Posts
1. Clemson - overated? Yes. Their special teams outgained their offense today by over 100 yards. Their vaunted offensive attack has managed 13 total points in the last 2 games. Today Whitehurst was 10-24 for 88 yards, fumbled twice and threw 3 INT's. That means Whitehurst has been responsible for 13 turnovers in 4 games (10 INT's). Tiger nation is not going to be happy. Oh by the way, did I mention that they signed Tommy Bowden to a 10 year deal at the end of last season? This is a team that is now 1-3 and could easily be 0-4. Wow.
2. Virginia Tech - Welcome to the ACC. NC ST takes them down 17-16 in a nail-biter. THERE'S BEEN A TA MCLENDON SIGHTING!!! It was reported that he ran for 93 yards today and is now officially the best back ever in the history of the ACC once again. Matt Lienart, don't make room on that mantle for your Hiesman quite yet. By the way, NC ST officially has one heck of a defense. How do you sack Bryan Randall 10 times??? If only they had that D when Rivers was around. NC ST QB's combined for 78 yards passing on the day. We were not talking about an offensive explosion here. Both teams COMBINED for 415 yards of total offense.
3. Boston College - Welcome to the ACC part II. "Lowly" Wake Forest takes them down with a last-minute 40-yard pass play to win 17-14. Three missed field goals by BC does not help you efforts. It is the 2nd year in a row WF has beaten BC. Is it just me, or is Wake Forest a hair away from being 4-0, with just one play at Clemson being the difference? Wake very well may be the best coached team in the ACC.
4. Virginia - Rollin, rollin, rollin, keep them Cav's rollin. Well, UVA takes down Syracuse 31-10. Wali Lundy scores his 10th TD of the season - yes 10th in 4 games. Could THIS be the year for the Cav's??? Every year "they" say it is. Maybe all those great recruiting classes are finally catching up to them.
5. Maryland - decides to play in the 2nd half versus Duke, finally putting them away 55-21. The Duke Cinderella story will not start this week. Joel Statham finally put some impressive offensive numbers on the board at QB, with 4 TD's. Maryland had 685 yards of total offense. Again for perspective, VT and NCST COMBINED for 415 yards of total offense in their game.
6. North Carolina - oh dear. Or should I say "deer in the headlights". What goes up must come down. Unfortunately for GT the opposite is not necesarily true. UNC gets trounced by Louisville 34-0. That's right - a shutout of the "strong" UNC offense. Look, I know Louisville is in the top 25, but they are not known for a bigtime defense. This just pisses me off more after our debacle last week. So Bunting is back on the hot-seat, and that leads us to....
7. Georgia Tech - who are we????? Let's look at what we have done so far.
1 - beat Samford Div I-AA, but could only put 28 points on the board. Ok, technically we could have scored at the end, but this game was a tune-up against a clearly inferior opponent.
2 - get handed a victory at Clemson with a series of blunders that will go down in the hall-of-fame of college bloopers. We were riding high that we had beaten a top 25 team, who many had picked to do great things this season. Since then, they have been trounced by a mediocre Texas A&M team, and today were trounced by Pappa Bowden (who's your daddy? Really - I'm your daddy).
3 - get trounced by an awful North Carolina team. And they really are awful. Yes, a good offense that managed 0 points today. A defense that gives up 450 yards plus of offense every game (455 today). A team that needed a 4th quarter comeback to beat William & Mary. A team that has given up 38 points (W&M), 56 (UVA), 34 (LV) and we manage 13 points. hhhmmmm.
So what does it mean? It means we have had an incredibly SOFT schedule so far. It means this will be the week we find out if this truly just is a repeat of 2003 where we are up for the good teams only. GT has a lot to prove and it starts next weekend.
Look, I don't expect us to win, but I think we can. However, if we come out and lay an egg and get blown-out that will be a disappointment. I just want to see a competitive game.
For all the frustration this season, we have to remember - we are 2-1. That's not bad. We are one of 5 ACC teams with a conference loss. The race is still on my friends.