College football roundtable: What does the future hold for Duke, UNC, NC State?

No, The News & Observer sports staff doesn’t own a DeLorean, or even the parts to make it travel through time – like a flux capacitor. But we still traveled into the future for this week’s roundtable.

At the end of a week that included the long-awaited “Back to the Future Day,” travel-weary reporters Andrew Carter, Joe Giglio and Laura Keeley, and columnist Luke DeCock, gather round to debate what’s coming in the ACC, and beyond, by the year 2045:

Q: In celebration of “Back to the Future” day earlier this week, let’s take a look into the future. Thirty years from now, will Duke, UNC or N.C. State have played in the College Football Playoff? Will all three have won an ACC title by then?

Andrew Carter (North Carolina beat reporter): I’m going to say yes, one of the Triangle schools, in the next 30 years, will make the College Football Playoff. That’s not asking for too much, is it? For one of these teams to make it, just once, over the next three decades?

It helps, too, that there’s no way the CFP will remain a four-team affair. Eventually it will expand to eight and perhaps beyond that. So there should be more opportunities to make it, too, in the future.

As for the second question, I doubt all three schools will have won an ACC title in the next 30 years. If Wake Forest can do it, any team can. But all three in the next 30 years? I’m skeptical.

Joe Giglio (N.C. State beat reporter): In a 16-team bracket, Duke and coach Kelby Brown will qualify for the 2030 Li-Ning College Football Playoffs and face off against three-time champion Southeastern Middle Florida in Beijing.

N.C. State and North Carolina will still be searching for their first conference titles but UNC will be in the Big Ten (which has 24 teams) and N.C. State will be in the SEC Northeast (one of four satellite versions of the SEC created by ESPN).

Laura Keeley (Duke beat reporter): With the caveat that I think the college sports model will look drastically different even just five years from now – this communist idea of enforcing an “everyone is equal” facade in one of the most American institutions (college sports) won’t last forever. Your answers: no and no.

I just don’t foresee one of the local teams running the table and going undefeated anytime soon, and with the way these teams schedule out of conference, it would take an undefeated slate to fully impress the committee, most likely. And the relative weakness of the ACC compared to the other “Power 5” schools wouldn’t help the perception of a non-traditional power.

I think at least one of the teams will win the ACC in the next 30 years. But all three? Let’s not get carried away.

Luke DeCock (columnist): In 1985, you certainly would have expected North Carolina and N.C. State to have won an ACC title by 2015, since they had both won one in the previous decade. Since Wake Forest won an ACC championship, anything’s possible. But it’s a bigger, stronger ACC than it was 10 years ago and titles are tougher to come by. I’ll say at least one of the three schools will win an ACC title in the next 30 years, and maybe all three, but odds are against any of them making it to a national semifinal. The rich will only continue to get richer in college football.

Q: Speaking of which, the Chicago Cubs’ World Series drought lives on (sorry, Luke). We have a smaller version of that going on here, with none of the Triangle schools having won an ACC championship since the 1980s. Which school breaks the drought first (assuming it ends)?

AC: Speaking of “Back to the Future,” hasn’t this question appeared in the roundtable before? I’ll say UNC breaks the drought first but, really, you can pick a team out of a hat and make a decently compelling case for any of them.

Certainly, the Coastal Division is more wide open now than the Atlantic. UNC could well win the division this year and, who knows, if it gets into a track meet with Clemson or Florida State an upset wouldn’t be inconceivable.

JG: Both Duke and North Carolina have a chance to end that streak this year. In a one-off game like the ACC championship game, anything can happen. If I had to pick one, I’d go with Duke, which has been the only Triangle program to do anything with any kind of consistency since Mack Brown left for Texas almost 20 years ago.

LK: Duke or UNC are in the best position to do so, thanks to the Coastal Division. And given the uncertainty surrounding UNC long term with potential NCAA ramifications, and the potential for Fedora to bolt for greener pastures and leave all this behind, I’ll go with Duke. Cutcliffe has repeatedly shown he is in it for the long haul, and Duke is still improving in terms of talent and athleticism each year.

LD: It’ll be Duke or North Carolina, because the Atlantic Division is just too tough and is likely to remain that way for the immediate future. Of those two, it’s really a coin flip. Either could theoretically end the drought this year with an upset in Charlotte, but that may just be the eternally optimistic Cub fan in me speaking. (Just wait until next year.)

Q: Looking back on the first half of the season, what was the best win by a local team? What was the worst loss?

AC: UNC has lost but one game but it has to be the worst loss for any area team. The defeat against South Carolina at the start of the season was something of an abomination. The Gamecocks are not good – so not-good that Steve Spurrier just decided to up and leave in the middle of the season – and that loss right now is the difference in UNC being unranked and possibly being ranked in the top 15.

The Tar Heels’ best win: Coming back from 21 down to win at Georgia Tech, where UNC hadn’t won since 1997, will be remembered for a long time to come.

JG: N.C. State played its best game in a 63-13 win at South Alabama on Sept. 26. That seems like a really long time ago, when running back Shadrach Thornton was still on the team and the Wolfpack was still undefeated.

The loss at home to Louisville a week later is still kind of difficult to explain. The young Cardinals have talent, to be sure, but all of the elements were there for an important Wolfpack win, not a 20-13 home loss.

LK: It’s hard to win a game in which you do not score a touchdown, but Duke managed that against Boston College, so I’d go with the 9-7 win over the Eagles (both of the Blue Devils’ ACC wins, at this point, are against teams that are 0-8 in league play).

And the Blue Devils have lost once, so, by default, Northwestern, but I was surprised Duke didn’t win. The Blue Devils excel at winning games against beatable opponents, and the Wildcats, with their anemic offense and freshman quarterback, were certainly beatable.

LD: Best win, no question, East Carolina’s win over Virginia Tech. That game meant more to the Pirates than any of the teams the three local teams have beaten. And Virginia Tech may be down this year, but that still means something in Greenville. (Look what happened to N.C. State in Blacksburg).

N.C. State’s unmasking by Louisville is a contender for worst loss, but if North Carolina had beaten an eminently beatable South Carolina team in the opener, the Tar Heels would be undefeated and in the fringes of the CFP conversation. That was a massive missed opportunity.

This story was originally published October 23, 2015 at 1:34 PM with the headline "College football roundtable: What does the future hold for Duke, UNC, NC State?."