College football analyst Greg McElroy joined the CanesInSight show, explaining why the Hurricanes can win it all in 2026. Check out everything he had to say below:
On if the Hurricanes win the national championship, it’s because of: I think if they win the national championship, it's because of a couple things, but number one, it's because the explosiveness of their offense has taken it to the next level. And it's not that they didn't have capabilities of that last year, but if you look at how they kind of adjusted who they were, it was almost as if when Mario Cristobal got in, and it was tight there at the end, right, between them and Notre Dame, whichever way you felt like it should go, I think they got it right. But naturally, especially given how they played after that, but finally Mario's like, All right, enough messing around, like feed Fletcher. Like this O-line's our star. Let's just pound the ball. And it worked out well in the first game against A&M because A&M was dealing with a 35-mile-an-hour wind and the passing game was essentially irrelevant. So it worked out well in that game, but they're like, We found something here. We just, we were patient, we stuck to it, we sprung a few big ones at the end, and it worked in our favor. And the same thing happened against Ohio State. It's like, We're gonna stick to it. We're gonna be patient. We're gonna go. And I thought Carson played beautifully throughout the last few games as well. So looking at everything, I think the one thing, though, if it became a track meet for whatever reason, the defense didn't play well on a given day— and it happens. It's happened a hundred times. Doesn't matter how good your defense is. The offenses now are so good and the quarterbacks you face are so good— there's gonna come a day when they got to win 30 to win. They got to score 30 to win. And I don't know if last year they could for sure do that. I do think they can this year. I think their wide receivers are better. I think their quarterback is more capable of pushing the ball down the field, and I also think, too, the run game and the strength that they have at running back is elite. Am I curious about the O-line being a strength? Of course. I mean just because of how good that group was last year. Not because they're not good. It's just, are they gonna be anywhere near to what they were a year ago? I don't know the answer to that just yet. We'll find out. But if there's one group I trust, it's a group along the offensive line that's coached by Mario Cristobal. So I think that's a safe bet there. But I think if they're gonna take the next step, it's because their offense has another level that can go up in the event in which the defense has an off day.
On the defensive line: You referenced the top ten defensive line groups, and that was part of the challenge of putting everything together last year. It's like I'm watching Rueben Bain and Mesidor just wreck people, stopping. I'm like, Well, that's gone. You know? And it didn't take anything away from the interior, but knowing how good those guys were and knowing how dominant and physical and violent Bain was especially, it's like, Dude, I don't care. You could bring in the best pass rusher in the country, and they're not gonna be as violent. They're not gonna be as much of a tone-setter as last year's group was. Because look, everybody's got bendy, fast, twitchy, agile edge rushers, right? I mean, I love Mesidor. It's not taking anything away from him. Rueben Bain was one of one. You know what I'm saying? Like that guy was just next-level violent and set the tone for the whole team. So, and I think the way he's gonna translate to Tampa is gonna be, like, he's gonna be so good so fast. I can't wait to tell everyone they were wrong, because they're like, Oh, he's too short. Arms are too short. Watch him. Just watch him. Watch what he does to that tackle. Watch how bad that tackle is feeling by the end of the game because of how often he brings the heat. So, in my evaluation of their D-line, all I could think about is, like, there's no way they're gonna be as good as last year. You just can't replace those guys. And I like what they've added in the portal. I do. I think they have quality pieces in the portal. But the strength now has moved from the edges to the interior, and you referenced the guys already that we're watching with Scott and Moten. Those guys are gonna have to be complete game changers. And I think they can be. That's the beauty of it. Because while Moten always overshadowed, always overlooked, Scott the same way, they still had their moments in which they did get the occasional isolation and won. Now, my big question is, how much attention are you paying to the edges versus how many resources are you attributing to the interior? Because if they're still paying the same amount of attention to the edges as they were a year ago, then those interior guys are gonna eat. But if they can maybe take some of the pressure off the edges and focus their resources towards stopping the guys up front on the inside, then can the edge guys win the one-on-ones? I think they can. It's just can they do it as consistently as they did last year? So it's an elite group. It's a really good group— a really good group with the possibility of becoming elite. But we kind of have to see it here over the next few weeks before we're willing to jump to that conclusion.
