Brownlow's Twitter Mailbag: Triangle football win predictions and more

Another week, another off-season Mailbag...and a week that is made brighter for me now that I get to compare Love Island to the transfer portal! Thanks, yet again, for your good and thought-provoking questions.

This week, we'll get into Triangle football win predictions (or, more accurately, prediction ranges), is the transfer portal basically Casa Amor from Love Island, and is NC State's best coach ever the late Dick Sheridan?

Let's get into your questions!

The love I have in my heart for this question is immeasurable; thank you so much for bringing it into my life. For the uninitiated, Casa Amor is a twist on the dating show Love Island. Basically, every week singles "couple up" with one another (to varying degrees of seriousness, obviously, ranging from friendship to saying "I love you").

Sometimes they stay in the same couple they get into from the start of the show. Sometimes, it takes them awhile to find their person. And sometimes, they never do. Usually, the people left single after "recouplings" are in danger of being sent home, yada yada yada.

Casa Amor happens about halfway through the show, and often when a lot of the couples are transitioning into something more serious. But it's a house separate from the Love Island house where either the men or the women of the previously-made couples are whisked away to with often little to no warning where there are a whole new group of singles of the opposite sex ready to mingle.

The ones that know they've found the right one usually just spend their time on their own or cheering on their friends still looking for a better match, but sometimes they give in to temptation. It's honestly one of those reality show twists where I feel like I'll remember how I felt the first time I saw it. It absolutely blew me away.

Anyway, I feel like this basically describes the transfer portal era in general, no? Except there's no order to the proceedings. I guess it would be nice if potential transfers and schools could mingle and get to know one another Casa Amor-style before deciding if they'd like to get together.

Maybe the player decides he just misses his former school too much when he's not there. Or maybe all of his other transfer portal bros will make him feel like his current Love Island arrangement needs "a test" which, apparently, means trying to date someone while you're seeing someone else? But isn't that what players and schools do? We hear stories all the time of other schools trying to "steal" a transfer, even talking to a player during the season.

Everyone is wooing everyone all the time. So, in other words, yes to Casa Amor for the transfer portal.

There have been some very solid coaches in NC State's history, but it's really tough to argue with Sheridan's seven seasons. He boasts a 59-29-3 record, and of NC State coaches to have coached at least 40 games, only Lou Holtz has a higher winning percentage.

He took NC State to six bowl games. NC State finished under .500 just once in his tenure and he won eight or more games four times. NC State finished ranked in three of his seven seasons. Oh, and Sheridan is in the College Football Hall of Fame for both his time at NC State and Furman before it. So yeah, I think he's the guy.

I don't like to do straight win/loss predictions, because A. I'm always wrong and B. A lot can change over the course of the season, and not just with the three local teams. One winnable game turning into a loss for one of the local teams could change the trajectory of their entire season.

I'd do a better job making the predictions a choose your own adventure story. "Does North Carolina beat South Carolina in Week 1? If you think yes, go to Page 16. If not, go to Page 2." And on Page 2 it will detail how Carolina maybe just manages to beat App only to lose handily to Minnesota out of nowhere, but that's only if you progressed to Page 8. So I'll do my best to summarize my picks, give you a range of wins and tell you why:

I see a scenario in the choose your own adventure book where UNC starts 6-1 or 5-2 and is feeling pretty good, about to head into playing its second game out of the state of North Carolina: at the dreaded Georgia Tech.

Wait a minute, you might say, Georgia Tech isn't very good. I know! And yet North Carolina managed to lose to them last year, too! Playing in Atlanta has been a bugaboo for plenty of North Carolina teams, no matter how good and no matter how bad Georgia Tech is.

After the game in Atlanta, Carolina hosts Campbell, then Duke before heading to Clemson and then NC State to finish the year. Nothing like your three toughest games to end the season.

Of course, the scenario of UNC getting to the end of the season and flopping isn't really as big of an issue if the Tar Heels stumble early in the season, which is definitely possible. Campbell is the only game UNC is virtually guaranteed to win on the schedule, and that isn't until later in the year.

Carolina would still be favored in eight of its first nine games and maybe nine of 10. Should Carolina avoid the toss-up losses, the Tar Heels could get up to nine wins. But there are plenty of potential places to stumble. It'll be interesting to see what the new offense looks like with a lot of firepower still on that side of the ball and what the defense has in store. Even a marginal defensive improvement is worth at least a few wins.

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When I look at Duke's schedule, I don't know whether to get excited or feel afraid, and I'd imagine most Duke fans feel the same way. There are at least three games on Duke's schedule that it won't be expected to win by anyone except for the true believers: Clemson, Notre Dame and at Florida State.

Duke does have the benefit of being at home for two of them, but home field alone won't be nearly enough against those two. So could Duke win every single other game on its schedule and get to nine wins?

I mean, technically, but it's difficult to imagine that. And you could also see a scenario where Duke starts off well but its late October slate (at Florida State, at Louisville) goes badly and starts a bit of a losing streak.

I would genuinely be surprised if Duke started any worse than 3-2 in its first five games. Duke could beat NC State at home and get to 4-2, but after that, every game remains losable for Duke down the stretch. Too much to ask to win all four of at Florida State, at Louisville, Wake Forest at home and at UNC.

I think highly of Mike Elko and what he's done at Duke, so I think he'll be able to get Duke to win its winnable games and I think Duke goes to a bowl game at the very least. I think Elko gets Coach of the Year votes potentially if he gets Duke to 8 wins, but if he got to 9? Yeah, he'd probably repeat. But I think we could see a better Duke team than we did last year that just has the misfortune of a much tougher schedule than last year's Duke team.

I'm probably assuming a few too many things go right for NC State to hit the high end of the win total here, but I think the only games NC State will be the underdog in will be Notre Dame at home and then ... maybe at Duke? At Wake, depending on how the Deacs do? MAYBE hosting North Carolina? But NC State will be favored in at least four of its first six games, and unless things go very wrong at Connecticut, I think they'll start out 3-1 with a loss to Notre Dame.

Win at Virginia, where they'll be favored, and then I think they can beat Louisville at home. Then they get Marshall at home, at Duke and maybe feeling pretty good. It's not crazy to think NC State could start 5-1.

But then it's at Duke and Clemson at home, both of which will be tough (Clemson a bit tougher, obviously). NC State will be favored against Miami at home and at Virginia Tech, but games at Wake and home against UNC will be toss-ups. I like Dave Doeren and his staff to find a way to win toss-ups, especially at home. So I think the Wolfpack gets to six wins at least. But getting to nine just feels like a lot to ask of a new offensive coordinator and a new quarterback, even if those two are already well-acquainted.

The mere mention of Tee Public in this space puts me at enormous risk of purchasing MORE Tee Public shirts. So for me, the ideal Tee Public shirt is less about the message on the shirt and more about the fit and color.

For those who are still uninitiated, Tee Public is a great site where you can find almost any kind of tee-shirt you could ever conceive of and there is usually some sort of 35% off sale that means you can get said tee-shirts for under $20. And they're generally pretty good quality.

These NC high school baseball players could be picked in the 2023 MLB Draft

I like to get shirts commemorating either TV shows and movies I like or places I've been. Those are my favorite kinds of shirts. And so my two favorite and most-worn Tee Public shirts are my Red Rock State Park shirt commemorating my visit to Sedona and my Corncob TV shirt (a reference from the Netflix show I Think You Should Leave).

But it's just funny because I realized when you asked this question that I have never bought just one Tee Public shirt at a time. They usually take like a week to get there at least and again, there is that sale that feels far more temporary than it is, so you feel like you HAVE to get more than one.