December 5, 2025 • 10 mins
ESON broadcaster Sean McDonough joins the show, as he previews tomorrow's title game between Virginia and Duke, he offers his thoughts on the tiebreaker system the ACC used to determine their two teams, what he thinks of Miami's argument to make the CFP, & more
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
But he's here to talk I'm sure about the state
of college football, the whole playoff situation, but specifically the
ACC title game. He will be on the call with
Greg McElroy Molly McGrath here in Charlotte Bank of America
Stadium tomorrow night for Virginia and Duke, and he's nice
enough to join us here on the Mack and Bone Show. Sean,
what's going on, man, how you been Well?
Speaker 2 (00:21):
I'm all right. I'm doing better than your Penn State
Nitney Lyons at the moment. I think that's embarrassing.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
That is embarrassing.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
He's excited to be here in Charlotte, although it's a
little gloomy so far this morning, but we're excited to
be here, all right.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Good deal?
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Man?
Speaker 1 (00:37):
What you and you enter into an extremely chaotic situation
here with the ACC? I mean, and I guess it
wouldn't be the ACC. It wouldn't be the all chaos
conference without some chaos. What do you think about the
season that the ACC has had, about having a five
lost team in the in the title game. I mean,
(00:58):
how the ACC always wants respect nationally. This season is
not going to help that cause.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Is it? Well, you know, maybe not. I think Miami's
really good. We had their game at the beginning of
the year against Notre Dame, which they won, which is obviously,
you know, their biggest talking point for trying to get
into the college football playoff field, and it'll be interesting
to see what happens with them when this whole thing
plays out over the weekend. But yeah, the tiebreaker was interesting.
(01:24):
You know, they they all agreed to it, right, I
guess that. And I'm told that other conferences use the
same procedures. So even though it happened to the ACC
from what I understand, it could have happened in a
number of other conferences too, So I like it, you know,
I just enjoy storylines and talking points that you know,
(01:47):
there's a lot for us to talk about on Saturday nights,
that's sure.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
What what do you think of the job that Tony
Elliott did this year and getting Virginia to the spot.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Yeah, he's done a fantastic job. You know, they want
to in games. His first three years, they've already won ten,
So if they win tomorrow night, they could match you know,
the total from his previous three years. He really has
built a program. Obviously, the transfer portal makes it easier
to turn things around for any college football program that
has the resources and identifies the right people on the
(02:19):
portal to bring in. And in their case, you know,
they brought in I think it's thirty two first year players,
and obviously the most important guy as a quarterback is
Chandler Morris. Has been a difference maker. And I think
when you look around at you know, at these programs
that have turned it around quickly, one of the common
denominators is you have to have the quarterback. So he's
done a great job, and they're an excellent team. You know,
(02:42):
they're a top twenty team, and I think they are
one of the top twenty teams in the country.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Sean McDonald's with us tomorrow night. He's calleding the ACC
title game here in Charlotte on ABC eight o'clock. Sean,
let's talk about Duke because even though they're a five
lost team, and that's been the big talk, and oh
my god, if Duke wins, does the ACC missout entirely.
They're a three and a half point dog like and
I know Virginia got him by seventeen last time, but
(03:10):
Vegas clearly thinks this is a good, you know, tight matchup.
What do you think about this Duke team and their
chances tomorrow night?
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Yeah, I think they're very talented and you know, they've
had a very good year on offense. We talk about
going to the portal and getting a quarterback in. They
did a great job bringing Darien Menta over from two lane.
You know, he set the school record for touchdown passes.
