In some cases, balanced is a nice way of saying weak. One case is that of the ACC, at this point the most wide-open conference in the BCS. Six teams- half the conference- still have every chance in the world to get to the conference championship game and from there to the ACCs automatic BCS bid, which will likely be the Orange Bowl (because ACC schools dont travel well) against a superior team (because ACC schools dont play well; at least not this season).
There is no semblance of a dominant team in the Atlantic Coast, unlike every other BCS conference. The Big East has West Virginia and Louisville; the Big 10 has Ohio State and Michigan; the Big 12 has Texas; the SEC has a squadron of bad-asses; the Pac 10 still has USC (although they havent looked impressive at all lately). The ACC has no such flagship. Miami and Florida State were supposed to be that, but theyve abdicated, leaving a power vacuum that hasnt quite been filled.
Marxist football fans should admire the Atlantic Coast Conference. Its very egalitarian this season. But the picture will begin clearing up starting this week, as contenders clash all up and down the Seaboard. Georgia Tech takes the short trip to Clemson; Boston College takes the long trip to Florida State; and Miami, shorn of 13 players, takes the trip to football hell (AKA, Duke).
Georgia Tech at Clemson
Were it not for a few plays, this would be a match between two undefeated teams. As it stands now, its still a showdown between ACC division leaders. Clemson has a tenuous lead in the Atlantic Division; Georgia Tech is still undefeated in conference and has a fairly comfortable lead in the Coastal Division. Clemson has scored 50+ points in four victories over outmatched opponents and has gritty road wins at Florida State and at Wake Forest. Georgia Tech started the season by blowing a 10-0 halftime lead and losing to Notre Dame; theyve won five in a row since, including a dismantling of Virginia Tech at Blacksburg.
So both teams have proven their bona fides with signature victories on the road against the ACCs elite, such as it is. Both have centerpiece stars in the offense: Clemsons James Davis, the ACCs leading rusher and the nations leading scorer with 14 touchdowns; Georgia Techs Calvin Johnson, the 65, 235-pound wide receiver who looks doomed by his skills, size, character and potential to be playing in Oakland next year. Clemson has an added advantage in Will Proctor, the best in a dismal season for ACC quarterbacks.
Clemson needs this game a little bit more than GT. Their only lead in the Atlantic is in the win column, and theyre going to have a short turnaround before facing Va Tech at night in Blacksburg next Thursday. Georgia Tech still has UNC and Duke left on the schedule, as well as Miami at home and a roadie at mercurial N.C. State. This isnt the critical game- the Miami game (a keg-and-egger with the 11am start on Halloween Saturday) is.
The urgency of Clemsons situation is joined by the pain in Tommy Bowdens balls, still raw and swollen from the kicking done to them by Tech in the last two meetings between the schools. Last season in Atlanta the Yellowjacket defense kept Clemson out of the end zone, forced four Tiger turnovers- including a fumble inside the Georgia Tech 10- and won 10-9, basically eliminating the Tigers from title contention in the ACC.
2004 was worse. Clemson went into their Week 2 matchup with Georgia Tech in Death Valley ranked #18, and took a 24-14 lead over the Jackets with a little over three minutes left. Then Tech drove to a Calvin Johnson touchdown, recovered a botched snap on a punt at the Clemson 11-yard line, and Reggie Ball hit Johnson on a fade for the game-winner with 11 seconds to play. It was a breakout game for Johnson, then a sophomore; eight catches, 127 yards, and three touchdowns. It was an air-out-of-the-balloon style loss for Clemson: the Tigers dropped three more in a row after GT and finished a middling 6-5, with no bowl bid because of the season-ending fight with South Carolina.
Wack Predicto: Clemson 20, Georgia Tech 19. Itll be close, relatively low scoring, and in doubt late. But the Tigers are a little more explosive this year, and a little more clutch.
Boston College at Florida State
B.C. already has a win over Clemson, and would be in complete control of its division if it hadnt given up a Hail Mary in Raleigh a couple of weeks ago. Like Clemson they have an excellent quarterback in Matt Ryan, but he may not play on Saturday, so it will be up to B.C.s defense, which has performed much better since a rather ragged start.
The Eagles might get away with making it ugly in Tallahassee, because the Seminoles are afflicted with the Florida-wide malaise in offense that is choking Miami and even bit the Florida Gators during their lousy second half last week at Auburn. Drew Weatherford is yet another highly-touted Florida State quarterback who hasnt even come close to living up to his hype. Like Miami, FSU is still fast and fearsome on defense. But they coughed up two quick touchdowns late to lose to N.C. State, and will need to not do that kind of thing again if they want to pick up the mediocre offense and carry it to the ACC Championship Game. And since theyve already got two losses in the conference, theyll need help from elsewhere to get there.
It would be somewhat fitting if this game, in the graveyard of college kickers, were decided by Steve Aponavicius, Boston Colleges walk-on who was discovered kicking in his free time and apparently doing a pretty good job of it. Can some kid yanked out of the student population succeed where generations of Seminole kickers have failed?
Wack Predicto: Florida State 23, Boston College 10. Bobby Bowdens boys stay in the hunt. B.C. starts waiting for the call from the Diamond Walnut Bowl (does it still exist?).
Miami at Duke
I know its kind of played out, but I still have to say something right quick about the Brawl.
Now, I understand there are Miami fans out there that actually feel pretty good about last Saturdays melee with their rival across the ocean Florida International; think the fisticuffs on the Orange Bowl brought a measure of swagger and badass-ness back to the Canes. Some of them take it as a sign that, even with the problems under Larry Dead Man Walking Coker, this is still Da U, who you dont fuck with.
Thats just funny.
