ESPN announcing crew on 'Zero Dark Thursday'

Earlier today, Assistant Sports Editor Daniel Wilco and Senior Writer Michael Lananna caught up with ESPN’s Jesse Palmer and Sam Ponder, who will be part of the announcing team broadcasting North Carolina’s matchup with No. 10 Miami.

Read their thoughts on UNC, the ACC, uniforms and more below.

‘Zero Dark Thursday’

Sam Ponder: So much of college football is environment. And that’s why I love it. I tell whoever I talk to that I love college football more than the NFL because of the culture around college football where you can get a game like this where on paper, North Carolina doesn’t have a chance. If you were just looking, like a lot of times an NFL game and it’s just size vs. size and talent vs. talent, sorry Tar Heels, it’s not working out tonight. But environment, can change everything. And I think sometimes fans underestimate the influence that they can have, especially now with pretty much everybody doing this no-huddle stuff where everything happens quickly and guys on the field are trying to communicate quickly. So if you can’t hear, that’s a bad deal. You can get blown coverages and missed assignments all the time because of the fans. And I’ve seen the impact they’ve had. They’re going to have a huge impact this weekend at Clemson and we’ll see if they can have that kind of impact tonight.

Jesse Palmer: Oh, I think these are very exciting. I know for us as announcers, this is one we kind of circled at the beginning of the year. It’s going to be a great contest and a great matchup. Zero Dark Thursday, I think this community is right now really buzzing around. I went for a jog this morning around campus, and I can kind of already feel it and see it. So this is an environment that I know as announcers we’re all excited to finally see.

All-black uniforms

SP: Hey, keep changing it until something works. If it’s the wardrobe, the uniform that you think is making a difference, then just keep on changing. I will say that I used to make fun of the uniform obsession because I didn’t really get it, I’ve never really cared that much about that, but the more I talk to recruits and guys in college football right now, the more I acknowledge that it is important. Like what Baylor is doing right now. I mean, whenever you can get people buying Baylor stuff who have zero connections to Waco or Baylor you realize, ‘Alright, they might be doing something different around here.’ So if UNC wants to do that, as soon as they start winning with whatever they’re wearing, keep wearing that.

JP: I know it’s fun for fans, certainly. It’s great for the school. I know as players, they absolutely love it. We were in the equipment room yesterday, and you can already hear the players talking about it. In the equipment room, they kind of had the uniform all set up. And they are sweet, by the way. I mean there’s a reason these fans get so excited and the players get excited. This is one of those funny games tonight, I think, that could be an extreme catalyst for UNC. And obviously the season hasn’t gone the way they would’ve liked. Being 1-4 wasn’t in their plans, but the opportunity to beat a ranked team for the first time since 2010, you look at the rest of their schedule, their final six games, there’s no ranked opponents on the slate. I mean, with a win today, it’s not inconceivable to think this team could be an eight-win team at the end of the year. In the ACC, who knows what that gets you, maybe a shot at playing for the conference championship. Wearing new unis and Zero Dark Thursday, I think sets the scale and the tone and the stage for what could be a very big, big game for UNC.

Quarterbacks

SP: Bryn is so talented. The first game that we did against South Carolina, we were saying in our meetings, Jesse, David (Pollack) and everybody, pumping up Bryn as one of the top guys in the country. And obviously things haven’t turned out so far the way that he wanted to or, gosh, anyone around the program wanted them to but I think now it’s going to be interesting tonight to see how they mix in Marquise (Williams) and still use his abilities with Bryn. It’s not like Bryn lost his job or anything like that but I think they realize now, ‘We’ve got talent now at one and two at that position.’ So it will be interesting to see what they do. But Bryn as a person is so much fun to be around. Just a good guy and incredibly talented so I hope for his sake they turn it around.

JP: I think it’s two of the best in the country, certainly as seniors. When you look at Stephen Morris, from Miami, the one thing that really jumps out to you is arm talent and velocity. He may have the most natural arm talent of any quarterback that will get drafted this upcoming class. Bryn Renner from UNC I think is one of the best quarterbacks in the country that nobody talks about. He’s a guy that I’ve had a chance to see multiple times at the Manning Passing Academy. Very polished, obviously very experienced. He’s a three-year starter. He’s played in two completely different offenses, but very accurate, throws with excellent anticipation, got some good size, he’s a better athlete than people give him credit for. So this one of those games that I think can end up being a quarterback duel — a lot of fun if you like watching good players in those positions.

