The Rundown Take
Free Ball Friday: No Canes Football, So U Talk Talks Everything Else — Including Manny Diaz's COVID Scare
With Miami still two weeks from its next kickoff, host Devin declared it "Free Ball Friday" and opened the show to anything and everything — fan loyalty, NFL picks, old grudges. But buried in the free-for-all was real news: Manny Diaz has tested positive for COVID-19, and the panel paused the jokes long enough to wish their head coach a speedy recovery before diving back into Falcons-Raiders trash talk and a breakdown of Miami's newly shuffled ACC schedule.
Key Takeaways
- Manny Diaz tested positive for COVID-19; the panel sent well-wishes and moved on, noting the extended bye gives the team two full weeks to reset regardless.
- Miami's remaining schedule has been reshuffled: Wake Forest on December 5, North Carolina on December 12, and Georgia Tech only as a season finale if the Canes aren't playing in the ACC Championship.
- Co-host E predicted an "upset of the week" — Denver beating Miami's Dolphins at home in the altitude, largely because of COVID-depleted depth on Denver's defense.
- The night's real theme was fan loyalty: Larry Frank Jr. traced his Steelers and Canes fandom back to childhood (Cordell Stewart and a young Alonzo Highsmith staring down Brian Bosworth), while callers Cedric Tate and George Diaz went back and forth on the Cowboys, Heat, and Lakers-via-LeBron bandwagon jokes.
- The panel debated expanding the College Football Playoff, largely agreeing eight teams is the right number given how often a deserving four-loss-or-fewer team gets left out.
Waiting Out the Bye
Devin was upfront that the layoff is rough on him personally — no Hurricanes football for two Saturdays in a row, and college football outside of Miami holds no interest for him. The mood lightened once talk turned to next steps: the panel ran through ACC tiebreaker scenarios, guessing Miami's path to the Orange Bowl likely runs through Notre Dame and Clemson meeting in the ACC Championship, with the loser of that Notre Dame-versus-the-field math potentially bumping Miami into a bowl against an SEC runner-up.
Falcons, Raiders, and a Grudge for Monday
Much of the show doubled as a proxy war between co-host E, an Atlanta Falcons fan, and host Devin's Las Vegas Raiders — with callers Cuban Kane and Jeffrey O'Neal lining up to roast E over his pick of the Falcons in that week's edition of his "Just Saying Sports" hot-picks show. E held his ground, pointing to his track record on everything except his own team, and promised to show up Monday night ready to trade insults no matter which way the Falcons-Saints game broke.
"I know you'll be willing to want to be right on this one. I know you want to be right on this one. I'm a bit of a homer when it comes to the Falcons, but when I'm right, I'm just right."