goheels1812

Man I really thought J’Den was going to be the one to get Snyder over the years too. He did such a good job of forcing Snyder to continue to adapt and improve each cycle. Hats off to a hell of a career for J’Den. I’m going to miss seeing him compete, but nothing beats fatherhood. I’m glad he will get to invest fully in that in his next chapter.

Sounds great! Thanks for the update. And no worries at all- totally my fault for absence on the board for an extended time. I’ll plan to join back next year if the spots fill. I’ll check back tomorrow and see.

Hey everyone- sorry for the delay. Life has been busy with young kids! I’m happy to join if you all need another. I’m available Sunday at 1, but totally understand if you’ve already filled all slots.

Anyone else think that ref was reallyyyyyy late on starting the danger count against Lovett? Seemed like a solid 4+ seconds, but the ref was pretty behind getting into position. Great match though!

Wish I could like this post more than once. I’ve watched a lot of BA matches over the past few years and you just have to take those results with a grain of salt. He’s so damn fun to watch, but it can also get kind of random with results and how the matches are dictated.

It was Vince Zurban, who ended up having a nasty NCAA tourney run and being an All American. He gave Austin O’Connor a tough match in the first round too. Good comparison though because I think Cardenas will probably AA so similar situation. Edit: whoops, Zurban lost in the blood round. I thought he AA’d on the backside for some reason. Still had a nice tourney though.

Stanford with a heck of a showing today. Cardenas was ready for everything Shapiro had to offer.

Shoutout to McNeil for taking out the tournaments trash.

Well…. That’s what they are lol. They are throwback singlets. But were actually worn by the team and not rejects

Shapiro looked like an animal against BA. The only thing I’d say to keep in mind is BA has historically had a hard time in tournament formats. His style is elite for duals because he can spend it in 7 minutes and put on a show. Tournaments…. Well, not so much haha. He starts running out of steam pretty quickly as matches go on. I’m really interested to see Shapiro in these upcoming matches. If he runs through Cardenas/Teemer/Robb or Lewan, there’s a solid chance he runs the table in March.

I’m halfway playing devils advocate here. But gambling and jay walking isn’t even an apple to oranges comparison. It’s apples to elephants. There’s a reason why the NFL and other professional organizations have a no tolerance policy as well (remember Calvin Ridley missing an entire season in a sport where the average career lasts about 3 years?). There are *infinite* opportunities for defrauding a billion dollar industry if you have folks betting from the inside. When I wrestled at UNC, I had a lot of classes with other sports players. I was really close with a couple cornerbacks on the football team and my suite mate was a walk on basketball player. I knew things going on with those teams days and weeks before the public. See where this could be a problem? I could bet a line with information that hasn’t been made public yet. I loathe the NCAA. They do so much wrong. But a no gambling period rule is somewhat reasonable. Now we can argue all day long if the punishment was too much, but I get the reasoning at least.

I’m not going to lie, I came into this expecting to click his thread and feel bad for him and think it was ridiculous. Then I got to the part where he said “yeah I knew the rules. I didn’t attend the meeting. I just did it anyways because it’s not a huge deal” and he lost any sympathy I was going to give him. That’s a good PR example of how not to explain your situation to the public.

Dake’s style at the world level has become increasingly more agitating. And it’s why magic man has surpassed him. Anyone who’s ever watched Dake in his career knows he can do so much more offensively. But he’s content to try and win every match against a competent opponent 3-0 while hugging his opponents in chest wraps as often as he can. I have no idea why he’s decided to pigeonhole himself into that. Meanwhile, DT says I’m going to pour it on anyone, anywhere as much as I want to. I wish Dake would start wrestling with that mindset.

Damn. Was really hoping Kid Dynamite could take out Sidakov. Seemed like Sidakov was very well prepared for the chest wraps….

My hopes are pretty high too. It took him 2 years to put together the 2nd highest rated recruiting class in the country at Stanford. He knows how to get kids to come (or as he says he recruits the parents and the kids will follow).

I think we are just viewing this a lot differently. UNC football may not be a “needle mover” nationally, but neither are 75% of the other teams in the B10. You keep talking about the UNC beatdowns incoming if they move, but outside of Michigan and Ohio State I’m not sure where you’re finding those games. Maybe Penn State? They seem to win a lot of very close games though. Didn’t the B10 want UCLA? Is that a massive football powerhouse? No, it’s a damn good brand though. We are talking about a team that’s yearly football attendance is right at 40,000. I watched Nebraska play Minnesota last night and I’m positive UNC would hang 45 points on both of those teams (now our defense may also give up 45 points… but I digress on that yearly catastrophe). I’ve also seen some internal and external data about the individual team value to the ACC and have a high level of confidence that Florida State does very well financially. Dozens and dozens of lawyers have also analyzed that data and come to the same conclusion. Florida state in a disappointing year is still selling out games against Wake Forest and Boston College (see last year). Those teams aren’t doing them any favors with attendance and revenue generation. Here’s financial data from 2018 (when Florida State was terrible) showing that they make the 13th most money of any college in America and are right on par with Florida (144 million vs 149 million): https://www.tampabay.com/sports/florida-gators/2018/06/28/usa-today-florida-gators-fsu-among-15-richest-college-programs-in-the-country/?outputType=amp. We can definitely revisit this in a few years but if Florida State, Clemson, and UNC are still in the ACC something crazy will have happened. It’s definitely going to be an interesting ride.

I’ll also throw in that he said in his intro press conference that before any of this happened, he and his wife were looking for a home in North Carolina once he retired. He basically said Palo Alto is too expensive to live after retirement unless you’re a tech employee. It seems like NC is a popular place to wind down your career and retire (Mack Brown is doing the exact same thing with the football program). Probably because you have beaches, mountains, and all 4 seasons of weather in one state (not always hot and not always cold).