See, heres something about the old Miami teams, the Jimmy Johnson/Dennis Erickson teams, which can be forgotten in the haze of the Fiesta Bowl fatigues, the pre-game scrums with Notre Dame and Colorado, and everything else that made Miami the O.G. Thug U. Those teams never lost their cool. They didnt allow themselves to be taken out of their game mentally. The antics were not a reaction to what the other team on the field was doing- it was part of the package. Those teams would have never been goaded into this kind of clusterfuck by a tenth-rate program like Florida International. You would have never seen Jerome Brown and Michael Irvin out there swinging helmets and stomping legs. Those teams talked a lot of trash, took their fair share of cheap shots; but they handled their business on the field.
When I think of those old Miami teams, the game that always comes to mind is the 1991 Cotton Bowl against Texas. Playing in Dallas, in front of a rabidly pro-Texas crowd, Miami committed 16 penalties- the vast majority of them unsportsmanlike conducts and personal fouls- and destroyed the Longhorns, 46-3. The behavior was a tactic, and it worked. Never mind the penalties- Texas was an intimidated football team that day. They were afraid of the Canes.
Is anyone now?
This fight is not a sign that Da U is back- far from it. Its the sign of a declining program that has to substitute a cheap show of toughness against a zilch opponent for a decided lack of it in actual competition against teams that have the talent and motivation to kick the Canes right in the mouth. A great team brushes off Florida Internationals provocations and punishes them with extreme prejudice on the scoreboard and in the war of words. A mediocre, insecure team loses its composure, engages in a street fight in the middle of the damn game, than makes excuses: they started it. Well, maybe they did. But thats not the point.
But at the very least, erstwhile Hurricanes TV analyst Lamar Thomas should be congratulated. Hes finally known for something other than getting made a fool of by Alabamas George Teague in the 1993 Sugar Bowl.
The only think Miami got right with the brawl was the timing of it. Aside from Andre Reddick, the helmet-swinger, who got an indefinite suspension, the other Hurricanes involved- twelve in all- were given one-game wrist-slaps by Donna Shalala, who stood by her players the same way her old boss stood by his homeboys in the Weather Underground.
The Clintonian suspensions will, happily, be enforced in Miamis game this Saturday, at Durhams Wallace-Wade Stadium against Duke, one of two winless BCS teams remaining (the other is Stanford). The Blue Devils are second-to-last in the nation in total offense and have been shut out three times, including by I-AA Richmond. Last week, Florida State, a team with some problems of its own, went up to Durham and thrashed the Blue Devils 51-24, handing Duke its 16th straight loss against I-A competition.
Itll be mildly interesting to see how the Dookies fare against a Miami team that is without a bakers dozen in players, including on the offensive line as well as Brandon Meriweather, the captain of the still-formidable Miami defense. Miami might not score very much in this game. Duke came within a point of Wake Forest and led Alabama in Tuscaloosa at halftime. Theyre bad, they may be awful, but theyre not at a Temple level of non-competitiveness. This could conceivably be a game. And as tumultuous as their season has been, Miami is still very much in contention in the conference. They trail Georgia Tech by just a game in the loss column and will have a head-to-head crack at the Yellowjackets, who ruined their 2005 campaign, next week.
Wack Predicto: Miami 24, Duke 7. It will be a game, for about three quarters or so. Miami is depleted and might be looking past the Dookies a little bit. But ultimately it wont matter.
Media Focus Posted: 10/19/2006by: Tom A Also goes with "The U" having made their own bed and now lying in it. Lots of past problems and general thuggery - that is another major reason the media is focusing more on Miami than the Florida School of Textiles or whatever (incidentally, why the hell was this game even being played - in the middle of October - for Christ's sake?)
The U's well-deserved reputation for thuggery was made shockingly clear by the aforementioned Lamar Thomas's comments as he was watching it go down and immediately afterward. Essentially, he was saying, "yeah, that's right. We showed you what's what." Thugs.
At this point, I wouldn't have been all that shocked if one of the U's guys pulled a blade, or even a gun, out of his sock. Brandon Posted: 10/19/2006by: Jesse L. I'll defer to you on FIU starting it. According to all reports, they did. No argument there.
All I'm saying is Miami shouldn't have let themselves be drawn into that kind of scrum, and especially by a nothing team like FIU. You're Miami, for Christ's sakes. You're supposed to be bigger than that. YOU'RE supposed to do the provoking.
As for the media attention, it goes with the territory. You're Miami. They're Florida International. You're going to get the lions share of the media scrutiny here. If it was Ohio State brawling with Bowling Green or Kent State, the Buckeyes would be in the same boat. It goes with being a national program, man. brandon Posted: 10/19/2006by: deuce the 1st very basic rule every coach teaches its players with regard to conduct is: NEVER retaliate. you will ALWAYS get caught/punished.
either coker failed his team in that regard, or the players are such shitbags they they have no respect for their coach or school. hmmm.. i'll take *the latter* for 200, alex. Jesse Posted: 10/19/2006by: brandon Obviously you didnt watch the game. I was there. FIU's bench cleared well before Miami's bench. You can ask any FIU fan about that. I can guarantee you that if Miami would have been any other school, there would be 1/3 of the media coverage and it would have been focused on the perpetrator, not the team that retaliated. beamer ball Posted: 10/19/2006by: deuce vick vs. dumervil's knee in the 2005 gator bowl? louisville took the high road & didn't "keep it real"(chappelle) - too bad they lost the game.
i heard the blacksburg, va jail is being re-named the "hokie pokey" - hey oh!!!! (i'll be here all week.
Georgia Tech at Clemson
Boston College at Florida State
Miami at Duke
