A Tell-All on Carolina Football

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Good morning and welcome back to 4th & Forever, Rand & Tate’s College Football Newsletter. As we discussed at length yesterday, Wake Forest and UNC face off this weekend, so what better time to come right back to your inbox with a new kind of 4&F newsletter? This time with a point-counterpoint on UNC and conference realignment, but with a special, venerable, and passionate guest author. 

You might be shocked to learn that I (Rand) talk about college football incessantly, and it’s not just because I have this newsletter with Tate. The most common medium is email chains with my dad and his friends. One of those friends is Ed Hanes, who is a double-Heel with an undergraduate and law degree, and is a diehard for Carolina athletics. What started as a simple question at a tailgate a few years ago has developed into a constant conversation topic between me and Ed: would Carolina have success in the Big 10 or SEC? I say over my dead body, he says absolutely, we’re mfing UNC. So here’s our argument, out in the open, for all to hear.

Background

Over the summer, we were circulating this article in The Athletic about college football program valuations. UNC was ranked 26th, valued at $576 million, between Ole Miss & South Carolina and fourth in the ACC. Wake ranked third to last in the P4 and last in the ACC, but that’s a newsletter for a different time. We’ve exchanged emails and have lively debates on this topic but if you were to broadly summarize our arguments in one sentence, Ed thinks a conference move by UNC to the Big 10 or SEC would be a good move and lead to winning seasons, where I think outside of the financial boon it would be a hilariously stupid move where UNC would be lucky to sniff the Duke’s Mayo Bowl on an annual basis. I invited Ed here to hash out this debate in the open and try to answer a pretty simple question: outside of the financial implications, would it be a good move for UNC to move to the Big 10 or SEC?

The Tar Heels Call for a Code Red

Rand Fisher wants the truth.

Well, here’s the code red: No matter if Wake wins the only National Championship in football this weekend, they never have a hope of winning, for North Carolina to thrive in football over the next decade (relative to our historical program success and championship standard in all sports), the Southeastern Conference is the better foxhole. Not the Big Ten, and (sorry, Rand) not the budget‑strained ACC we grew up loving.

Start with the money, because money now blocks, tackles, and calls the plays.  Last year the SEC cut checks of roughly $53 million per school while the ACC averaged about $45 million.  The Big Ten? North of both, with a new network deal designed to push distributions toward the $80–100 million range in coming years. That’s an eight‑figure annual gap you can’t cover with Bell Tower tours and a raffle for Roy Williams’ old clipboard.

“But UNC would get buried in the SEC!” says Rand, polishing his Demon Deacon lapel pin like it’s a Heisman.  Nice....Nice.....

Translation?:

“Please don’t leave me!” 

You don’t tell your neighbor not to buy a house with a better roof because the yard is bigger to mow. You help him pack. The SEC Football, Basketball, and Baseball schedules are oppressive for sure. But iron sharpens iron, baby. Highly sharpened Carolina Blue iron also fills recruiting classes, luxury boxes, and the NIL war chest filled with Jordan Brand $20s.

Rand, let’s just be honest: the SEC wants Carolina far more than the message‑board militia of Wake, Syracuse, and even Clemson and FSU want to admit. Read the tea leaves and the league’s quiet patience: Greg Sankey has been deliberately mum, because that’s what you do when you hold the winning hand and the next pot might include North Carolina’s (if not the Southeast's) flagship global brand and the Raleigh‑Durham‑Charlotte TV triangle. Multiple analysts have consistently put UNC (and Virginia) at or near the top of the SEC’s “if/when” list, ahead of louder (FSU) names like the Seminoles or even the respected and vaunted Clemson Tigers. Why? New states, elite academics, blue‑chip hoops brand promise that prints eyeballs, and a football program with headroom...lots and lots of headroom.   

That’s called portfolio diversification, not charity.

Meanwhile, the ACC’s new “success and viewership” tweaks are basically quarters under the conference’s old couch cushions. Helpful, yes; a solution, no. The league just settled internal disputes and tweaked distribution to reward brands that draw ratings. Great! But even if UNC takes a slightly bigger slice of the ACC pie, it’s still an ACC pie. It's not that sweet, buttery, slap your momma SEC brisket!

“Big Ten makes more! Why go to the SEC when you would make more money and be around other real academic schools in the BIG” says Rand, now warming up his next ballad: “Hail to the Partial Shares.” True, the Big Ten money machine is real. But it’s also a Sunday all day‑drive and expensive flight geography for the real Carolina. Cold‑weather trips, fewer natural rivalries, and less oxygen for the Carolina identity that hums best from Atlanta to Nashville to Athens to Massa Jefferson's Plantation in Charlottesville. The SEC offers shorter flights, hotter recruiting soil, and road games your fans can turn into long weekends without checking a bag the size of Julius Peppers. The SEC also keeps UNC shoulder‑to‑shoulder with brands it already fights for players with: Mississippi, Tennessee, South Carolina, Vanderbilt, Maryland. This is all done while locking down a state the SEC still covets. That’s leverage you can’t buy at the winter meetings. (And before you wave a faculty senate at me: UNC’s AAU pedigree travels just fine. We've been in the club since 1922.