The ACC

SP: Last year, the ACC was kind of the fun conference to make fun of. That has changed very quickly. When you get dynamic quarterbacks, it really doesn’t matter what else you have. When you have dynamic quarterbacks that the country is starting to pay attention to, people start giving your conference more love. But to have a top-5 conference like Florida State-Clemson, and then to have Miami back. It’s good for college football when Miami is the U. When people nationally think of Miami as a great football program, it’s good for the sport. So it’s a very good time to be in the ACC right now. And I hear about it at home all the time. But I told him, PAC-12 this year is pretty good themselves, so it’s a family rivalry right now.

JP: I think this is the best the ACC has been in the BCS era when you look at the quality of teams. Clemson-Florida State is a game, obviously, that we just can’t wait to watch. But a big reason why is big wins at the beginning of the season against tough non-conference competition that both Miami and Clemson obviously have won in those games. So they’ve earned it, and they’ve set it up, and think that’s why Saturday night’s game is so eagerly anticipated because I think people believe they’re legitimately two of the top-five teams in the country.

Thursday night football

SP: Something just weird happens on Thursday night football. I don’t know what it was. I started doing Friday night football two years ago and then came over to Thursday night football and there’s something about not being on the regular game day and not having the regular schedule that weird stuff just happens. We saw Clemson a few weeks ago struggle with N.C. State on Thursday night. You never know what’s going to happen. To me, that makes the environment much more fun because you can go into a game thinking, like tonight, ‘Eh, maybe it’s not going to be a good game,’ but then you remember it’s a Thursday night game and anything can happen and it kind of builds the excitement around the game and I think gets the fans excited, which to me is what college football is about.

State of UNC football

JP: I think the biggest concern to me watching them on tape right now is the lack of talent and depth. And I think a lot of that is attributed to NCAA sanctions here in recent years. They’ve lost 10 scholarships in the last two years, and that really shows up.

When I watch them on tape on the offensive line and defensive line, defensively certainly, they’ve gotten gashed at times this year. And I think for coach Vic Koenning, the defensive coordinator, trying to simplify what they do, get guys lined up to play fast. Offensively, we know, they have the ability to score points, but they haven’t been balance. So I’d say two things on the field: you gotta play better defense, and they started to turn the corner a little bit against Virginia Tech. And offensively you just have to find a way to run the football and have balance because one thing I think Larry Fedora has always had in his career, whether it was at Southern Mississippi or Oklahoma State or Middle Tennessee or Florida or even here last year, it’s been balance running and throwing. They’ve been very one dimensional this year. It’s given opposing defenses an advantage.

Very curious to watch (running back) T.J. Logan tonight, a true freshman that a lot of people talked about. I think this staff thinks that he can be something special. They’re going to be aggressive in finding out just how could he can be, and tonight could be a great performance against once been a good Miami defense, it’s very, very stout up the middle. T.J. Logan’s performance tonight could go a long way to determining whether or not UNC wins.

Chapel Hill

SP: UNC is one of my favorite places to come. I was here, I did the Duke basketball game back in March, and my best friend in college went to UNC, so when I was at Liberty, I would drive down and hang out on Franklin with her. I love this campus. It’s such a special place. I’m sure everyone says that about their school but I didn’t go here and I have no connection here so I feel like that’s somewhat of an objective opinion. But it’s just a cool place. It feels like the traditional college town environment, and there’s so much to do and so much history that it makes it an enjoyable place for us to stop.

Miscellaneous

The last time UNC played a Thursday night football game, the only other time, was 2009, against FSU and a certain someone, Christian Ponder (Sam Ponder’s husband), came back and won the game against UNC.

Sam Ponder: I was in college, so I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was in my senior year at Liberty University and at the time I was so dialed in to Big South football, I’m sure you guys know a lot about that, I didn’t care who the heck Christian Ponder was. Actually I didn’t really care who Christian Ponder was until about a year ago. I grew up watching Pac-10, but I didn’t really pay that much attention to the ACC or the SEC.

Sam Ponder on dressing for a blackout game: Okay, this is one of the most stressful things about my job, and I know that sounds ridiculous. It makes me sound like I have a very easy job, which maybe I do. But knowing what to wear to not upset either fan-base is something I… because I have to pack for a week at a time so you’re already thinking, ‘Okay I can’t wear UNC colors, I can’t wear Miami colors, I can’t wear Duke colors because that would just be terrible, I can’t wear Florida State colors because of Miami or Florida colors, so pretty much I end up wearing pink. Nobody is pink. I used to wear black, but a ton of teams started doing the whole blackout thing, and then tonight we’ll probably have rain also. It’s a disaster.