He's a leading passer in the league. So, uh, they
are a dangerous team. You know, Manny Diaz has talked
about the five losses, but you know they've lost the
(03:40):
two ten win teams to nine win teams and an
eight win team, and that's true. So you know, it's
not like you're sitting there looking at the record saying,
oh gosh, how could you lose to that team? Everybody
they lost. Everybody likes to talk about Yukon. You know,
Yukon went nine to three, and you know, Jim More
wound up getting the Caldorado State job for the great
job that he did there. So I know some people
(04:01):
look at it and say Yukon, Wow, what a terrible loss,
but they actually had a pretty good team this year,
So yeah, they're dangerous. I agree, with you. I just
got done watching the shape of their regular season game
against Virginia from four weeks ago, and Virginia totally dominated
the game. And if you watch that, you'd say, how
would the point spread the three and a half? But
(04:22):
I think that game is an admiration. You know, many
Diaz has said that was their worst game of the
year by far, and I haven't watched all of them
that I'm guessing that it was.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Yeah, Sean, how how do you think Duke enters this
game from a pressure standpoint because they kind of backdoored
their way in with Miami scuse me, with SMU losing
the cow Do you think that Duke can come into
this game sort of free in mind of the thought of, hey,
no one thought we were going to be here anyway.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Yeah, I would think so. I mean, when they lost
the regular season game to Virginia, you know, almost a
month ago, I'm just reading our ESPN notes. The ESPN
analy had them with a ten percent chance of making
it to the championship game. And then I was watching
last Saturday night. In fact, the Virginia was playing Virginia
(05:09):
Tech at basically the same time that sm YOU was
playing at cal and I made my annual visit to
my gym, and they had both games on the TV
next to each other, so I was on the elliptical
sending the cobwebs. I was able to watch both of them.
And you know, at one point Cal was ahead thirty
one to fourteen, and you're thinking, Okay, how good sm
(05:31):
do you have? This happened and they actually rallied take
the lead, and I thought, okay, as I'm using, and
you know, Duke had some hope there for a little while,
and then Cal went down the field and won the game.
So yeah, I wasn't looking very bright for Duke. I
have to feel like they feel like this is almost
a bonus and expectations are low, and what a great
chance now, you know, to go out there and win
(05:52):
a conference championship.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
All right, I'm going to do something here. This is risky, Sean.
I'm going to ask you to get in the mind
of the committee. All right, this is this is a
this is a scary exercise. You mentioned that you know,
you think Miami's really good, and they've certainly looked the
last few weeks. Man, they have shown you what they're
capable of doing. Do you think there is a chance
that Miami still gets in, or do you think it's
(06:15):
inevitable They're kind of blocked out, Like do you think
they would end up flipping? Like if Notre Dame and
Miami get back to back, you think they'd end up
flipping them, and then saying now they're close enough to
head to head like, what's your guests?
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Well, that kind of feels like they were setting up
that possibility. I mean, they they moved Alabama ahead of
Notre Dame, and you know, now, I think the argument
was going to be, well, now Miami and Notre Dame
are right next to each other in the ranking, so
we're gonna compare the two of them had to head
more closely, and they head to head obviously goes to Miami.
(06:49):
So I think they've, at least the way they positioned
it this last week, set it up for a chance
to do that. You know, my I would think in
their minds they probably don't want to have a college
football playoff without an ACC team. So I don't know
if this is the defense mechanism of Okay, if Duke wins,
(07:10):
we can't take them, let's put Miami in. I'm not
saying that that's their mindset, but it's at least a
possibility in my mind.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Yes, Sean, I'm curious your take on something non related
to the game tomorrow, but something I'm sure you have
an opinion on, and that's the Bill Belichick start here
at North Carolina year. When I ask you that, because
you're a college football broadcaster, but you have such deep
ties to Boston where you're from. Your dad obviously one
of the great media members ever in Boston, so you
(07:39):
have knowledge of what's going on there. What's your take
on from what you know of Belichick to what he
is now as the college coach and all that surrounded
him here in year one.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Yeah, we haven't had a game one of their games.
A matter of fact, we haven't had an ACC game
this year, except as we mentioned Miami Plane Notre Dame
at the beginning of the year, which was a conference game. Obviously,
so I haven't been there up close, but obviously read
about a lot of it from a distance, and obviously
in Boston and New England, it still gets a lot
(08:11):
of attention because there's a lot of interest in Bill
Belichick given the long and excellent history that he had
in New England. So you know, obviously it's really messy,
and it hasn't gone particularly well on the field, as
we just talked about, though that can change fast at
any one of these schools if you do the right
things in the portal, you have the resources to do it.