Here’s the unvarnished made for movies monologue: UNC is the most complete, cross‑sport brand in the ACC if not the country. We beam University credibility into every media deck.  Broad fan base, elite recruiting footprint, a state the SEC wants, and a logo that makes TV partners reach for their pens. 

I love the ACC like Piggy loves Kermit, like Captain loved Tenneal, like Ike loved Tina (oh....maybe not that much). But love doesn’t pay offensive line coaches or keep your top receiver out of the portal. The question isn’t whether UNC can compete in the SEC; it’s whether UNC can afford not to. The sport is consolidating at the top, and the SEC is the top. That’s where the biggest games live, where the recruits want to play, and where the checks come with extra zeroes and fewer IOUs.

So, yes Rand, call it a CODE RED! We order it not because we hate the ACC, but because we love Chapel Hill more. You will say we’re abandoning tradition. I say we’re protecting it by making sure the next generation of Tar Heels have the resources to win, the schedule to matter, and the stage to shine.

Rand, grab those Reynolds High School shin guards. We’re calling it! 

Oh, I know what happens now. This is the moment you turn to me, eyes wide, and ask me "Why Ed...Why?

“You want answers?”

“I think we’re entitled to them!”

"You want answers?!?!"

"WE WANT THE TRUTH!"

"YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!!!"

Que the music and drama:

Rand, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by schools with brands. Who's gonna do it? You, Wake Forest? You, Pittsburgh? We have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You have the luxury of not knowing what we know: That your athletic department is going to eventually break under the weight of SEC and BIG 10 pressure!  And our STUUUUUDENT ATHOLEETEES are a threat to your stability! We live with that every day. We use words like “Championships” and "tradition". You use words like “greed” and "rivalry" as a cudgel to beat us with. Your words don't pay the bills anymore. You don't want us to leave because deep down in places you don't talk about parties you know that without us, the whole house of cards collapses. You want UNC on that wall. You need UNC on that wall!!!  We’d prefer if you just said thank you, or go take a post. Either way, the wall with the best view—for football—is the one with the big, gold letters: S‑E‑C.

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Be Careful What You Wish For, Carolina

Let’s start with a disclaimer: I am under no illusion that Carolina is in the ACC for the long haul. They’re as good as gone for the SEC or Big 10 by the end of the decade, assuming there is not some super league by then, which is looking unlikely with this Big 10 private equity hoopla. My point is, Carolina is not going to have fun in whatever conference they join. The pay day is nice - they’ll need every cent for Belichick’s buyout - but they’re not going to be competitive in football. They’ll have similar success to Nebraska and Maryland in the Big 10 or South Carolina and Kentucky in the SEC. Will they pop up once in a blue moon and make a playoff with a 10-win season? Sure, those aforementioned teams are already doing that and UNC has a nationally relevant football program once in a Halley’s comet. But that’s the ACC. This is the SEC, and everyone cares about football. Not just a select few. Kentucky is actually a fantastic comparison for UNC. Basketball will always be king in Chapel Hill and Lexington, and while football success is nice to have, it’s not a necessity. 

But let’s stick with basketball for a second. Carolina basketball will not suffer by moving conferences. Neither will field hockey, women’s soccer, or any other Olympic sport they care about. The standard for UNC basketball will continue to be national championships, which would be a hell of a lot more attainable if they’d just admit defeat and rip the cord on the Hubert Davis nepo-baby experiment, but again, different newsletter. One of UNC’s biggest competitive advantages in the ACC is that they have a ton of fans, and they travel. I’ve been in the Joel countless times and had to endure a TAR…HEELS chant because 35% of the arena is in Carolina blue. NC State, Clemson, Virginia, and Virginia Tech fans can attest. But UNC’s fanbase is not traveling to Starkville, Mississippi, or West Lafayette, Indiana. Hell, Seattle, Washington, and College Station, Texas? Spare me. Loads of UNC fans who don’t have season tickets buy up the away games at the aforementioned ACC schools, but outside of Columbia, the closest schools are Georgia and Tennessee, which are 5+ hours away. UNC basketball will be fine, their fans will pay the price, but that’s college sports in a nutshell. Enough about basketball, this is about football.

