ACC Football Week 3 Recap
Well, with Week 3 in the books, here is how it all went down in ACC-land:
GOOD NEWS:
Florida State looks to be for real. The Seminoles destroyed Wake Forest, 52-0, to avenge last year’s disappointing loss. If you are keeping score at home, Florida State has scored 176 points and allowed 3. That will work. Things get tougher next week with Clemson visiting–but it’s looking like the 1990s for the Seminoles. This result was awful for Wake Forest, but it’s better for the ACC to have Florida State return to its dominating ways than have a bunch of teams win 7 games. And Wake Forest will be fine this year–this was not a win anyone should have expected.
Speaking of Clemson, the Tigers got to 3-0 by soundly defeating Furman, 41-7. This sets up a huge matchup next week between what is looking like the class of the ACC–Clemson and Florida State.
Georgia Tech showed that it is a real player this year too, defeating Virginia 56-20. As with Wake Forest, Virginia must be hugely disappointed with the effort. Coming off last week’s nailbiter with reeling Penn State, Virginia fans had to see this coming. For Georgia Tech, however, this win suggests that the Yellow Jackets’ offense is going to be prolific.
Miami got back to its winning ways with a 38-10 victory over Bethune-Cookman, which is nice. Duke also moves to 2-1 with a 54-17 win over North Carolina Central. And North Carolina State is also 2-1 after defeating South Alabama 31-7.
THE OK NEWS:
Give credit to Pittsburgh for pulling off a major turnaround and defeating Virginia Tech, 35-17. You saw this coming? You, sir, are a liar. You most certainly did not see this coming. Virginia Tech does get upset every so often in September and Pitt has talent. But an 18-point victory for Pitt after how the first two weeks of the season transpired is just astonishing. This would be better news, except that one now wonders about Virginia Tech. Can the ACC let Notre Dame represent the Coastal division this year?
Syracuse finally got its first win of the season, beating Stony Brook 28-17. That score is too close to call it “good news.” Syracuse did put up 500+ yards of offense and Stony Brook is a very very good FCS team. Still, you want your FCS game scores to be more like what Duke and Miami did than this. Syracuse joins Pitt at 1-2.
THE BAD NEWS:
The Confidential suspected that Maryland was not as good as its 2-0 record suggested. The Confidential suspected that Maryland would lose by less than a touchdown. UConn won by 3, 24-21. So it goes for the Terrapins.
Louisville jumped out to a 36-7 halftime lead over North Carolina, but credit the Tar Heels for making a game of it. The final score of 39-34 shows just how much of a rally it was. Still, North Carolina now drops to 1-2. And this means that the 2012 Big East went 3-0 against the 2012 A.C.C. in Week 3. Ugh. Thankfully the ACC had a great week off the field.
On to Week #4…
The Confidential 