On Miami’s new-look offense and getting on the same page: Well, it's really—you don't want to be young at quarterback and along the O-line. You don't want to lack continuity in both places. That's a challenge. And there's a bunch of teams that are doing that. It doesn't mean it can't be overcome. It's just a challenge. When you have the perfect storms, when you have veterans up front, veterans in the back, veteran at quarterback, and you can solve all the riddles, like they had last year, for how Carson was able to distribute, get the ball out quick, short passing game. Like they knew exactly who Carson was, and it was really helpful there Carson could dictate protection and adjust protection because he played so much football. Darian Mensah also played a comparable amount of football to Carson Beck. I mean, he's got a ton of starts under his belt. He's been super successful, and he's had to do so while under duress most of his career. So if you look at his numbers, his historical numbers over the last couple years, he did so while playing behind an offensive line that will be nowhere near what he's gonna take the field with this upcoming year. So I'm expecting Mensah to level up compared to what we saw at Duke and Tulane in the last couple seasons. As far as the O-line, the way they do it there is they give the quarterback a lot of freedom. He can adjust. He can dictate. But at the end of the day, Shannon Dawson wants the quarterback to be reactive. But the quarterback also, the get-out-of-jail-free card's athleticism. And while Carson had some of that, he didn't have as much of it as Darian Mensah had, and no one has as much of it as Cam Ward had. That's what I'm most intrigued by, because I thought the guy they went after in the portal this year—and I know that they swung and missed in a few other places—but the guy they went after in the portal this year is actually the perfect combination of Carson Beck and Cam Ward. Can he do all the things Cam Ward did? No, because no one can. But he does more Cam Ward things than Carson Beck did. But he also can flip the switch and become the manager, the distributor, the guy that makes great decisions as well. So I thought they kind of hit. You have Carson here, you have Cam here, Darian is here, kind of right in the middle. They can do the best of both worlds. That's why I like where this offense is heading, because it could evolve to the point where they have the four, go make a play style of offense they used two years ago, and they have the ground-and-pound, quick fall, quick game, quick distributor, option routes, all that stuff that they had last year. So they can do both. So I think the offense is going to be more open this year than we've saw in the past, but it doesn't mean they need to get away from the feed-and-run game. Because I think Mark Fletcher's proven that he can be an every-down guy. I mean, he can be a 20-carry guy. Now, do you want him to be that? Probably not. That's not how they operate, but he has it in him to be a bell-cow-style player. And I think they have depth at that position with Juice there as well. So I look at it kind of across the board. I know it's a long answer to a shorter question, but I think the offensive line will be aided by Mims's experience and mobility, and the offensive line won't have to play at some ridiculous level early on, and it'll allow them maybe a game or two, three games or so, maybe to kind of get their feet wet, develop that rapport before the competition increases.
On who he thinks will win the national championship: I'm going Ohio State, and part of that has to do with the fact that what Miami exposed last year has been a humongous focal point. We know they got weapons. We know they got dudes at wideout. We know their quarterback, running back, all their stuff is great in the skill positions. No one's pushing back on that. But the offensive line was more of an Achilles heel than we knew prior to the last two games of the season last year. They gave up ten sacks in those two games. They lost both, and they scored 24 points in the process. So it wasn't a pretty game for them against Miami. It certainly wasn't a pretty game for them against Indiana. They've now brought in Arthur Smith as their offensive coordinator, and if there's one thing Arthur knows how to do, and people will be critical, NFL guys will be critical, understandably, but he's going to pound the football, and his offensive lines have been good. That's kind of his calling card. So they've overcorrected at that spot. That'll be helpful moving forward. And then the other question about Ohio State is they have to replace seven guys on defense, three guys drafted in the top 11 picks. Well, we've heard that before. Why? Because we said that last year. We're like, oh, they can't replace those guys along the defense. Like there's no way they're going to be as good on defense as they were when they won the national championship in '24. They lost too many guys. Well, they lost seven going into last year, and their defense went from 250 a game given up to 220. They went from giving up 13 points a game to 9.8. So they improved in both categories under Matt Patricia in his first year. Now he's going into year number two with a really talented core of players. So I'm going Ohio State this year, but I actually think it's a deeper race than it sounds.
