Welcome to the A. C. C. Panic room alongside Longden Brownlow. I'm jane obvious Brownlow. I'm actually in the my brothers. I don't even know what to call it. It's like his aerospace engineering layer right? I'm hitting here in florida for thanksgiving and I thought I had experienced some wild moments on some of the roller coasters I've been on at universal like the loss of coaster where you experience some weightlessness at some time in some inversions, some nuttiness and you come out of it going what the hell did I just experience? What what's the rocket? The music one at universal that the rip rocket, they shut that down when I was there one time for wind and I was like you're insane if you think I'm writing a thing that they just have to shut down for wind. Never. You know, you know was wilder than that. The N. C. State north Carolina game that just wrapped up at carter Finley stadium. That look we've seen some insane things between these two teams over the last 20 some odd years right? But to C. N. C. State come back in this game when a lot of people including myself between you and me and our text messages had this thing pretty much wrapped in the third quarter. I mean to me and said it's a wrap actually I think I sent you that text in the second quarter. Yeah which I was also like come on. Maybe. No but mainly because I've seen this movie before but the one thing on the other side of the movie. This is what happens when you combine franchises right? It gets a little confusing to stay true to who everybody is you and see does that all the time too. This is true but I actually I actually thought earlier on the N. C. State okay but I feel like we have to like to start from the beginning here with how this all played out. N. C. State had two blocked punts. One of them ended up as that scoop and score. The other one ended up as a first down for north Carolina. You don't see that very often actually thought one of the bigger turning points in the game was a mecca amazes missed hit the ball go right through his hands. I think it was a third down conversion. That would have been thrilled but you would expect to get it. It was and um easy ends up making the great catch at the end to win this whole thing. So there's redemption on that end. But there were little things here and there where I thought N. C. State could just put north Carolina way just stand put a stamp on it even though north Carolina has made a habit of making comebacks in the fourth quarter. But they let north Carolina hang around and on top of that you saw north Carolina getting breaks too. Uh We mentioned the the punt right? The black punt there was also you know the first down that ended up happening where I think well it knows you have guys that you don't hear from all season long right? So you could argue that you shouldn't have, well we'll get to that in a second we'll get to that in a second because I'm with you on that. So you guys you haven't heard from all your longer having big games was this Olsen kid has this huge touchdown? You're just thinking of like you know what north Carolina is just getting the breaks that occurred at Finley Stadium and as the state's gonna have another one of these moments instead it was N. C. State getting all the breaks which you don't see all that often and they come out with the win. And I would argue this was probably dave Dorn's biggest win bigger than the Clemson game earlier this year for a lot of narrative purposes which we can get to in a second. Right? Yeah. I mean I think that that's there's some truth to that. Um Certainly the way it played out I think we all agree that if they just beat them in a fairly routine game we wouldn't be saying that. Um But look I mean I've I've told you I've said this to this space before. Like I think N. C. State under door and the program is just to be matured a ton in the last two years like last year and this year and I know that you know I know they've taken some losses that they'd rather not have taken and I get it but at the same time like they just keep bouncing back, they never let one loss turn into two. Even in games they keep fighting. And so like to me that matters. And north Carolina right now has no idea how to do things like that. Really. If they have one guy does he can't win it by himself. He tried, he tried he really tried and I know there was I saw some of this on my timeline where it was now. Now, N. C. State fans know how north Carolina fans felt when Russell Wilson was doing some insane things, right, Sam how was carrying that team on his back? And to your point, I know you had tweeted this out earlier where Sam how season did not go the way that a lot of people anticipated. Not even he could anticipate, right? But he never actually back down. If anything he only worked harder. And if you don't come away from this regular season without more respect for Sam how I'm not quite sure what you watched. If you watch north Carolina football this year, If you want to pick on the coaching staff, if you want to get on Mack Brown, fine, you're well within your rights to do so. But as far as Sam Howell's game. I know there was a point earlier this season where he was not living up to the expectations if you tuned out after that. It was pretty early if you tuned out after that you missed out on a hell of a regular season by Sam Howell my respect has only gone up for him. NFL GMS may tend to make bad decisions here and there and we all understand that. I find it very hard to believe that once they sit down and look at the totality of how all season that he's going to take as much of a hit as they're acting like he's going to. I'm just saying I'm with you know I mean I don't know what we're not that different You know they're really not and he's rushing to the equation like just out of nowhere he had less than 200 yards total of his career before. The sheer like the dude he was just trying to ball out as much as he could and you know it's a little bit difficult when your own lines suspect at times. Although I thought they mostly played pretty well in this game which I was not expecting. Yeah I thought they did. I thought their defense did. I thought their defense stepped up. I thought there I thought their offense adjusted after N. C. State was smothering them early on in this game. But again flip side of that where N. C. State also was down on themselves and you thought that north Carolina was absolutely taking it to them. But it follows a Dave Doeren. It's been following