CHARLOTTE – When I first started covering the ACC Kickoff, in 1988 at Foxfire Village Resort in Southern Pines, N.C., it was a relaxed two-day affair in which the league coaches played a little golf and sat around at a pig pickin’ – literally – schmoozing each other about the upcoming season.
Even after it became a more formal event at larger venues once Florida State joined the conference and football became more of a focus for the conference, it was still an intimate function in which everyone attending either knew or recognized everybody else.
Not anymore.
Expansion has ballooned the ACC into a 17-team bi-coastal behemoth, turning the Kickoff into a gathering more reminiscent of a corporate convention. It’s become so big that there’s barely enough room on the escalators at the Uptown Charlotte Hilton to display everyone’s logo.
But it’s still an amazing event that whets the appetite for the exciting season to come. Now that it’s done, here’s a look back at some of the most memorable sights and sounds from a long three days of talking football in the Queen City:
MARIO HASN’T ALWAYS HAD IT SO GOOD
There are plenty of perks to being at the top of the college football food chain, as Mario Cristobal is finding out after leading Miami into the national championship game last winter.
But the Hurricanes coach hasn’t always had it so good.
His first head coaching job was at Florida International, which went winless the season before he was hired in December 2006. As it turned out, that was the least of his worries.
“When you walk into a place and you sign a contract, they tell you, ‘Guys are about to go on a five-year probation, you’re going to have 33 ineligible players, 17 plus on top of that, you’re going to lose a scholarship for every player ineligible going forward to a contemporaneous penalty for the APR, but the good news is you play seven of the top teams in the country that’s about to go Division I. By the way, you just lost 15 straight games before you got started. Do you want that job?”
Things hadn’t gotten much better three years later when Cristobal attempted to take his team to Tuscaloosa for a for-profit beatdown at the hands of Alabama.
“We’re going to hop on our plane … and they said, ‘Well, you guys didn’t pay for a plane, so you’re not going anywhere,” Cristobal recalled. “So give my credit card to the wife, (I told her) go get 200 meatball and cheese subs at Subway, bring them back for the players and let me figure this out.”
Cristobal figured things out enough to get FIU to back-to-back bowl games before taking the job at Oregon and subsequently returning to his alma mater – where he helped Miami win two national championships as an offensive lineman – in 2022. But he continues to draw on the experience he gained during the early days of his career.
“You are faced with obstacles you wouldn’t normally face. Honestly, I’m grateful for that,” he said, adding that in addition to coaching, he was also the team’s “academic advisor, chef, travel coordinator and fundraiser.
“I got to cut my teeth on some very difficult situations and circumstances. I thank God for that because it really helps me appreciate being at a place like Miami nowadays. But yeah, we pay for our planes now.”
RAMEN MAN
Running back Marcellous Hawkins lists cooking as one of his interests in his bio on Virginia Tech’s official website. But when it comes to his culinary preferences, he’s not exactly Gordon Ramsey.
“When it comes to fixing a meal, I think I cook the best raman noodles,” he said. “I’m real good at putting things into the microwave. That’s really all I’ve got.”
His answer got a big laugh from the gathered group of reporters during the Hokies’ time in the main interview room. But asked to expound on the subject after moving over to the individual breakout area, Hawkins insisted he wasn’t trying to be funny. He said he likes to dress up his noodles with add-ons, including hot dogs.”
That’s not the only thing the Hokies’ leading rusher likes to dress up. Even so, he said his Kickoff wardrobe choice of a classy black suit, accented by a Hokie orange tie and pocket square, still played second fiddle to his “cooking.”
“My ramen noodles are definitely better than my drip,” he said.
BELICHICK’S BAGEL
Speaking of food choices …
The ACC does a great job of providing for the players, coaches and media members attending its three day preseason event. Among the offerings were Pop Tarts courtesy of the PopTarts Bowl, Chick-fil-A courtesy of the conference’s long-time sponsor and decorative sugar cookies courtesy of the Orange Bowl. On Friday, Pop-Up Bagels provided a large assortment of bagels and spreads.
North Carolina coach Bill Belichick was among those who decided to partake in the morning delicacy. But apparently he wasn’t all that hungry, because he tore the salt bagel he grabbed in half and walked away – leaving the uneaten half in the box to be consumed by someone else, or taken by someone looking to sell it on eBay.
PLAYING FOOTBALL LIKE A-RINGING’ A BELL
Bowl games all have unique perks that help make the experience special for their participants. At the Pinstripe Bowl last December, members of the Clemson football team got the chance to ring the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange.
It was an experience tight end Olsen Patt-Henry said he’ll never forget.
“It was just very interesting just to see the different things,” the player known to his teammates as OPH said. “I’m in a sports bubble, a school bubble, and I don’t really know what’s going on. Just to see the importance of someone you don’t think their job is as important, just to see how everybody was communicating and just to be able to, you know, be on the same page and just see how big their job was was cool to see.”
Patt-Henry is something of an anomaly in a college sports landscape taken over by NIL deals and transfers. He’s an honor roll student who is already thinking about life beyond a potential NFL career.
“My mom is a nurse, so just her instilling academic part in me has always been important, because one day football is going to go flat,” he said. “I think in the world of college football we live in now, with NIL involved, not being able to have a degree while getting money just doesn’t sit right. I think we live in a world where guys are just chasing checks and not having the structure of getting an education. Having a degree has always been one of my goals.”
NO HOOP DREAMS
You’d never know it by looking at Louisville’s 6-foot-3, 260-pound edge rusher Clev Lubin now, but he once averaged 21.6 points and 11.4 rebounds per game for his high school basketball team in Suffern, N.Y. It was such a surprise that his teammate on the podium in Charlotte on Thursday didn’t believe it until a reporter asked him about it.
“Told y’all I was good,” he said, turning to face quarterback Lincoln Kienholz and offensive lineman Lance Robinson. “Y’all thought it was a joke.”
Lubin, who has also played at Army and Coastal Carolina with a season in junior college between, ranked fourth in the ACC with 8.5 sacks last season and is considered a legitimate NFL prospect. Although he was, by his own admission “a pretty decent basketball player, if I do say so myself,” he said he never seriously considered pursuing basketball in college.
“I’m going to tell the honest truth, I can’t shoot for a lick,” he said. “I can get to the rim and I can score. I played hard, all that stuff, but I wasn’t going to play no DI basketball. I couldn’t shoot a three if my life depended on it.”
PICKLEBALL IS DUCE’S ‘SPECIAL-TY’
When he’s not training or playing for Florida State, Duce Robinson enjoys working with the Special Olympics of Tallahassee. In addition to his time, the All-ACC wide receiver has raised a significant amount of money for the organization by hosting a charity pickleball tournament.
“Ever since high school, a lot of our managers have been part of the Special Olympics,” Robinson said. “I just know how much sports means to them and seeing that, growing up around that, just made me really close to it.
“Then I love pickle ball. I know a lot of people love pickle ball. It made sense. People would want to show up, compete a little bit, have some fun, while also being able to give to something bigger than themselves. Through that, I want to give all the donations to the Special Olympics and hopefully bring some smiles to people’s faces.”