(08:31):
So yeah, I wouldn't totally give up hope that this
is not going to go well, but obviously it has
not gone very well on or off the field so far.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Not at all. What did you think before let You Go?
What did you think about the whole Lane Kiffins soap
opera and saga that ended up with fans flipping him
the bird and screaming obscenities as he was at the
airport getting out of town. Did you feel like Lane
dessert all the heat he got or do you blame
more the college football calendar? How'd you view that thing?
Speaker 2 (09:06):
I think a little bit of both. I do think
the calendar is unfortunate, but yeah, I don't think he
handled it very well either, And you know, it's too
bad because I think a lot of us. I watched
that documentary that esc did at the beginning of the season,
I thought, well, you know, he really is maturing and
he's become a different guy, and uh and then everything
that happened woul lead you to believe, you know, maybe
(09:27):
he is, in fact still more self directed than he
needs to be. So uh, you know, there was just
so much of it. If you want to leave, leave,
that's fine, but you know, to drag it out for
a couple extra days while it seemed like you were
trying to convince the administration to let you also coach
the old miss team in the playoffs. You know, the
(09:48):
calendar s thinks, but it is what it is. You
made the decision to go, so go, you know, uh
uh yeah. At college athletics, there's so much that needs
to be fixed, and you know that's just some of
that is just an example of a few of the
things that need to be picked.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
I don't think I don't think we can't din't.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Cover himself and glory, But you know, part of it
too is the calendar.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Yeah, I agree, I don't think we have the time
to fix college athletics. Sean, I think we need to
let you go, all right. If we held you over,
we'd be here all weekend and you've got a game
to call tomorrow night. Listen to Sean watch Sean and
uh Greg McElroy, Miley McGrath ACC title game here in
Charlotte ABC at a thank you Sean. We appreciate you man.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Thank you guys.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
All right, be good,
But he's here to talk I'm sure about the state
of college football, the whole playoff situation, but specifically the
ACC title game. He will be on the call with
Greg McElroy Molly McGrath here in Charlotte Bank of America
Stadium tomorrow night for Virginia and Duke, and he's nice
enough to join us here on the Mack and Bone Show. Sean,
what's going on, man, how you been Well?
Speaker 2 (00:21):
I'm all right. I'm doing better than your Penn State
Nitney Lyons at the moment. I think that's embarrassing.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
That is embarrassing.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
He's excited to be here in Charlotte, although it's a
little gloomy so far this morning, but we're excited to
be here, all right.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Good deal?
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Man?
Speaker 1 (00:37):
What you and you enter into an extremely chaotic situation
here with the ACC? I mean, and I guess it
wouldn't be the ACC. It wouldn't be the all chaos
conference without some chaos. What do you think about the
season that the ACC has had, about having a five
lost team in the in the title game. I mean,
(00:58):
how the ACC always wants respect nationally. This season is
not going to help that cause.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Is it? Well, you know, maybe not. I think Miami's
really good. We had their game at the beginning of
the year against Notre Dame, which they won, which is obviously,
you know, their biggest talking point for trying to get
into the college football playoff field, and it'll be interesting
to see what happens with them when this whole thing
plays out over the weekend. But yeah, the tiebreaker was interesting.
