking
a c C Sports. That's at t A L K
I N A c C S P O R T S.
The podcast moderator is Matthew and you can follow him
at All Sports d A c C. That's at A
L L S P O R T S d A
c C. I'm gonna turn over to you, Matthew, to
introduce our guest, and we all look ready to speak.
Speaker 2: Awesome, awesome, Welcome to the this Week in the Atlantic
Coast Conference. This is the podcast for All Sports Discussion
dot com. This is the longest running independent acc podcast
in the USA. And you can tell us getting close
to college football. Starting with our friend from Pick six
Previews dot com, Brett Scionsi joins us. He has one
of the best college football preview magazines in all of
the United States. He previews all of the power for
FBS teams. He started Pick six Previews in twenty twelve
and then his college football preview magazine over the past
ten seasons its twenty fifteen to twenty twenty four. His
college football predictions have become the number one most accurate
in the United States by Stassen dot com, who's been
tracking prediction accuracy for decades. The twenty twenty five Pick
six Previews book just launched. It's available at Pick six
Previews or on Twitter at Pick six Previews. That's where
you can follow him on Twitter. Pick six Previews magazine
is in an ebook format. You can also get the
hard copy and new for twenty twenty five, Brent launched
a weekly in season project. It's called Pick six Plus
Everything you love about the magazine, but it's now updated
weekly of the following emailed out every Tuesday. The season
moves so fast, but Plus provides the most complete set
of statistics and information on all sixty eight Power four teams,
and I highly encourage you to check out the samples
in the magazine and at Pick six Previews dot com.
Slash plus now a few other points of interest here
Pick six previous book and the Twitter content is also
highly endorsed by Fox Sports. Chris Folica Josh Paid, the
host of The Josh Paid College Football Show that's the
national college football podcast, to show at CBS Sports and
CBS Sports Headquarters. Also They also had very kind words
about Brett. Josh is a big fan of Bret, just
like we are. So Brett, welcome back to the All
Sports Discussion ACC podcast. As we said, this is the
longest running independent ACC podcast and we've been blessed enough
to have you on the last couple of years. Before
we start, do you do we have anything here that
we want to plug, Brett? I mean, I've given you
a huge, huge plug to start out with, but is
there anything you'd like to plug out there on the
Twitter content shows that you're on or other media shows
that you're on the floor?
Speaker 3: Is yours friend? Thank you for spending years. Thanks Matthew
and Jeff for having me back. It's probably our ninth
annual now is almost a decade's worth of talking ACC
season previews together. So I'm honored to be back on.
Congratulate you guys on what you've built and it's one
of my go to resources throughout the off season and
during the season too, So nice job again, it's great
to be back. I can't wait to break down this
ACC with you. In terms of things to plug, I
think you guys did a good job with that long intro,
so I appreciate all you had to say for me there.
And yeah, let's break it down. Let's talk acc football.
Speaker 2: Boy, Let's get to a topic near and dear in
my heart. And I can't believe I'm saying this, but
football and the Commonwealth of Virginia A hardcore question just
turned off the show. Will the Commonwealth Cup, that's the
game between Virginia and Virginia and Virginia Tech. Will there
be interim head head football coaches in the Commonwealth Cup game?
Speaker 3: Well, I hope not for the sake of both programs
because that would mean that they had another losing season
if they're heading into the final week of the year
without their head coach. Pressures on at both spots and
you know, both these guys were hired in twenty twenty two,
and first with Virginia of course, with Tony Elliott, he
was part of that Clemson dynasty calling the offense for
dabos teams. He comes in and they really fell flat
a couple of three win seasons. Of course, the first
year was you know, marred by a tragedy unfortunately at
the end of the year and just had to grow
through that as a program. Last year got the five wins,
but still have not made a Bowl. This time around,
they put a lot of resources into it. You saw
they went out, finally collected the nil money, put together
a great transfer class, a reason why I bumped them
up a little bit up the ACC standings for twenty
twenty five. So I think, if not now, then I
don't think it's going to click. I think that they
have all the the resources possible. They have a proven quarterback,
so I like what they have in the building to
make it to Bowl season for Virginia Tech. Similar it's
his fourth year for Brent Pry. I really like talking
to him as one of my favorite interviews. I get
to talk to a lot of the head coaches. He's
one of my favorites. But I don't think any Virginia
Tech fan would have signed up for these results three
years in, you know, kind of disappointing. So farther last
year was supposed to be the breakthrough. They were very veteran,
if remember back, They had the most returning starters in
the country heading into twenty twenty four. But it didn't
click at all. It actually got worse. So a lot
of pressure on both spots, I'll bet you. Instead of
both being fired. I think you might have one interim.
