The Confidential

ACC Football Week 4 Recap

Well, with Week 4 in the books, here is how it all went down in ACC-land:

GOOD NEWS:

Florida State looks to be IS for real.  The Seminoles may not have been able to hold Clemson to just a few points, but Clemson is far from Murray State.  The important thing is that Florida State did not squander the opportunity to take it to the next level.  Giving up 37 points to Clemson is tough to swallow as a good effort–but Clemson is a really good offensive team.  Too many playmakers to not be.  EJ Manuel and the Seminoles putting up 49 points is a nice sign too.  It’s all good for another week in Tallahassee after the 49-37 victory.

Clemson also established itself as the #2 team in the ACC with its very competitive performance against FSU.  Recall that Clemson did not fare well the last time it played in Florida.  The offense is for real.  The defense giving up 49 points is a concern.  But do not expect Clemson to finish 8-4 this year.  They are a legitimate threat to stay in the top 15 all year.

Virginia Tech, North Carolina State, Duke, and North Carolina all took care of their overmatched opponents.  Ask Pitt about how it feels to get upset.  Actually, let’s give Pitt some props for defeating Gardner-Webb by a comfortable margin this week as well.

Wake Forest’s 49-37 victory over Army was good in that the Demon Deacons got the needed win.  The 517 yards of offense was pretty nice too.

THE OK NEWS:

The Miami-Georgia Tech game was one of mixed emotions.  On the one hand, Miami’s 42-36 win in overtime means that the Hurricanes are now 2-0 in conference and 3-1 overall.  And they have yet to play a home conference game.  And that Kansas State loss looks a touch better now that KSU beat Oklahoma.  But Miami’s gain is Georgia Tech‘s loss.  The Yellow Jackets were down big, rallied nice, and then lost.  At 2-2 and 0-2 in conference play, things are looking a bit down right now.  Still, there is plenty of time to rally for a nice bowl game.

Maryland may not have won, but nobody expected the game to be close.  A 31-21 loss to the #8 Mountaineers is rather plainly a moral victory for the Terps.  Take it and run.

THE BAD NEWS:

Virginia was a very good team last year.  This year… not so much.  While Virginia was going to be an underdog against ranked TCU, a 27-7 loss is disappointing.  The hope was that the game would be competitive.  It was not.

Syracuse looked overmatched and ineffective against Minnesota, losing 17-10.  While Syracuse’s opponents are a combined 14-2, it would have been nice for the Orange to be 2-2 hitting its bye week.  It is not.

On to Week #4…

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…

ACC Football Week 2 Recap

Well, with Week 2 in the books, here is how it all went down in ACC-land:

GOOD NEWS:

The ACC elite beat up on lesser opponents handily.  There were no Arkansas-like upsets.  Florida State defeated Savannah State before the mercy rule kicked in, 55-0.  Georgia Tech destroyed Presbyterian, 59-3.  Virginia Tech took care of Austin Peay, 42-7.  Does the Confidential even need links to these games?  Just go here.

Don’t look past the fact that Boston College won convincingly, defeating Maine 34-3.  Maine usually gives FBS schools fits, as further confirmed by leading after the first quarter 3-0.  But BC did what it needed to do.

Clemson looked the part in defeating a decent Ball State squad, 52-27.  So now Clemson sits at 2-0.  Oh and they get Sammy Watkins back next week too.

ACC>Big East.  Nobody is claiming that UConn/Temple are LSU/Alabama, but two underwhelming ACC schools with a host of their own problems rolled into the home stadiums of two 1-0 Big East schools and pulled out victories.  North Carolina State rebounded nicely from its Tennessee loss by defeating a UConn team that has an outstanding defense, 10-7.  And how about Maryland getting to 2-0 by defeating Temple 36-27.  After last week’s offensive debacle against William & Mary, putting up 36 points on Temple is not too shabby.

Tough call here, but let’s put the Syracuse loss to USC in the “good news” department.  Losing 42-29 to a team with more offensive talent than several NFL rosters is nothing to be ashamed about.  In fact, despite being 0-2, Syracuse seems to be ready to return to college football relevance.  They MUST win the next two games though.

THE OK NEWS:

Virginia beat Penn State 17-16, which is a heck of lot better than losing to the undermanned Nittany Lions.  But this is not your grandfather’s Penn State team.  Frankly, this is not even your 2011 Miss America’s Penn State team.  And it’s hard to get too excited about a win over a team that misses an extra point and four field goals, including a 42-yarder.  With Penn State’s best players scattered throughout the country, Virginia did not look too good.

While the Confidential is proud to have picked Wake Forest to beat North Carolina, this still means that North Carolina lost.  Wake Forest showed little in their 28-27 victory to suggest that they can repeat last year’s upset of Florida State next week.  Still, 2-0 is better than the alternatives.

THE BAD NEWS:

The ACC had two games where it traveled to ranked, out-of-conference opponents.  The results were tough to swallow.  Miami completely imploded against Kansas State in the Little Apple, losing by an embarrassing score of 52-13.  Nothing good to take from this game.  And Stanford walloped Duke, 50-13.  Nobody expected Duke to win, but there was hope that this would be a competitive game.  Instead, the two ACC games featuring road games against ranked opponents resulted in a combined 104-26 trouncing.

Meanwhile, the ACC can pretend to ignore Pitt this year, but the Panthers are 0-2 and looking fairly inept in the process after losing to Cincinnati on Thursday, 34-10.  If you watched the game, you saw a coaching staff that appears overmatched.  At the very least, all of these coaching changes have Pitt a step behind its opponents.

On to Week #3…