(01:24):
You know, they they all agreed to it, right, I
guess that. And I'm told that other conferences use the
same procedures. So even though it happened to the ACC
from what I understand, it could have happened in a
number of other conferences too, So I like it, you know,
I just enjoy storylines and talking points that you know,
(01:47):
there's a lot for us to talk about on Saturday nights,
that's sure.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
What what do you think of the job that Tony
Elliott did this year and getting Virginia to the spot.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Yeah, he's done a fantastic job. You know, they want
to in games. His first three years, they've already won ten,
So if they win tomorrow night, they could match you know,
the total from his previous three years. He really has
built a program. Obviously, the transfer portal makes it easier
to turn things around for any college football program that
has the resources and identifies the right people on the
(02:19):
portal to bring in. And in their case, you know,
they brought in I think it's thirty two first year players,
and obviously the most important guy as a quarterback is
Chandler Morris. Has been a difference maker. And I think
when you look around at you know, at these programs
that have turned it around quickly, one of the common
denominators is you have to have the quarterback. So he's
done a great job, and they're an excellent team. You know,
(02:42):
they're a top twenty team, and I think they are
one of the top twenty teams in the country.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Sean McDonald's with us tomorrow night. He's calleding the ACC
title game here in Charlotte on ABC eight o'clock. Sean,
let's talk about Duke because even though they're a five
lost team, and that's been the big talk, and oh
my god, if Duke wins, does the ACC missout entirely.
They're a three and a half point dog like and
I know Virginia got him by seventeen last time, but
(03:10):
Vegas clearly thinks this is a good, you know, tight matchup.
What do you think about this Duke team and their
chances tomorrow night?
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Yeah, I think they're very talented and you know, they've
had a very good year on offense. We talk about
going to the portal and getting a quarterback in. They
did a great job bringing Darien Menta over from two lane.
You know, he set the school record for touchdown passes.
He's a leading passer in the league. So, uh, they
are a dangerous team. You know, Manny Diaz has talked
about the five losses, but you know they've lost the
(03:40):
two ten win teams to nine win teams and an
eight win team, and that's true. So you know, it's
not like you're sitting there looking at the record saying,
oh gosh, how could you lose to that team? Everybody
they lost. Everybody likes to talk about Yukon. You know,
Yukon went nine to three, and you know, Jim More
wound up getting the Caldorado State job for the great
job that he did there. So I know some people
(04:01):
look at it and say Yukon, Wow, what a terrible loss,
but they actually had a pretty good team this year,
So yeah, they're dangerous. I agree, with you. I just
got done watching the shape of their regular season game
against Virginia from four weeks ago, and Virginia totally dominated
the game. And if you watch that, you'd say, how
would the point spread the three and a half? But
(04:22):
I think that game is an admiration. You know, many
Diaz has said that was their worst game of the
year by far, and I haven't watched all of them
that I'm guessing that it was.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Yeah, Sean, how how do you think Duke enters this
game from a pressure standpoint because they kind of backdoored
their way in with Miami scuse me, with SMU losing
the cow Do you think that Duke can come into
this game sort of free in mind of the thought of, hey,
no one thought we were going to be here anyway.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Yeah, I would think so. I mean, when they lost
the regular season game to Virginia, you know, almost a
month ago, I'm just reading our ESPN notes. The ESPN
analy had them with a ten percent chance of making
it to the championship game. And then I was watching
last Saturday night. In fact, the Virginia was playing Virginia
(05:09):
Tech at basically the same time that sm YOU was
playing at cal and I made my annual visit to
my gym, and they had both games on the TV
next to each other, so I was on the elliptical
sending the cobwebs. I was able to watch both of them.
And you know, at one point Cal was ahead thirty
one to fourteen, and you're thinking, Okay, how good sm
(05:31):
do you have? This happened and they actually rallied take
the lead, and I thought, okay, as I'm using, and
you know, Duke had some hope there for a little while,
and then Cal went down the field and won the game.
So yeah, I wasn't looking very bright for Duke. I
have to feel like they feel like this is almost
a bonus and expectations are low, and what a great
chance now, you know, to go out there and win
(05:52):
a conference championship.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
All right, I'm going to do something here. This is risky, Sean.