I'm not going to call for two interims. I think
you might have one though, by the time that game
rolls around, Well said Jeff, you're up rand.
Speaker 1: All right, britt A team that's near and dear to
my heart, and I want you to get your opinion
on them. Tech. Will they get to double digit wins
this season?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Well, I was looking forward to this question because
so many years in a row now we've talked about
your Yellow Jackets, and they've been towards the bottom of
the conference. They've been struggling. Part of that was such
a big program shift when they moved away from the
flexbo and the triple option with Paul Johnson. You know,
it's one thing to change coaches, but to change from
a traditional option attack to a more modernized scheme like
Jeff Collins brought in, that was always going to be
a multiple year transition, and it really fell flat. It
was some of the worst football we've seen. So all
that to say that what Brent Keith took over was
really a tough situation, and he's grinded out winners every
year that he's been there. A couple seven win seasons
in a row. Now, I think this is their best
team yet in probably a decade since that twenty fourteen team.
A lot to like from Georgia Tech, and i'll break
it down here. Love their offensive line that's always been
strong under Brent Key, that's his expertise being a former lineman.
Great coach there. I love their quarterback with Haines King.
I like their running back Justice Haynes. Good job in
the transfer portal at receiver. So I like what they
have on offense and then the defense as well as
making some stat gains. So I think it's his best
team yet coming off a couple of seven win seasons.
But the thing I like best about Georgia Tech this
year is actually their schedule. And you know the way
that this breaks down now without divisions and you have
these mega conferences, it's all about your your league schedule
draw And when you look at what Georgia Tech drew
this year in the ACC, they play seven of my
bottom ten in the conference. And their only game that
they're they're gonna be, you know, heavily underdog in is
that Clemson game. But outside of Clemson in the ACC,
I mean there's as many as seven winnable games, So
uh yeah, I think double digits as possible. They're going
to be a surprise team and they're just outside my
top twenty five to enter the season.
Speaker 1: All right, I like it. Now I want to ask you,
which ACC team do you think is gonna take a
dive this year? Year that might be unexpected?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, you know a team that had a surprise
breakout last year was Syracuse and that was really caught
everybody off guard. They made a wild card higher at
head coach. They hired fran Brown, who was a positional
coach at Georgia, you know, not from you know, it
was not part of the ACC or the New York
frame footprint at all. Comes up there, gets great transfers in.
He gets Kyle McCord, the starting quarterback from Ohio State,
to come up there. They light up the scoreboard, a
ton of yards, a ton of points, and they get
to ten wins. So total surprise last year. But I
think it'll be equally surprising how bad they fall off
this year. And I say that because so many starters
are gone. They sent a lot of guys to the
pros to graduation and then what happened, which would really hurt.
My projection for them was after spring ball, you know,
heading into spring, you could maybe talk yourself into a
bowl season for them. But after spring, another round of
their starters and their best players transferred out. They're they're
all ACC caliber receiver at Trevor Pena went the in State,
and a couple of defensive linemen there. They're true freshman
All American. Watson he went to Texas. It's just one
hit after the other. So I see a lot of
starters go on a lot of production to replace, and
I think they're gonna they're gonna fall back here with
a really tough schedule. Now just talk about Georgia Tech
schedule being favorable, this one flips the other way. They
have a tough draw, and I think they're gonna fall
down towards the bottom of the conference.
Speaker 1: All right, let's go to the other side of that.
Which ACC team will do better than everyone is expecting.
Speaker 3: Well, I think I kind of gave it away there
with Georgia Tech. But I'll you know, I'll save you
the double answer of doing Georgia Tech again, And that
is my answer here. I think they will surprise a
lot of folks. They're gonna surge up the ACC rankings.
But I'll give you another one. Louisville. That's a team
that was really strong offensively last year. And that's what
Jeff Bron does. He continues to turn out top notch
offenses no matter where he's been. It was at Purdue,
now at Louisville, and he's going for his third straight
transfer quarterback from the Power four level. He's done great
the first two times, trying to make it three in
a row here with Miller Moss coming from USC and
Moss he had to sit behind a great a couple
of great quarterbacks at USC and finally got his time.
Last year played okay, you know, above average at times,
Okay at times. He was benched after a three interception
game against Washington. But I think now at a new place,
and this is what je F. Brown does. He resurrects
these quarterbacks in their old Power four stature. I think
he's going to be good here again. So long story short,
I love Louisville's offense, and now some key pieces are
back on defense, especially a linebacker. I love their duo there.
