ACC Slate Provides Perspective for UNC - IC Daily | Inside Carolina | College Football

0:00Welcome in the icy day, Thursday, September 3rd. That's Greg Barnes. I'm Tommy Ashley. Shout out Johnny T-shirt. Johnny T-shirt is our sponsors. As always, go see him on Franklin Street. Get your football gear. Might be some new gear around the area to get in the next couple of weeks with North Carolina football. I want to talk a little football today. It was Water Wall basketball yesterday for Carolina and Greg Barnes and in Sao Carolina, Sheryl and Millen. Of course, we did shows on that. We'll do shows plenty more on that. But Greg, I want to ask you an interesting take. We talked about expectations on the basketball side, but does one win warrant expectations sort of really going up on the football side? I don't want to be Debbie Downer. There's a thread about that at the message board. But we've seen Carolina, they beat TCU very good win for North Carolina. Now the expectations have really crept up, relatively speaking, a couple days later. I remember Dean Smith said, I went to National

1:04Championship that made me a better coach. I'm not a better coach today than I was yesterday. It's Carolina that much better a football team based on the TCU win and not just nationally, not just internally, but in the ACC. Yeah, I think a lot of it really kind of depends on perspective and expectation. And to go along with your Dean Smith comments there, it's really the idea that things are never as good as they look at times and things are never as bad as they look at times. And I think there's some honesty there. But really what you're trying to do at this point of the season is to find some type of boundaries in terms of ceiling and floor. And coming into the year, knowing what we knew about last year, right? Just think about it not from the vantage point of us as UNC specific reporters or the fan base, you know, being in the weeds with all

2:07that the Carolina information on a day-to-day basis. But just from a regional or national observation where you're just checking in, you want every couple weeks just to kind of figure out who's left the team, you still own the team, there's types of things. There was never a lot of reason to expect North Carolina to make a significant jump this year from that vantage point. Because of what happened last year. I mean, North Carolina was a bit of a mess last year at 4-8 against the week schedule. So you extrapolate that and you say, okay, well, they brought in you know, Billy Edwards and Miles O'Neill at quarterback. I mean, they're solid, you know, good potential, but they haven't. You've shown that they can lead a elite program. And then you look at the talent base coming in. There's a lot of young guys. So was there reason to expect North Carolina to take this big jump? And I think that's how

3:09most people viewed North Carolina coming into the year. And so what you, the floor for what a lot of people thought was going to be 4-8 or 3-9, kind of at a minimum. And if things didn't take place in a positive light and traverse a positive trajectory this offseason, it could really get bad fast given the schedule. And what that TCU game does is it shows that hey, from last year there has been significant progress. Now, the question is how much progress? And we've talked a lot about the talent levels, not where it needs to be. You know, to really be able to push for a CFP game, not really to compete with, you know, Notre Dame in Miami, on an annual basis at this point in time. But it is better than maybe what it was last year. And so we're just trying to kind of piece things

4:10along, piece things together. And more than anything, I think the TCU game showed that hey, North Carolina was able to play in a complicated game with weather, with, you know, one possession game pretty much the entire length of the way against a quality opponent. And I know a lot of people are saying now that TCU is just bad. I disagree with that. I think they're going to be fine. I don't know that there'll be top 25, but they're pretty good. I think they'd be competitive in the ACC, you know, for the top five. And because of that, we should have an understanding that North Carolina, if a lot of these things go right, they can win a number of games this year. Now, what does that mean? Well, we don't know enough right now. I projected, you know, six and six to start the year. Maybe they can get the seven games, seven wins. But that's what the course of the season will tell us. But I think more than anything, the projections coming into the year suggested that North Carolina

5:14wasn't going to be able to make a massive step forward. And the TCU game has shown that definitely the program has taken a step forward, we just don't know to what extent quite yet. Yeah, it was a good answer to a convoluted question. I mean, we're all a prisoner of the moment sometimes. And when something really good happens, we go overboard, when something really bad happens, we go underboard, you know what I mean? And so I feel like listening to the national pundits, I think what they've been doing, and I could be wrong. And this is up for discussion, folks from the Special and Messes Board. Is it feels like they're setting Carolina up again to, you know, something bad happens. They're like, oh, yeah, we were right all along. The Greg, in relation to the ACC, and I think this is why the improvements important because I don't think the ACC is great. But this weekend, starting tonight, Thursday night, we get to see all the ACC teams play. And if you're a

6:14football junkie, you can watch ACC football five straight days here. I think this is where, and granted, you never know until they play each other, but this is where we can learn more about Carolina's performance by watching the rest of the teams in the conference and start tonight. There's some good ones. Colorado Georgia Tech, Akron Wake Forest, kick it off. I think next week heading into East Tennessee State, and certainly in two weeks after the Clemson game will know more. But I think this weekend could be pretty enlightening for Carolina fans, and Carolina's not playing. Absolutely. And you look at last weekend, the fun thing about the Carolina game is you had that as the first game, but then you immediately got to watch NC State and Virginia. And just because of the rivalry ties and those kind of things that made that an interesting game. You watch that game and you're thinking, all right, Virginia's got some dudes up front. They've got a full fledged Russian attack with a quarterback transfer from Missouri.