I'm going to ask you to get in the mind
of the committee. All right, this is this is a
this is a scary exercise. You mentioned that you know,
you think Miami's really good, and they've certainly looked the
last few weeks. Man, they have shown you what they're
capable of doing. Do you think there is a chance
that Miami still gets in, or do you think it's
(06:15):
inevitable They're kind of blocked out, Like do you think
they would end up flipping? Like if Notre Dame and
Miami get back to back, you think they'd end up
flipping them, and then saying now they're close enough to
head to head like, what's your guests?
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Well, that kind of feels like they were setting up
that possibility. I mean, they they moved Alabama ahead of
Notre Dame, and you know, now, I think the argument
was going to be, well, now Miami and Notre Dame
are right next to each other in the ranking, so
we're gonna compare the two of them had to head
more closely, and they head to head obviously goes to Miami.
(06:49):
So I think they've, at least the way they positioned
it this last week, set it up for a chance
to do that. You know, my I would think in
their minds they probably don't want to have a college
football playoff without an ACC team. So I don't know
if this is the defense mechanism of Okay, if Duke wins,
(07:10):
we can't take them, let's put Miami in. I'm not
saying that that's their mindset, but it's at least a
possibility in my mind.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Yes, Sean, I'm curious your take on something non related
to the game tomorrow, but something I'm sure you have
an opinion on, and that's the Bill Belichick start here
at North Carolina year. When I ask you that, because
you're a college football broadcaster, but you have such deep
ties to Boston where you're from. Your dad obviously one
of the great media members ever in Boston, so you
(07:39):
have knowledge of what's going on there. What's your take
on from what you know of Belichick to what he
is now as the college coach and all that surrounded
him here in year one.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Yeah, we haven't had a game one of their games.
A matter of fact, we haven't had an ACC game
this year, except as we mentioned Miami Plane Notre Dame
at the beginning of the year, which was a conference game. Obviously,
so I haven't been there up close, but obviously read
about a lot of it from a distance, and obviously
in Boston and New England, it still gets a lot
(08:11):
of attention because there's a lot of interest in Bill
Belichick given the long and excellent history that he had
in New England. So you know, obviously it's really messy,
and it hasn't gone particularly well on the field, as
we just talked about, though that can change fast at
any one of these schools if you do the right
things in the portal, you have the resources to do it.
(08:31):
So yeah, I wouldn't totally give up hope that this
is not going to go well, but obviously it has
not gone very well on or off the field so far.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Not at all. What did you think before let You Go?
What did you think about the whole Lane Kiffins soap
opera and saga that ended up with fans flipping him
the bird and screaming obscenities as he was at the
airport getting out of town. Did you feel like Lane
dessert all the heat he got or do you blame
more the college football calendar? How'd you view that thing?
Speaker 2 (09:06):
I think a little bit of both. I do think
the calendar is unfortunate, but yeah, I don't think he
handled it very well either, And you know, it's too
bad because I think a lot of us. I watched
that documentary that esc did at the beginning of the season,
I thought, well, you know, he really is maturing and
he's become a different guy, and uh and then everything
that happened woul lead you to believe, you know, maybe
(09:27):
he is, in fact still more self directed than he
needs to be. So uh, you know, there was just
so much of it. If you want to leave, leave,
that's fine, but you know, to drag it out for
a couple extra days while it seemed like you were
trying to convince the administration to let you also coach
the old miss team in the playoffs. You know, the
(09:48):
calendar s thinks, but it is what it is. You
made the decision to go, so go, you know, uh
uh yeah. At college athletics, there's so much that needs
to be fixed, and you know that's just some of
that is just an example of a few of the
things that need to be picked.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
I don't think I don't think we can't din't.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Cover himself and glory, But you know, part of it
too is the calendar.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Yeah, I agree, I don't think we have the time
to fix college athletics. Sean, I think we need to
let you go, all right. If we held you over,
we'd be here all weekend and you've got a game
to call tomorrow night. Listen to Sean watch Sean and
uh Greg McElroy, Miley McGrath ACC title game here in
Charlotte ABC at a thank you Sean. We appreciate you man.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Thank you guys.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
All right, be good,
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