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Yes or No ... Is FSU Leaving The ACC? · Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott

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  Let's get right to it. Third hour of the Morning Show with Preston,
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  Scott, Grant Allen over there in Studio one A. I am here in
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  Studio one B Show forty nine eighty two raising a little support for the w
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  FLA Scholarship at the TCC Foundation. If you'd like to donate in celebration of
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  my upcoming five thousandth show, you can go to the blog page and learn
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  more. As promised, Joining us is Irash Chaffell. He is the managing
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  editor at war chant dot com. That's your go to when you want to
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  know what's going on with FSU athletics and Ira, good morning, how are
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  you? I'm great, Preston, how are you? I'm perplexed. And
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  that's why you, sir, are on the phone with me because in a
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  time when we probably ought to be talking more about FSU football's preseason, the
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  excitement, the recruiting, and we'll touch on that maybe as time allows,
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  I need your best explanation on what's going on with the potential titanic shift of
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  college athletics conference realignment. But I want to start with this first. There's
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  a story that's come out suggesting that FSU is considering working with JP Morgan Chase
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  on getting equity capital and forming an entity to an essence buy itself out of
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  the ACC. What do you know about this? Is there any fact or
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  truth to it? There's some truth to it. I don't know specifically if
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  it's if it's definitely the part about buying itself out of the ACC. The
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  reports from Sportco, which is actually a reputable outlet. They do a good
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  job covering sports and business and and I think they're pretty connected, um,
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  you know, in the college in the pro sport space. But they reported
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  that four State has begun um I guess early work with JP Morgan in terms
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  of the possibilities of doing some equity partnership. It would be a first in
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  college athletics. I don't believe any college athletic program has done that. I
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  have just talking to some people. You know, Four States got a lot
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  going on right now. Besides just trying to get out of the ACC,
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  which could cost a lot of money. They're also building that new indoor practice
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  facility, which part of that the new Sandaline football facility, which is going
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  to be financed, and then they're also got a huge ambitious uh endeavor renovating
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  do Campbell Stadium, where they're going to basically redo the whole thing, change
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  the seating, add more boxes, and that also is going to be a
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  project that has to be financed. So, uh, you know, Peter
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  Collins, who is the chair of the board of Trustees, is in that
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  industry, so it doesn't shock me that he's exploring all avenues. But as
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  far as we know, nothing's done yet. It's it's just sounds like more
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  exploratory. So if it's not to find resources to get FSU away from its
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  obligations with the ACC and the infamous media rights deal that you and I've talked
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  about previously, is this simply then to fund some of these other expenditures and
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  try to keep up with the other conferences without those revenue streams. I don't,
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  you know, I don't have a clear understanding it for sure. My
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  guess is it's it's kind of covering all your bases, trying to see what's
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  available, what possibilities are out there. You know, look, if Florida
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  State, the worst case scenario that people have thrown out some big numbers of
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  you know, if Florida State has to buy out of the the exit feed
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  plus the grant of rights from the ACC. People have thrown around numbers like
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  three hundred or four hundred even five hundred million dollars. I don't think Florida
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  State wants to pay the hundred and twenty million, which is just a flat
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  exit feed. So the idea of them spending three or four or five hundred
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  million dollars out of the conference, I don't think it is realistic. But
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  I think they want to know what their options are if they feel like they
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  have to make a move, because as we've talked about, as you said
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  in the past, floors State know and they made clear last week at the
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  Board of Trustees meeting, Floria State knows there's no future in the ACC,
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  so they have to figure out a way to get out of it. And
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  I think they just want to have all their options available. Last question before
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  we take a time out here. If FSU even begins to seriously talk about
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  this, in your opinion, Ira, do they run the risk of alienating
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  their boosters and their booster drive, because all of a sudden, you're talking
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  about dealing with people that are going to get a return on their investment versus
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  boosters that donate. I think there's definitely people have different motivations. Think there
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  are some people, some boosters who have set to Florida State lift if we
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  have to get out of the a SEC to compete nationally, and that's a
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  pretty much a given. You know, the Big Ten and the SEC are
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  going to be making those schools, University of Florida and schools and those conferences
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  are going to be making forty thirty to forty million dollars a year more than
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  Florida State would be making. So there are some donors who have already told
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  Florida State we will support that move. Now, whether it's enough to cover
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  one hundred billion dollars, probably not. And like you said, there might
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  be some fans who look at the NIL and they look at alignment, and
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  they look at all these things and think, this isn't the college football I
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  grew up on. This isn't the college football I want. But I think
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  more Florida State fans and supporters want to be successful and what Florida State have
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  the resources to do that. The Morning Drive version of an audio magazine and
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  keeping you company as you prepare for your day. It's The Morning Show with
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  Preston Scott tell Minutes past the Hour, I wish fell with us from Warchant
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  dot Com and IRA. As you look at the world of college athletics,
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  it seems like it's blowing up. Did it need to? I mean,
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  you know, as a guy who you know as love college football for forty
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  years, like like you and many other people, you wish it didn't.