So I think in this race for third place, I
think Louisville and Georgia Tech are great candidates.
Speaker 1: All right, great stuff there, Brent. This next segment we're
going to call our lightning Round, and to avoid firing
away all six questions that you at once, we're going
to go two at a time. Who do you have
as an ACC coach? If any on the hot seat?
And right here in August, who are your two teams
that you'd have in the ACC title game?
Speaker 3: Yeah? You know, the hot seat question is interesting because
I already had one picked out, but he was already fired,
and that was Troy Taylor from Stanford, and you know
he'd been struggling a couple of seasons out there, a
couple last place finishes. I again have them projected as
the worst team in Power for sixty eighth out of
sixty eight. So I was ready to give you Troy Taylor,
but new general manager Andrew Lucky Neater did that for us.
He fired him in March. So they are restarting with
Frank Reich, former Indianapolis Colts coach NFL coach. So I
can't give you Stanford, and I think it's Syracuse. Fran
Brown has built himself up enough goodwill from last year
that he'll survive I think the hottest seat might just
be Justin Wilcox at Cal and I know they're a
newer team to the ACC, but it's very interesting what's
happening out there where They brought Ron Rivera back. He's
a Cal grad. They brought him back as a general
manager and in charge of the player personnel. But the
boosters out there, the alumni, the boosters, the big money.
They're saying, we don't want Justin Wilcox to make any
decisions anymore. We want Ron Rivera to really run everything
and basically get rid of Wilcox. So very strange situation
at Cow. And you might have noticed the transfer portal.
They lost a lot of players, star players, Jade and not.
They're running back Mendoza their starting quarterback. You wonder what
was going on, and now we might know behind the scenes.
It was like a booster coup in a way, So
very strange a Cow. I'll give you that one as
the hot seat coach. And now that I've been rambling,
I realize this is the lightning round. So I went
way too long on that lightning round. Two teams in
the ACC title. I'll be quicker. I've got Clemson versus Miami,
Clemson being the defending champions with twenty starters back, Miami
being your top recruiters and top transfer team. So Clemson
Miami to play in Charlotte.
Speaker 1: All right, nixt to questions in the Lightning round, who
wins the ACC at of Clemson Miami and then who
do you have as your ACC coach of the year.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I have Clemson winning the ACC Pretty solid with
that pick too. It's just more proven. We know what
we have with them. Like I said, twenty starters back
Cadeklubnick might just be a Heisman favorite coming into the year.
I like their offensive coordinator, Gary Reiley, their defensive line,
their offensive line, their trenches are strong. So many all
American candidates. And I'll leave you with this in the book.
This year, I have my high school recruiting, my transfer recruiting,
but then also mock NFL drafts. I know it's early
for mock NFL draft, but just to get a sense
of the pro caliber players on the team. Clemson's number
two in the country there with twelve twenty twenty six
mock NFL draft picks. So talent everywhere, NFL talent everywhere.
I'm going to go Clemson to win it ACC Coach
of the Year. I'm going to call for Brent Key,
and I just talked up Georgia Tech for a couple answers,
But to continue the pattern, I think it's his best
team yet. They placed five players on my all ACC
offense alone, a lot of that being the receivers, the
running back, the quarterback. But yeah, I like him as
a coach. I think it's a lot of winnable games
for them this year. It's gonna have you know, seven, eight, nine,
even ten wins this year. I think that'll get him
credit for a Coach of the Year.
Speaker 1: All right, last two questions in this lightning round, who
are the twelve college football playoff teams right now? What
you have in August? And then who's going to be
the national champion?
Speaker 3: Well, it's really a wide open field, I think more
so than ever because over the most of the years
we've been talking on this show. In the preseason, it
was mostly the Saban dynasty and then it was the
Dabo dynasty and both at the same time. You always
pretty much had Ohio State and Oklahoma in there. It
was kind of your four teams every year. So it's
way more wide open now, not just because of the bracket,
but because of nil and these mega conferences. So here's
where I got to my twelve this year. I broke
it down by conference. From the ACC, I have two,
I have Clemson winning it, and I also think Miami
is strong enough to get an at large as a
ten and two type team with a tough game there
Notre Dame and Clemson on the schedule if they were
to match up in Charlotte. So I have two from
the ACC. Three from the Big Ten. I see Penn State,
Ohio State, and Oregon. From the SEC, I have four.
I think it's going to be the most this year,
just three superpowers with Texas, Alabama, and Georgia. You just
see five stars at every position group And LSU got
another at large spot for me Brian Kelly's fourth year.