Dave Doeren since last season. You can track this all the way back to last season where there have been a very resilient group and you mention it they don't necessarily allow things to get to them more than once sometimes even within the game. So they stuck with it and stuck with it. I know Dave Doeren said after the game that the onside kick wasn't necessarily a lesson learned from the Wake Forest game. I don't buy that. I'm sure that's in the immediacy of it. But I felt like lessons had been learned from the wake forest game because they waited for that football across the 10 yards rather than being just that half second early. Like we saw in the wake forest game a while back. But I wanted I wanted to highlight this more than anything else. And kind of get to my point about why this win for Dave Doeren was bigger than the win against Clemson. And a lot of it had to do with the way that Joran had talked about this team and the program over the last two years and the word respect right or disrespect. And I think the week leading up to this game Julia and I talked about this the mask was off. We can actually now with the game week against north Carolina. Talk about what this is really what all of this was about. It's about Mack Brown recruiting and the television. Absolutely loving north Carolina right while they've had a good story themselves. So you spent all season long building this talking point to get to this game against north Carolina while they're having a down season. And you can absolutely make the emphatic point crystal clear about how that program isn't so far ahead of you as a program and what you've built at NC State. But you have to do that with a win. Now the game ends up being a wild one and a lot of I think a lot of people have to go back and delete their tweets after some of the things that they were saying earlier in this game about David Jordan, the coaching staff and anything else. But that's neither here nor there. The point is they won the game and dramatic fashion and maybe in the way that they wanted, it proves a larger point that David Dorn has a program that buys into what he's trying to do with this resiliency. So with the win, three years into the Mack Brown tenure, you show it's cool that you get all this publicity, but you still can't get over on us despite the fact that you've got this generational guy and sam how quarterback, you've got all these four and five star recruits and you've got the backing of all the people who thought you were going to be a top 10 team, right. We still managed to beat you. That's an important thing for Dave Dorn. And what turns what could have been a good season with missed opportunities into what could actually be a very great season with a bowl win potentially. That gets 10 wins. He didn't lose at home. All these things. Mississippi State was a disappointment. I get that they had an opportunity to win the atlantic division against Wake Forest. It looks like Wake. We see what happens against boston College. We're recording this before saturday's game. All these things still check the boxes off for a great season and you gotta come away just being impressed by what George has done this year. Well, let me say this to Candace, Cooper and I hosted your show on friday or well not friday, whatever. The last day, Wednesday, it's Wednesday. And one thing we both agreed on wholeheartedly was like, all right, listen, okay, State and wait, one of y'all can't do this this year. Stop complaining about your division. None of us want to hear it anymore. Nobody. Yes. By the way, what you place a place to coastal teams, right. One of the coastal teams beat them. The other one arguably should have. So let's not pretend like you would definitely fare much better in another league. Would it be easier to win the league. Yes, but you take more else possibly. We just don't know. And so, you know, that's all I'm saying. And so kudos to them for doing what they need to do, taking care of business. They have not Clemson out of this equation correct. Like Clemson's done now. Clemson has done. So there you go columbus it is done. We'll see what happens against boston college because again, and he stayed still in the possibility of winning the atlantic division now about north Carolina. I really don't know how else to put it. That was the cherry on top of a terrible sunday melted sundae for matt brown this season. And I know that earlier in the year, he talked about, we all put us in the top 10. No, no no, no, no, no, no, no, no. This this was a year in which you were supposed to break through with Sam. How you don't get a guy like that every time, drake may might be a really, really good quarterback, but I think you might look back on the Sam how years and wonder what could have been while we're while we're drawing parallels. You know, I think it's the state fans still feel that way a lot about, you know, moving on that where they feel that way about Russell Wilson, where they went up against Maryland and ended up losing that game as a missed opportunity. Point being there's no other way to spin this season for north Carolina other than bad straight up bad. They miss the mark. They did not meet expectations. This completely recalibrate how you look at that program going forward. Yes, they can get the recruits. Yes, they're gonna get the publicity. But they actually haven't shown you anything yet that they can be believed as an actual contender. They might do that one day. I'm simply saying that hopefully this is a lesson for people to look more skeptically at this kind of stuff going forward. But why I say this makes it even worse. This one's going to hang for a bit. Because did you see the wind probabilities? I was watching the game of my brother and his friends were all section around. Did you? What made me think of that, of that roller coaster at universal. The one that has that huge drop. Yes, was shut down for your wind because that is what that drop looks like. Here's the here's the here's the win probability that ended up showing up on the ESPN app. Right? Look at that roller coaster drop. Oh my God, Seriously, that's that. I don't I don't know if there's an inversion there or not, but regardless, North Carolina was at 99.9% win probability, 99.9% win probability. When you saw that highest peak. And then obviously, you know, the rest of the story, you know, records are you have that stat. Well, here's what I was going to say. Here's, here's the other stat. This is from ESPN