On if the Hurricanes win the national championship, it’s because of: I think if they win the national championship, it's because of a couple things, but number one, it's because the explosiveness of their offense has taken it to the next level. And it's not that they didn't have capabilities of that last year, but if you look at how they kind of adjusted who they were, it was almost as if when Mario Cristobal got in, and it was tight there at the end, right, between them and Notre Dame, whichever way you felt like it should go, I think they got it right. But naturally, especially given how they played after that, but finally Mario's like, All right, enough messing around, like feed Fletcher. Like this O-line's our star. Let's just pound the ball. And it worked out well in the first game against A&M because A&M was dealing with a 35-mile-an-hour wind and the passing game was essentially irrelevant. So it worked out well in that game, but they're like, We found something here. We just, we were patient, we stuck to it, we sprung a few big ones at the end, and it worked in our favor. And the same thing happened against Ohio State. It's like, We're gonna stick to it. We're gonna be patient. We're gonna go. And I thought Carson played beautifully throughout the last few games as well. So looking at everything, I think the one thing, though, if it became a track meet for whatever reason, the defense didn't play well on a given day— and it happens. It's happened a hundred times. Doesn't matter how good your defense is. The offenses now are so good and the quarterbacks you face are so good— there's gonna come a day when they got to win 30 to win. They got to score 30 to win. And I don't know if last year they could for sure do that. I do think they can this year. I think their wide receivers are better. I think their quarterback is more capable of pushing the ball down the field, and I also think, too, the run game and the strength that they have at running back is elite. Am I curious about the O-line being a strength? Of course. I mean just because of how good that group was last year. Not because they're not good. It's just, are they gonna be anywhere near to what they were a year ago? I don't know the answer to that just yet. We'll find out. But if there's one group I trust, it's a group along the offensive line that's coached by Mario Cristobal. So I think that's a safe bet there. But I think if they're gonna take the next step, it's because their offense has another level that can go up in the event in which the defense has an off day.
On the defensive line: You referenced the top ten defensive line groups, and that was part of the challenge of putting everything together last year. It's like I'm watching Rueben Bain and Mesidor just wreck people, stopping. I'm like, Well, that's gone. You know? And it didn't take anything away from the interior, but knowing how good those guys were and knowing how dominant and physical and violent Bain was especially, it's like, Dude, I don't care. You could bring in the best pass rusher in the country, and they're not gonna be as violent. They're not gonna be as much of a tone-setter as last year's group was. Because look, everybody's got bendy, fast, twitchy, agile edge rushers, right? I mean, I love Mesidor. It's not taking anything away from him. Rueben Bain was one of one. You know what I'm saying? Like that guy was just next-level violent and set the tone for the whole team. So, and I think the way he's gonna translate to Tampa is gonna be, like, he's gonna be so good so fast. I can't wait to tell everyone they were wrong, because they're like, Oh, he's too short. Arms are too short. Watch him. Just watch him. Watch what he does to that tackle. Watch how bad that tackle is feeling by the end of the game because of how often he brings the heat. So, in my evaluation of their D-line, all I could think about is, like, there's no way they're gonna be as good as last year. You just can't replace those guys. And I like what they've added in the portal. I do. I think they have quality pieces in the portal. But the strength now has moved from the edges to the interior, and you referenced the guys already that we're watching with Scott and Moten. Those guys are gonna have to be complete game changers. And I think they can be. That's the beauty of it. Because while Moten always overshadowed, always overlooked, Scott the same way, they still had their moments in which they did get the occasional isolation and won. Now, my big question is, how much attention are you paying to the edges versus how many resources are you attributing to the interior? Because if they're still paying the same amount of attention to the edges as they were a year ago, then those interior guys are gonna eat. But if they can maybe take some of the pressure off the edges and focus their resources towards stopping the guys up front on the inside, then can the edge guys win the one-on-ones? I think they can. It's just can they do it as consistently as they did last year? So it's an elite group. It's a really good group— a really good group with the possibility of becoming elite. But we kind of have to see it here over the next few weeks before we're willing to jump to that conclusion.