It's really do or die time for them. All the
money and resources in the world he's got to put
up now in year four. So those are the four
from the SEC. The Big Twelve was wide open this year,
and I mean I could go another hour on this
show talking Big Twelve and trying to pick a team
out of that. Probably the most wide open conference I've
ever covered. In fourteen years of doing the magazine, but
ultimately went with last year's champ, Arizona State. Nineteen starters back,
very veteran team, and they weren't a fluke. You look
at their advanced stats last year. They had it all.
They lose the running back pretty much everybody else's back.
So that rounds it out. A couple open spots. I
had Notre Dame getting a spot again, and then I
have Boise State winning the non AQ bid. Last year,
everybody picked Liberty. I went Boise State. They proved me right.
I'm going to see if they proved me right again.
I trust that Mountain West as the strongest conference out there.
So that's the twelve. Again, not a lightning round answer,
but you can't really lightning round twelve teams.
Speaker 2: That's tough.
Speaker 3: But for the national champion, I'm going Penn State. And
this might raise some eyebrows, but you know, here's the
deal with the Big Ten this year is that they
are a very talented team. They were in the final
four last year, one throw away from being in the
national title, and they bring everybody back, a lot of
guys that could have gone pro as mid round or
late round draft Picks decided to come back to state college.
They also added some of the best coordinators in the game,
some of the smartest brains in the room. I mean
Andykotelnecki calling the offense again. And now they stole Jim Knowles,
the defensive mastermind from Ohio State. Their rival plucked him
out of Columbus. So you're talking brain power, very veteran team,
first round grades everywhere, and then you're catching Ohio State
in Oregon as younger versions of themselves. So I like
Penn State. It's a really one year opportunity for them
to go get it, and this is their best shot.
So I'm gonna go Penn State as my national champion
number one to ender the season.
Speaker 1: Outstanding stuff, britt All right, Matthew, I'm gonna turn it
over to you for our final segment in the podcast.
Speaker 2: Oh but microphone time, what do you got for his Brett?
Speaker 3: The floor is here? Well open mic. I mean just
want to say thank you guys for having me again.
You know, I love talking acc with you guys. You
guys have been doing it the longest of anybody, So
great to be back on with you and looking at
this conference. Yeah, I mean I see it as a
two team race with Clemson in Miami. But it really
gets interesting for me is that next tier. I mean,
who is gonna come up and run and win the
third place battle or even break into that game in Charlotte.
I talked to Louisville, I talked Georgia. You could really
debate about Florida State having a big bounce back. They
brought in a great transfer Hall. I know that last
year was a fluky, weird season for them, after that
snub of twenty twenty three. I think they're going to
get back to bowl season, maybe even push seven eight
wins SMU can they find lightning in a bottle twice
in a row? Will lightning strike twice in a row?
Pittsburgh is a sneaky good team. Their linebacking corps is
one of the best in the country. They placed in
my top five linebacking groups. They call themselves the Sharks
great position group. You got to pay attention to them.
And I can't believe we went this whole episode twenty
minutes in and have not even talked about one of
the biggest storylines in the country of all football, not
just college but nfln college and that's Bill Belichick returning
to the college ranks. What a storyline in Chapel Hill.
I think that signal is just longer term vision for
them that they're going to invest all the resources needed
to really awaken what many call the sleeping giant of
college football. So I mean, yeah, we did a good
half hour. We could have done three hours. There's so
much to cover in this conference, but encourage you good
to check it out. Pick Sicks Previews dot com Pick
Sicks Previews for the book, I go in depth. It's
you knows as in depth as you could get on
all seventeen ACC teams. But thank you guys for the
great coverage. Your guests all year are great. I love
tuning in and you know, usually one guy per team.
It's great. So congrats to you guys getting them all
in and uh, you know, keep up the great coverage
for twenty twenty five. We'll see how these predictions shake
out come December.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Brett, Thank you so much. Bred
So for my open mic, Brett, I'm gonna ask you
a brief question, and I mean it's it's it's sort
of it's sort of funny to me, like today I
I don't know how I miss this, but I guess
it's easy to miss things in the transfer transfer portal era.
And it's why I'm thankful that I have your magazine, Brett,
because you keep on top of things. But how hard
is it to keep track on who goes where in
this era of the transfer portal, because I honestly had
no I hate to to say that I was today
years old when I learned that Marty Brown went to Miami,
you know, from DYSU. I hate to say that, and
I'm admitting that. I'm fully admitting that on an ACC podcast.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, it's really changed because think back to twenty twelve.
