Random Thoughts at Mid-Season

1. Have you noticed that Calvin Johnson never catches the ball in position to get YAC (J.Madden's "Yards After the Catch"). Everytime CJ catches the ball, it is either a TD or some circus, spinning, diving, twisting, catch where he has to layout just to reach it. How many times do you remember him catching the ball on a 10-15 yard pass play, breaking a tackle a picking up another 20 yards. I remember one at Duke but cannot think of too many others. Just interested to see him in the open field.

2. GT fans are upset about not meeting expectations. Let's think for a minute how many ACC fans are happy with their teams at this point in the season:

Which teams are meeting fan expectations

Miami - NO - lose to UNC, unthinkable, no NC, season dead. These people only expect to compete at the highest level. Winning the ACC is only a formality

FSU - NO - lose to Miami for about the 6th time in a row and then to MD, no NC, season dead.

MD - NO - 3 10-win seasons, and now bowl their hopes are hanging by a thread. The Terps are 2-3 in conference and 4-4 overall. They don't have a QB they like and the offensive mastermind (Fridge) has had some brain-cramps.

NCST - NO - the Amato buzz is wearing off and Wolfpack nation is toiling at .500 with bowl hopes in doubt. These people are not happy when they thought they would be competing for ACC titles by now.

CLEMSON - NO - a team that won 4 straight to end 2003 in convincing fashion. Then they proceeded to lay egg after egg. Now that fan expectations have been reset, 3 wins in a row is making Tiger nation a little more content.

WAKE FOREST - NO - the best 1-4 conference team anywhere. Heart-breaker after heart-breaker. Fans see progress but never thought they would be in this position. At 4-4 overall, bowl hopes are still alive.

DUKE - NO - Duke faithful had a spark of hope going into 2004. A new coach, a new spirit, better recruiting. But they still stink and at 1-7 overall and 0-5 in the ACC, fans hoped for more (at least the ones that actually know they have a football team).

GEORGIA TECH - NO - the team nobody can figure out, other than they can play with the best and lose to the worst. We've beat this one up here enough. Whether you support the coach or not, the fans are restless

VIRGINIA - YES - Finally putting it all together. Excellent recruiting and finally the execution and game-plans on the field. They were disappointed in the bad loss to FSU but other than that, fans are stoked, and should be.

NORTH CAROLINA - YES - Fans had NO expectations and fully expected their coach to be fired soon after the season started. A victory over GT saved Bunting for a week, until a win over NCST and then the unthinkable - a victory over Miami. Bunting has job security for the rest of the season and fans are absolutely in heaven right now. Heck, even Roy Williams is probably thinking - is this becoming a football school? Ok, let's no go overboard. However, UNC's only 4 losses are all to top 25 teams, 3 of which were top 10 teams on the road. They just might have somethung

VIRGINIA TECH - YES - Borderline call here. Fans have been here before. All hopes still alive only to be crushed in November. Time will tell.

So, you've got 8 of 11 fan bases unhappy with their teams right now. Kind of puts things in a little bit of perspective

3. Miami and FSU losing was sweet for most ACC fans, because it gives us all hope. But make no mistake - it weakened the ACC from a national perspective. Now we will not have a team competing for the NC. FSU probably won't get BCS bowl, which means there may be one fewer bowl for the rest of the ACC.

4. You know the ACC standings are quite interesting. We have 4 teams with 6 wins - all bowl eligible. Then we have 6 teams with 4 wins. Then there's Duke with 1 W. Forget the ACC race for a moment. The race for bowl eligibility is fascinating.

Team........ACC.....Overall
Miami.......3-1......6-1
UVA.........3-1......6-1
VT..........3-1......6-2
FSU.........4-2......6-2
UNC.........3-2......4-4
GT..........3-3......4-3
NC ST.......3-3......4-4
Clemson.....3-3......4-4
MD..........2-3......4-4
WF..........1-4......4-4
Duke........0-5......1-7

5. Can things be so simple that we are 4-0 when PJ Daniels plays a full game and 0-3 when he does not? Can it really be that simple? Nobody wants to believe that 1 person makes that much of a difference. In my mind there is only one reason it could be true - the mental approach by the players. It CANNOT be the talent of PJ pushing us over the edge. Nothing against PJ, and I love the guy, but he isn't THAT kind of impact player. But is it the confidence, peace-of-mind and swagger that PJ brings? Does Reggie Ball try to do too much when he's gone? Does the O-Line lose confidence? Bottom-line it is not a talent deficit when PJ leaves. It can only be some mental aspect of the game in the heads of the players.

6. Have you noticed our flip-flop on wins/losses from 2003 to 2004? We lost to Clemson in 2003 - beat 'em in 2004. Beat UNC in 2003, lost to them in 2004. Ok, Maryland is the exception - beat them both years. We lost to Duke in 2003 and beat them in 2004. Hopefully we will not make this is a stronger trend this weekend at NCST. Of course, if it DID continue, we would finish the season 2-1 against teams we played in 2003 and would become bowl eligible.