7:22And NC State, like we've seen a lot to start the year for Dave Doran, just we're not ready to play. And I think initial thoughts are that Virginia's a lot better maybe than people gave him credit for and NC State's not going to be in good. And again, that goes back to perspective and understanding what these programs do because Dave Doran has a long track record of underperforming in season openers against P4 opponents. He just does. And they've lost some really bad games that way over the years. And then he figures it out and they end up having a pretty decent year. And by the time they play in North Carolina, they're they're ready to go. And that is a competitive game. And as everybody knows, that's been a tough one for North Carolina to win of late. So you can't read too much into what we saw, but it does give you a baseline. And to your point, I mean, you've got not just the

8:26games tonight. I think the Georgia Tech one will be a good one to see what they look like in the you know, the post Haynes King era. But Miami Stanford Friday, Stanford is one of the few teams that was picked below North Carolina and the preseason pole. Does Miami just throttle them? Or do we see some more more crystal ball magic and the ends up being a closer game than it should be? And then you get into Saturday, Pittsburgh. We've seen them win games. They probably shouldn't win. And we've seen them lose games. They shouldn't lose. Miami of Ohio is a solid opponent coming out of the Mac. So that that'll be fun. We'll get to watch my buddy, Norge Z. He played that one since Nadi Boston College. Boston College not supposed to be in good. We'll see how that plays out. And then of course, you got Clemson LSU, which just for the soap opera drama aspect of that will be a fun watch. But with North Carolina's next big game being at Clemson in a couple of weeks, that's one that a lot of people should be watching because that will tell us, you know, is this a team

9:30that can go down to Death Valley and compete with Clemson? As Clemson fallen off their perch, we know how they played last year. Was it very good? Are they any better this year? And so you just look at it as a whole and we have a pretty good understanding of what North Carolina is right now. But come Monday night when that SMU Florida State game wraps up. I think we'll have a much better understanding of how the ACC shapes up and where North Carolina fits within that framework. Insurance says it's on one side's fits all. That's why drivers have enjoyed Progressive's Name Your Price Tool for years now. With the Name Your Price Tool, you tell them what you want to pay and they'll show you options that fit your budget. So whether you're picking out your first policy or just looking for something that works better for you and your family, they'll make it easy to see your options. Visit Progressive.com, find a rate that works for you with the Name Your Price Tool. Progressive casualty, Insurance and Company and Affiliates, Price and Coverage Match Limited by State Law. Yes, some fascinating games. Louisville,

10:33oh miss. I mean, SMU Florida State, I would think that game being at Doat Campbell, that's Mike Norville. I mean, at some point, regardless of a buyout, you got to be coaching for your job and a good gracious man. We need agents like that, don't we? I can't be terrible and you still owe me several or a lot of millions of dollars if you want to get rid of me of all these games. And obviously the big name ones or must watch if you're a football fan, especially an ACC fan. But which ones would you look at the most? I tend to look at, you mentioned Pittsburgh, Carolina has to play them, Syracuse plays New Hampshire. I guess that's New Hampshire. Carolina has to play them. Those are the type games like VMI and Virginia Tech. I don't really care about Carolina, I don't have to play Virginia Tech. Of those that I've listed out, maybe off the wall a little bit, which ones are you going to be paying attention to the most? And what do you want to see from the conference standpoint? I mean, we talk about watching NC State and going up against

11:38those gray beards that Virginia offensive line. That was always going to be enjoyable if you're a North Carolina fan. But these games here, the Greg Barnes watch list for folks heading into the weekend. It's a good question. And certainly when you look at North Carolina schedule, you're looking at which games can North Carolina win? Which ones are they going to be competitive in? Something like you're too lazy to do because I think is a good one because how does the San Jose State quarterback hold up for Duke? With everything that transpired with Daryen Mensa, last second, and leaving Durham. But I think really for me, after what we saw against TCU, I feel okay about the floor. And I know that North Carolina should be competitive in games with Duke. And they should be competitive against Pittsburgh and should beat Syracuse, right? But it's not so much about the floors as it's about the ceiling. And when we go through the

12:42preseason picks that we did a couple weeks ago, I think everybody was in agreement in agreement that North Carolina was not good enough to be expected to beat a Miami or another day, right? But then that second tier was Louisville and Clemson. And the expectation probably is that North Carolina is going to be a pretty good underdog in both of those games. But if things turn out right in North Carolina is better than expected, it may be Clemson and Louisville are not as good as expected. Well, now all of a sudden, those can be competitive games. And if you can win one of those games, well, now things will look up quite dramatically. And so it is for me that the Clemson LSU game to see what Clemson looks like, you know, or they are they back to having a very good defense like they had years ago intervinaples or these days over. The new quarterback, what's his name is any, is he any better than

13:43K club neck, who I didn't think was very good as a college quarterback. If he's not much better, and the defense is not significantly better, maybe that's a game that North Carolina can still end up in. And then kind of the same with Louisville, Ole Miss, they're going to come out, they're going to be explosive. They're supposed to be pretty solid this year. Can Louisville be competitive with the rebels? And if the answer is no, or it's just a sloppy game and Louisville does it, does it look as solid as they have it, Tom's and recent years, well, then maybe, you know, halfway through the season, that's a game where North Carolina they continue to develop, can potentially win that game. So those are the ones I'm more interested in than opposed to the the games against the middling aspect of the ACC, because if Carolina is losing those games, then this is not going to be a very good year regardless. But can this be a special year,

14:45and when I say special, I'm not talking CFP, I'm just talking about securing a winning record in really setting the team up for a big jump going into 2027. Yeah, I thought you were going to go into what the scroll says at the bottom. I'm overreacting to a good win. It is, yeah, it's, if you're a college football fan, and I very much am, there's it. There's a lot of watch this weekend, a lot of ACC football watch, that the Labor Day highlights of the ACC, I think we'll find out as much about Carolina this weekend as we will, these other teams watching, and it'll be a good lead in to East Tennessee State next weekend for North Carolina. That's Greg Barnes. I'm Tommy. Actually, shout out as always, JohnnyTShirt, JohnnyTShirt.com, support them, get 10% off. If you're a premium member, you got a couple more days to get the 75% off deal for inside Carolina's premium subscriptions, just do it. It's worth every penny. Greg, we'll talk tomorrow. Sounds good. Thanks Tommy.