That's when I launched Pick six Previews, the magazine. Back
in twenty twelve, it was simpler times. We had the BCS,
we had something called the Big East and the Pac ten.
We still had regionality in the sport, and you didn't
have this transfer circus. What it really was was you
would look at the recruiting class and then if anybody
went pro early as a junior. I was rare back then.
But that's those are the two things. Otherwise, you had
your roster year to year. You really got to know
the players at your school, at your rival schools. Now
it's so scattered, you know, you don't even know the
players on your own team anymore if you're a fan,
even if you're a diehard fan. So that's the point
of the magazine is just to get everybody caught up.
It's a busy time in the summer to try and
learn about your team and all the opponents and really
the whole power for landscape. But I think you'll find
in the magazine it's very visually appealing. It's easy to rea.
No acronyms, no formulas like that. I mean, it's it's
written word right, it's narratives. I also have things in
there to help with the transfer thing. I have something
called the All Transfer Team, where you know, we know
the All America, the All ACC, but now an All
Transfer team to show you where are these top players
going within the ACC and elsewhere. And you'll see in
there teams like Miami and UNC and Florida State. They
really went hard in the portal and added a lot
of good players. So to answer your question, it is
complicated the preview magazine process tenfold since twenty twelve. But
I think in a sense it provides more value to
the reader because this is kind of your spark notes,
you know, catch up for the quiz, catch up for
the season exam, because I get you up to speed
pretty quick with the book. You definitely do, You definitely do.
Speaker 2: Jeff, You're.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, am I open Mike. This what we did
right here for the last half hour. You know, that
gets me excited and ready for the season, which is
only two weeks away from yesterday, week zero. But I
had to say, What's what's getting on my nerves here
the last few weeks is the constant realignment chatter that's
still going on. We know it's a part of the
game now, it's a business. We don't even I mean,
no one's gonna even on this ACC podcast. We don't
know what the ACC is gonna look like, you know,
at the end of the decade. But what I know
right now is it's this. We have the seventeen teams
plus the Notre Dame next this year, next year for sure.
And every time you know, an ad that comes out
and says, hey, we're gonna do you know what's best
for our program, which is some of the recent comments
by the North Carolina A d it doesn't necessarily mean
that there's a deal signed with the SEC or Big ten.
Of course, every AD is going to say that in
the ACC and that's what exactly they should do. They
should be looking out for their programs, their fan bases.
But we've seen it over and over again. If an A,
if if an AD in a conferences, we are absolutely
one hundred you know, gonna stay and we love you know,
this conference or that conference, then all of the realignment
accounts say, oh, it's just mixed direction. It's just a
smoke screen. That means they're leaving in five years. And
if they say we're going to do the best we can,
our focus is on our university, it means they're leaving
to you know, the season started, nobody's leaving right now.
We can we can pick it back up at the
for me, we can pick it back up at the
end of March madness and and and and dissect everything
in April and May uh and then you know, as
the summer gets going into August, kind of wind it
down again and when actual news comes out, you know,
we can we can we can focus on that. And
I mean these schools in ads, they as they should
be doing looking out for them schools in themselves. But
you know, we're still a little while away from teams moving.
So yeah, I'm kind of ready for it to be
toning down. I'm about to just just mute realignment on
my timeline feed so that it gets ignored here for
the next six months.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, it doesn't it bother you too that we're
so close to kickoff. Every year they do this, the
national media. They just keep bringing up playoff expansion and
conference expansion. It's like, all right, we do that in
February when there's nothing going on. But we have real
fall practices, fall camps, we got Week one spreads coming out.
We're in the season now, we don't have to do
these big topics. But it's almost like it's right on
que like we're about to enjoy the thing we love
college football season kicking off, and then they got to
rehash all these old debates, these old media deals. It's like,
you know, do that in January please.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I'm with you there, I'm with you there.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 2: I'll make one prediction before we go. Jeff and Brett
Marty Brown from Miami will be on one of the
All acc teams at the end of the year.
Speaker 3: I'm that confident. I'll keep an eye on him for sure.
Speaker 2: Okay, very good, Very good, Brett. Thank you so much
for joining the All Sports Discussion ACC podcast. We appreciated
you spending your Sunday night with us, and thank you
so much for joining us. We're all fired up for
college football to start.
Speaker 3: Oh of course, anytime, guys, and good luck to the
seventeen ACC teams out there, and we'll talk again soon.
Speaker 2: All right, thanks so much, have a great week, guys,