On Miami’s new-look offense and getting on the same page: Well, it's really—you don't want to be young at quarterback and along the O-line. You don't want to lack continuity in both places. That's a challenge. And there's a bunch of teams that are doing that. It doesn't mean it can't be overcome. It's just a challenge. When you have the perfect storms, when you have veterans up front, veterans in the back, veteran at quarterback, and you can solve all the riddles, like they had last year, for how Carson was able to distribute, get the ball out quick, short passing game. Like they knew exactly who Carson was, and it was really helpful there Carson could dictate protection and adjust protection because he played so much football. Darian Mensah also played a comparable amount of football to Carson Beck. I mean, he's got a ton of starts under his belt. He's been super successful, and he's had to do so while under duress most of his career. So if you look at his numbers, his historical numbers over the last couple years, he did so while playing behind an offensive line that will be nowhere near what he's gonna take the field with this upcoming year. So I'm expecting Mensah to level up compared to what we saw at Duke and Tulane in the last couple seasons. As far as the O-line, the way they do it there is they give the quarterback a lot of freedom. He can adjust. He can dictate. But at the end of the day, Shannon Dawson wants the quarterback to be reactive. But the quarterback also, the get-out-of-jail-free card's athleticism. And while Carson had some of that, he didn't have as much of it as Darian Mensah had, and no one has as much of it as Cam Ward had. That's what I'm most intrigued by, because I thought the guy they went after in the portal this year—and I know that they swung and missed in a few other places—but the guy they went after in the portal this year is actually the perfect combination of Carson Beck and Cam Ward. Can he do all the things Cam Ward did? No, because no one can. But he does more Cam Ward things than Carson Beck did. But he also can flip the switch and become the manager, the distributor, the guy that makes great decisions as well. So I thought they kind of hit. You have Carson here, you have Cam here, Darian is here, kind of right in the middle. They can do the best of both worlds. That's why I like where this offense is heading, because it could evolve to the point where they have the four, go make a play style of offense they used two years ago, and they have the ground-and-pound, quick fall, quick game, quick distributor, option routes, all that stuff that they had last year. So they can do both. So I think the offense is going to be more open this year than we've saw in the past, but it doesn't mean they need to get away from the feed-and-run game. Because I think Mark Fletcher's proven that he can be an every-down guy. I mean, he can be a 20-carry guy. Now, do you want him to be that? Probably not. That's not how they operate, but he has it in him to be a bell-cow-style player. And I think they have depth at that position with Juice there as well. So I look at it kind of across the board. I know it's a long answer to a shorter question, but I think the offensive line will be aided by Mims's experience and mobility, and the offensive line won't have to play at some ridiculous level early on, and it'll allow them maybe a game or two, three games or so, maybe to kind of get their feet wet, develop that rapport before the competition increases.
On who he thinks will win the national championship: I'm going Ohio State, and part of that has to do with the fact that what Miami exposed last year has been a humongous focal point. We know they got weapons. We know they got dudes at wideout. We know their quarterback, running back, all their stuff is great in the skill positions. No one's pushing back on that. But the offensive line was more of an Achilles heel than we knew prior to the last two games of the season last year. They gave up ten sacks in those two games. They lost both, and they scored 24 points in the process. So it wasn't a pretty game for them against Miami. It certainly wasn't a pretty game for them against Indiana. They've now brought in Arthur Smith as their offensive coordinator, and if there's one thing Arthur knows how to do, and people will be critical, NFL guys will be critical, understandably, but he's going to pound the football, and his offensive lines have been good. That's kind of his calling card. So they've overcorrected at that spot. That'll be helpful moving forward. And then the other question about Ohio State is they have to replace seven guys on defense, three guys drafted in the top 11 picks. Well, we've heard that before. Why? Because we said that last year. We're like, oh, they can't replace those guys along the defense. Like there's no way they're going to be as good on defense as they were when they won the national championship in '24. They lost too many guys. Well, they lost seven going into last year, and their defense went from 250 a game given up to 220. They went from giving up 13 points a game to 9.8. So they improved in both categories under Matt Patricia in his first year. Now he's going into year number two with a really talented core of players. So I'm going Ohio State this year, but I actually think it's a deeper race than it sounds.