stats and information. Let me pull this up on the, on the screen share here. This is when I saw this. I had to read it a couple of times because I didn't I didn't quite understand the gravity of this but N. C. State trailed by nine with 2 12 left to play in the fourth quarter versus north Carolina. Obviously come back to win the first team to win a game when trailing by nine with less than 2 30 to play. Teams have been oh and 451 in this scenario. That's a bad way to lose and making matters even worse while everybody was obsessing over whether or not N. C. State was melting down. It ended up being north Carolina that melted down with what have what have we seen all season out of this North Carolina and Lauren inopportune penalties. Sloppy play, lack of focus. All that came through all that all that came through in the last two minutes of that game. And at this point in the year you'd think they'd be over those types of things. Clearly not. And it happened in such a dramatic fashion that it highlights everything else bad that happened this season. And again that reflects poorly on Mack Brown. I really don't know else. I really have no other way of putting it. Other than that's a bad l for Mac after what was supposed to be a breakthrough year. Yeah I mean to lead by that many with uh 12 to go. and then I actually was like, well I guess I'm gonna have to eat some crow because you know how I feel about the game where the panthers went up by six against the bills and E. J. Manual let a game winning drive on them. Jimbo fisher didn't even trust eJ manual panthers had no one left in the secondary. And I'm like, what are you actually doing right now? And I kind of was wondering that for you and see, and I actually think that maybe maybe like the last couple weeks against sec teams may have spooked Mac a little bit on that. You know, when they've had for thousands and stuff, like they weren't getting them when they got short yardage situations when they've been in the red zone, They haven't been successful and I wonder if he kind of became a little spooked. They're just like, I don't know, you know what I mean? That that came into my mind because he was very aggressive on going for it on fourth downs before. And then this week, all of a sudden it was like playing it a little more cautious. There was a lot of, there were a lot of clenched butt cheeks. Um, who was before game. Well, I mean on both sides, I called it, I called that a couple of weeks ago after and see state laws to wake Forest looking ahead to this game. They were gonna be as bomani jones likes to joke about, there was gonna be a lot of lemon moody going in this game for all the reasons for all the reasons, for all the reasons. We just talked about from what this meant to Dave Doeren and how the season had played out and how he had been talking about things and how he badly need to beat this north Carolina team given the year that they had and how badly matt Brown needed to salvage this year. Because one of the things I had shot in town, I guess we can kind of wrap on this, One of the things that I jotted down about how this game was playing out or how the season was going to play out for both these teams? Was that Mack Brown salvaged a salvage the season with the state championship while David Dorn was going to have another potentially great season reduced to a good season that a lot of people will look at as like an empty potential nine win year with a bowl win. Right? And when I say salvage this is, I'm not calling Mack brown troll ish. But matt Brown knows how to spin a quote and get people going right here is the other part of that too. Right? Let's say because you can just brought up this question, wouldn't she? And I work? How do we view north Carolina season differently if they win this game. And that's what I'm saying for a long time and that's what I'm saying. I'm like, I don't know. And then I started thinking more and more and I'm like, you know Mac, what's been this? Absolutely. And just the way that you said and then assuming they played well in their bowl game with or without sam and everybody would have the same kind of feeling about them coming into the next year. So maybe in some ways it's actually like let's disguise that they're not going to go into next year with all the type. Yeah, maybe, maybe it is a blessing in disguise because to to what you guys were talking about the way it would have played out. Had north Carolina won, it would have been, we had the state championship, you know, Wake Wake could win the atlantic division. You know, also that you can, you can say whatever you want about our season, but nobody in the state of north Carolina could get over. And I said, what does that say about you? I mean, that's ultimately, what are you saying? Oh, you think were crap, but you still couldn't beat us. And that's the ultimate salvaging of a year, basically putting the best face you can put on for what has been a disappointing season, but that's been ripped away and it got ripped away in a really bad dramatic way there at the end and NC State will obviously be enjoying this one for a while, I know Dave Doeren will be enjoying this one for a while because I know after the game he didn't talk about, he'll enjoy the fact that he doesn't have to hear from those guys in blue for another year, which a lot of that, that's as saucy as he got. I was, I was recording you and see so I couldn't be Yeah, I was gonna say, I think that's about as I think he's gonna let, I want to say the impression that I got was, I think he's, I think he's letting the wind do the talking more than anything else. Especially given the way he had talked about, about how the season had gone off. I'm glad there was no profit on like what would Dave Doeren speech had been if they had one. Um, you know, Allah the dry cleaner speech on that because I would have lost all my money. Yeah. Well anyway, big thanks to north Carolina NC state for delivering on the local level. Once again. I know like, I know, I know there's better football played. I know there was a lot of flags and there was a lot of mistakes like that. That's college football. That's, that's college football. College college football. Honestly, the refs I thought were mostly fine. They're fine mostly. I mean, you could quibble with some calls, but it's not like some games we've seen it was nothing that bad. Yeah, I'm with you on that. That's gonna wrap it up for this edition of the panic room. We'll see you all next week.