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  But we all know that. You know, money's money, and money drives
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  things in the television networks, you know. I think what we've seen in
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  the television industry is that live sports rights is especially now with so many people
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  watching things on demand and not sitting through live broadcasts anymore. The only really
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  wait to get people to watch commercials is to through live sporting events. And
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  so that's why those rights have gone up so high, and you have demand,
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  and I think what you see right now is you know, ESPN,
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  but then also Fox and these other networks are doing everything they can to monopolize
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  as much of the market of live college sports rights as they can. And
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  so that's the pressure that's creating all of this dynamic. And once the Big
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  ten and the SEC expanded the way they did with the Big Ten going and
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  getting Southern cow and UCLA and the SEC going in get Texas and Oklahoma and
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  kind of creating the separation between the rest of the college football landscape. It's
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  only natural that these schools like Florida State and Oregon and some of these other
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  schools want their piece of the pot too, So, you know, like
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  a lot of things, money's money's driving in. Originally, when this talk
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  started to bubble up again as we approached the ACC meetings, and I want
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  to say sometime in the spring, we were hearing about kind of this group
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  of breakaway schools. It was FSU, Clemson, Miami, and then maybe
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  Virginia, Virginia Tech, maybe another school or two. But all of a
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  sudden, it seems like it's FSU and they're looking around going where did everybody
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  go? So what happened to that group? Well, I mean there's I
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  think there's two ways to look at it. North Carolina and NC State were
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  also and there also seven schools, And you know, I think from a
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  Florida State perspective of people I talked to an FSU were never certain how committed
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  any of those schools were. Like, Florida State has been very invested in
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  making a move, being aggressive, wanting to see what they can do,
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  a lot of these other schools talked about it, but I think Florida State
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  officials never felt confident who all would go. And there is strength in numbers,
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  because if you could get eight schools or more to decide to leave the
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  ACC, that could crumble the whole conference and maybe you don't know anything walking
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  out the door, which obviously would be huge for Florida States. So you
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  know that that that has always been the mindset. The question right now is
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  have any of those schools gotten cold feet or are they letting Florida State kind
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  of handle the front facing part of it, and are they still working behind
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  the scenes. And you know, the reality with a lot of this is
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  nobody knows what any if anybody's telling the truth. Colorado, for example,
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  just a couple of weeks ago, one day, their officials were in a
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  PAC twelve meeting and said they were all set, they were good to go
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  with the conference, and then the next day they announced they were leaving for
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  the Big twelve. So so if you know the fact that Clemson's not saying
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  anything, does that mean they're not interested or is that just how they're going
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  to go about it. The fact that the SEC sounds like they're not interested
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  in expanding right now, is that true? Or are they about to add
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  Florida State, Clemson and maybe some other schools. So that's part of the
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  problem is you don't know who to believe, and when they're talking, it
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  seems like you probably shouldn't believe what they're saying. Flat wfla fam dot com
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  on your phone with the iHeart radio app and on hundreds of devices like Alexa,
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  Google Home, Xbox, fin Zone, my Hearts radio station. Final
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  segment with Irish Chaffel of war Chant dot com as we talk at Shoe football
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  after leaving the discussion on conference, but before we officially put a cap on
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  that for now, Ira, if you had a vote, Big ten or
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  SEC, what would you pick? Oh, I would walk to the SEC.
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  I would walk to Birmingham and tell them that's where I want to be.
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  I mean, the Big ten money is great also, and there's you
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  know, to be there would be some cool experiences playing in a big house
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  and you know, the horseshoe or whatever. But I think the SEC would
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  be a great fit for Florida State. Florida State football. It seems like
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  not only did Mike Norvelle use the transfer portal once again to his absolute betterment
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  as a football coach, but he's now gaining traction recruiting. Let's talk about
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  kJ Molden. That's a big time get. He's a five star safety,
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  the number one safety in the country basically by all the recruiting rankings. Kid
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  out of the Atlanta area. Who they You know, this is one of
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  those things where it's good to be Florida State because he was when he was
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  a young athlete coming up going to youth camps when he was ten eight,
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  ten years old, one of the ones he came to every year was Florida
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  State and Jimbo Fisher's camp, and he loved the knolls and he's always loved
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  the Knowles. And then he ends up becoming this huge prospect, so huge
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  that everybody thought he was going to go to Alabama or Georgio or Ohio State.