Pick your time frame: a decade? 25 years? 40? 100? Doesn’t matter. What has Carolina shown on the field or off that they have the financial resources or desire to be competitive in football? Paying Belichick $10 million a year? We see how that’s going, and you’re a poor man’s Auburn when it comes to athletic department malfeasance. They haven’t won the ACC since 1980, no BCS bowls, and I’m not counting making the Orange Bowl during the COVID year (which they lost to Texas A&M). Other than that, it’s the Duke’s Mayo, Independence, Holiday, and Quick Lane Bowls - all bowl games they’ve lost to SEC & Big 10 schools this century. While we’re at it, their bowl record is 4-12 since 2001. Carolina is 144-142 since 2003, which is in line with UCLA, Arkansas, and Wake Forest. Does an influx of money suddenly make you competitive with Tennessee and Washington? In a word or two: Hell no. As long as the House settlement (read: salary cap) is in place, Carolina will always have to pay a higher percentage of their revenue share to basketball than other schools. Which is fine because that’s what UNC cares about, but watching your football team on national television (because I know you’re not traveling to Columbia, Missouri) repeatedly get dog walked by middling SEC schools is not a good experience. UNC will soon consider a .500 season and Sun Bowl appearance a success. Hell, I’d consider it an unmitigated success this year. 

Pick three teams out of a hat, all with varying degrees of success in the SEC: Alabama, Ole Miss, and South Carolina. Bringing them to Chapel Hill and traveling to those games sounds great in theory, but the shine and novelty have a way of rubbing off very quickly with nothing to show for it. Is it really that fun after getting smoked by two of those schools on an annual basis? Trust me, I watched Ole Miss romp Wake Forest last year in Winston and have personally witnessed Wake go 0-fer in Clemson for my entire lifetime. The tailgates are fun, but walking into your funeral every Saturday is not. Going to the SEC does not put you on an equal playing field; it does the opposite by exacerbating the haves from the have-nots, and in the SEC, UNC is a have-not. 

Let’s look at recent conference jumper, Oklahoma, and their SEC schedule this year: Auburn, Texas, at South Carolina, Ole Miss, at Tennessee, at Alabama, Missouri, LSU. Take recency bias out of that, if UNC played each of those teams for the next 10 years or the last 10, how many are they winning? I’ll say zero or one against Bama, Texas, and LSU, 3 or 4 each against Ole Miss, Missouri, and South Carolina, and pray for a split with Auburn? Welcome to the life of a Mississippi State fan, Carolina. 

SEC money and recognition will get you better recruits, but you know who also has both of those and has had that for the past half-century? Every other team in the SEC. Instead of competing with Wake and Virginia Tech recruits, now you’re taking the scraps off whoever Georgia and Tennessee don’t want. Could it get you the 5* QB in Greensboro, Faizon Brandon, who’s currently committed to Tennessee? Sure, but you need 5-star depth across the board to compete in the SEC. But that’s the expectation in the SEC, not the goal, and what did two generational talents in Sam Howell and Drake Maye net UNC? A singular AP top 25 finish. What does Carolina offer to any recruit that an SEC school currently doesn’t? Jordan Brand? Florida has that. A pretty campus and cool college town? Recruits don’t give a shit, and Athens is the exact same thing. Academics? Florida, Georgia, Vanderbilt, and Texas are right there with ya. 

UNC is currently in the “upper echelon” of the ACC. Why the quotes? Again, they haven’t proven anything on the field in my lifetime that they care about football, and I’m supposed to believe another $30 mil a year will change that? A move to the SEC or Big 10 would make them a little fish in a big pond with no blueprint to move up in the caste system. Ask Nebraska how their conference move is going. Missouri is doing pretty well with a few SEC Championship game appearances over a decade ago, but no playoffs. South Carolina is a punching bag, and they left the ACC in 1971. Washington is quickly learning that it’s a hell of a lot easier to beat up on Arizona and Colorado than it is Wisconsin. 

I’ll leave it at this. Carolina is going to leave, the ACC might blow up, and college football will creep closer to a super league that UNC will inevitably be left out of. But if the crux of this question is “would UNC have success in the SEC and Big 10?” Unless you’re the athletic department accountant, the answer is a resounding no. Carolina doesn’t have the desire or care to win in football. Those ESPN checks buy luxury boxes for the new Dean Dome, not 4* O-linemen from Alabama. You can’t win now, you can’t win in the future, but just know, I’m going to enjoy the hell out of watching you get mollywomped by a rebuilding Arkansas team. I hope the tailgates are fun.

Our emails are open, so feel free to comment on this post or shoot us an email if you have thoughts, comments, concerns, or a pick for who’s winning the game tomorrow. Have a great weekend & Go Deacs. 

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Rand & Tate met a few years ago through a mutual friend who went to college with Rand and high school with Tate. Tate went to Georgia and has spent the last few years collecting championship rings while traveling to watch the Dawgs. Rand went to known CFB powerhouse Wake Forest, and currently pays rent in Charlotte, but is rarely found there with all the work & CFB travel he does.