Whoops I work in the medical field so let’s just go with my phone autocorrected lol

I agree with most of your points, but your initial premise is partially incorrect. This is all about money and revenue sharing, which football is the main driver of. We can sit here and laugh all day about how bad Florida State has been the past decade, but it’s irrefutable they bring money to the table. And a lot of it. They are absolutely peeved that they have to equally share the same amount of revenue with schools like Boston College and Wake Forest, who don’t bring anything to the table financially. This is being worked on by the ACC, but still hasn’t been solved yet because why would BC and Wake and similar schools be willing to give up money they were initially guaranteed? Meanwhile your money workhorses in the SEC will make 30-40 million dollars more in revenue sharing. They can use that money to totally leave behind the ACC in every sport in the era of NIL. B10 and SEC schools will make double what ACC schools make in 10 years if nothing changes. It’s a crappy hand that was forced when the conference realignment carousel kicked off last year. Will UNC get crapped on by Michigan and Ohio State football? Sure, probably. I’m not sure how that’s much different than the ACC arrangement though. UNC is a perineal 8-4 team and that wouldn’t really change in the B10. Our games against OSU and Mich will look like our games against Clemson. But what UNC does bring is ridiculous brand power which = money. That’s really what all this conference moving junk is about. Im with you though, I yearn for the day of going back to regionally based conferences and not super conferences.

Yup! I’ve heard that too. My dad worked directly with several different AD’s at Wake Forest my entire life so he knows a ton of people in the athletic offices at Wake, UNC, Duke, and NC State. Last I talked to him he said that he was hearing State will always prefer to stick with UNC first and foremost (due to the natural rivalry and long term history there). But he also said if push comes to shove State will look out for themselves first so the b12 is 100% in play for them.

I’ve been privy to a few conversations with various school officials about realignment and I have a pretty high level of confidence this will be a long-term disaster for the ACC. I’ll try to keep this somewhat short and concise. The thinking from some of the bigger brands in the ACC (FSU, Clemson, and UNC) is that this is completely detrimental to the conference. There are a large number of reasons such as: geography is not ideal for most sports other than football (imagine being a tennis player and needing to fly from Florida to California for one match during a rigorous week of class) and the schools invited don’t bring anywhere near the value needed to compete with the big 10 and SEC in revenue sharing. From what I’ve heard from people involved in these conversations is there is a high level of confidence that Florida State, Clemson, and UNC will be looking to leave the ACC in the near future. Basically as soon as they can justify paying their way out of the GoR. FSU damn near already did that this year. All 3 of those schools were *vehemently* opposed to the new schools joining. NC State was originally opposed, but ended up being swayed to vote “yes” in the end. What’s left of the ACC in 3, 5, 7 years etc. is anyone’s guess. Right now it looks like it will be more of a mid-major conference with schools like Cal, Stanford, Boston College, Georgia Tech, Louisville, Wake Forest, etc. leading the way. Those schools can’t bring in anywhere near the revenue to compete with the B10, SEC, or even the B12 financially. I’ve also heard that Duke and NC State will want to follow UNC if at all possible. FSU and Clemson will try to get into the SEC and UNC will try to get into the B10. This is going to be a story that continues to develop over the next 3-5 years, but I would be absolutely shocked if by 2030 the ACC looks anywhere close to how it looks today.

UNC hasn’t had a decent heavyweight since Cory Daniel (circa 2015-2019)… Neves following Koll to UNC wouldn’t surprise me here. It’s a major roster need.

For what it’s worth, Ramos is going to be staying with the UNC staff (for now). Learning from a coach on the mat (Coleman) and now getting to learn from a CEO (Koll) may end up being the best thing to ever happen to him in the long run. He’s going to see the best of both worlds and get to apply unique aspects of each style to create his own way of coaching. On another note, here’s Koll’s first presser at UNC for anyone interested. He discusses being the CEO type coach of a program. I was pretty interested in his take on program building and especially recruiting. A good quote from him is “if you have 3 things to do, 2.5 of them are always recruiting.” I cannot wait to see what he does with recruiting at UNC. I’m also thankful we have an AD and Chancellor so invested in all athletic programs. I was surprised to hear our AD cold called Rob about the position… That tells me that UNC knew who they wanted immediately. Lots of interesting tidbits from how this all transpired. Link: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CwnyV2CNMsL/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

I feel terrible for the staff/wrestlers at Stanford. I also feel terrible for Tony Ramos, who is a great coach and an even better person. I can imagine how crushing this hire must feel. But as a Tar Heel it’s hard not to feel all kinds of excited about this. I personally had the feeling that the only coach I’d want over Ramos would be Koll. Our program could really use a CEO type coach as a guide right now (especially with the ACC also teetering on conference realignment). I fully expect fundraising and recruiting to improve dramatically in short order. I may be ahead of myself, but I’m thinking by 2025-2026 UNC will be right back in the thick of things in the ACC with NC State and VT and hopefully competing somewhere in the top 10 nationally on a consistent basis.

Right, and the bolded text is exactly why I think UNC should be more competitive as a team in the ACC. There are no penn states, Iowa, etc. to compete with. There’s not a reason why 4 (arguably 5 if you want to throw in the revolving door at 133) weight classes should be uncompetitive in the ACC. The reason why UNC does well in the metric you provided is because of O’Connor if we really want to get right down to it. His points for being a national champion move UNC from finishing in the 20-30 range to finishing 12th. Unc was 6-9 in duals last year and lost to App State for the first time in program history. They also lost 21-11 to Pitt. I’m not sure how one can argue from a team standpoint everything is in ok shape. UNC *heavily* supports non-revenue sports so I don’t believe it’s a university support issue.