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  In Florida State kind of came in and he just always loved the school,
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  loved Mike Dorvell, really likes the new defensive backs coach Patrick Surtan,
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  and Florida State wins out in a really a shocker. Now they have two
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  five star defensive backs who've committed the last two weekends, and that's it's a
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  big deal. It hasn't been Florida State hasn't melt a recruit like that out
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  of the high schools in a long time. Well, what's interesting to me
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  is it marks to me the transition to the new game where you're not just
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  getting transfers that want to play and can play at that level, but you're
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  now getting that with the high school recruit recruiting. Norval's got the secret sauce
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  right now. Yeah, I mean that was definitely his hope was that,
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  you know, they could flip the roster with those transfers like you said,
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  you know, over the last two or three years, Jermaine Johnson to Jared
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  First, Trey Benson and Johnny Wilson and all the rest, And then the
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  hope was that, Okay, once you have success in the field, now
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  you'll be able to commence some of these high school stars to invest in Florida
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  State and believe in the program. And now you're seeing it. Their class
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  right now is number four in the country. It's they got a legitimate chance
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  to finish with the top five recruiting class. And again you're going back till
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  well into the Jimbo Fisher years before, since the last time Florida State was
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  able to do that. FSU fans want the old days back as best they
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  can. They want the attacking defense of Mickey Andrews. They want the high
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  flying offense of the Bobby Bowden years. Um. In your mind, what's
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  the most exciting thing that you want to that you're looking forward to seeing this
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  year? Uh, you know, I think I'm really uh eager to see
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  if this defensive line can be what you know, there's a chance that could
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  be. Um. You know, even last year, you know, Florestate
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  was much better defensively, but I thought a lot of the problems was they
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  weren't very good against the run. And when they you know, we saw
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  it late in the year, Florida ran the ball on them. Oklahoma ran
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  the ball on them, wake Forest comes in. You know, any decent
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  offense ran the ball on them last year. And um, part of that
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  was because of injuries. You know, Fabian Lovett was injured a lot.
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  Uh, you know, a lot of their defensive linemen were banged up.
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  Jared Versus was banged up. Uh, this year, they're they're deeper.
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  They brought in those transfers Braden Fisk and Darryl Jackson who's still waiting on his
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  waiver um. But those two guys and then also Gilbert Edmond defensive end,
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  they're a lot bigger and stronger on the defensive front. And if that group
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  can be like great Florida State lines. I don't think it's going to be
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  an all time great defensive line. It's not going to be like the nineties
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  with Ballwear and Wilson and those guys. But if it could be better than
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  it's been, that's a big deal. Because this team has just about everything
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  else you could want. True or false, by the end of September will
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  know what FSU has as a football team. True. I think that's true.
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  Yeah, I think there is an experienced team. This is a very
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  you know, sometimes you think if you have a big game or early like
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  they do, or you've got LSU early and then you've got Clemson, that
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  oh, you might win that game, but then have a falloff where you
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  might lose that game and lose the season. This seems like a very mature,
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  experienced professional team. So I think you're going to see them come out
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  strong and can maintain. I don't think you're going to see this team be
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  a team that is up and down from week to week. We'll get to
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  the individual games as we get closer to the season and preview them each week,
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  Gira, But I'm just curious, do you think they split those two
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  games Clemson and I will shoot, do you think they win them both?
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  I think they've got a legit chance to win them both. If I was
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  putting money in Vegas, I'd probably say split. Um, you know,
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  Like, I just think it's hard to win at Clemson, you know,
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  and I think Florida State has got a huge advantage at quarterback with Jordan Travis
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  and his experience. I think this is a team that can go win at
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  Clemson. But a lot of really good teams at Florida's State have struggled to
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  Clemson. And that's going to be a really good defense. So if I
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  had to right now, I would say they probably split them, But I
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  wouldn't put a lot of money out. I think there's a there's a chance
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  they win both. Ira. Thanks is always looking hard to the to the
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  coverage all season long onwarchand dot com and Thanks for the visit This morning,
• 15:46
  same here at thanks pressing