(09-09-2018 01:15 AM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  

(09-09-2018 12:41 AM)JRsec Wrote:  I don't get the sack cloth and ashes. Everyone knew UNC had issues. Clemson is still unbeaten and likely to remain that way. Boston College is much improved. Syracuse is playing better early than they have in recent years. Duke is winning and somewhat impressively and the team they beat today is no slouch.

It's true that Georgia Tech is being Georgia Tech and it's true that Florida State narrowly escaped disaster. But it's also true that Virginia Tech seems to be having a renaissance. So as I see it one football power is down, one football power is up, Clemson is the same, Georgia Tech is the same and Miami is the same.

And late, due to the delay, Louisville took care of business so they are about where they expected to be. And did I mention Wake has looked good so far?

So other than the Snooty twins (UNC & UVa) what's wrong? The Wolfpack are 2-0 as well.

From my vantage point it's a lot like the movie "Walk Hard" in that "The wrong kid died!" It's time to watch B.C., Cuse, Va Tech, Clemson, Duke, and N.C. State and just accept that F.S.U. is in transition and that the "snooty twins" don't really care about football, and that Miami and Georgia Tech have not yet really returned.

UNC is a bit deeper than issues. ECU lost to NC A&T. UNC just lost to ECU. NCST, WF, Duke, App State, ECU, NC A&T ... we can go ahead and slot in UNC as the 7th best team in NC. Maybe worse. That's not issues, that's a cratering. Fedora is cooked in just Week 2.

Jury is out on BC and Cuse still.

Duke and Northwestern combined for 0 second half points. It wasn't bad but it also wasn't some clear promotional bell ringer either.

Georgia Tech epicly self-destructed after spending much of the previous year doing that exact same thing. There's no faster way to turn the GT fanbase than to beat yourself. I'm telling you .... Paul lost a huge chunk of the fanbase yesterday. And if (when?) they bring out the axe that's going to be both money GT doesn't readily have and be a 2-4 year death sentence since the personnel recruited are a misfit for just about any other system.

Wake didn't look good ... they escaped Tulane. They've avoided disaster but done nothing further to acquit themselves.

I'll put it to you this way ... if the standard bearers this year are indeed "B.C., Cuse, Va Tech, Clemson, Duke, and N.C. State" then the ACC would likely finish the year dead last in the P5 and maybe 6th overall in number of ranked teams.

The conference as a whole is down this year. Not sure about the sackcloth, but the ashes are appropriate indeed. Unless you think another enormous glut of 8-5/7-6 teams like last year (but without as many highly ranked teams as last year) is going to win the conference any favor.

The whole FBS is down. There are 5 maybe 6 elite teams this year, all with varying degrees of depth and with elite being a floating scale. There are going to be oodles of 7-5 to 9 -3 programs this year and probably more 6-6 bowl teams than anyone cares to watch. The SEC learned yesterday that the East is still weak, just not quite as weak as it has been. Georgia will steamroll the East unless Missouri has miraculously risen or Kentucky has and there's no way you can convince me of that. I think that Kentucky, South Carolina, Missouri and Florida will beat each other up and all finish around 5-7 to 7-5 mark. The Big 10 is even worse off in that there's Ohio State and two or three notches below Penn State and their West will again inflate a Wisconsinn team that will get murdered by another conference's #2. And the PAC might have a 2 loss Washington or Stanford as a champ with a very middling middle. Then there's the Big 12. It's Oklahoma, drop two notches to get West Virginia, and then put the rest in the middle or bottom of the other P5 conferences. And I'm not sold on Oklahoma versus Clemson, Alabama, or Ohio State. Right now they look like world beaters because they've played and destroyed two really weak schools but one was named U.C.L.A..

So my point here GTS is that the myopic picking apart of the ACC may be deserved with regard to your analysis, but you didn't place that within the context of the whole P5. None of the conferences looks improved. The SEC West is about the same. Arkansas looks like #7 and Ole Miss like #6 and L.S.U., Miss State, A&M, and Auburn will duke it out for #2. Alabama has to much depth not to win the attrition war.

The ACC only seems worse because F.S.U. looks looks like a train wreck heading for a blown up bridge and Richt is richting.

For some reason a popular weekly post on my blog is the Song Lyric. This week I've dedicated it to Georgia Tech fans everywhere...

Everybody Hurts - R.E.M.
When your day is long
And the night
The night is yours alone
When you're sure you've had enough
Of this life
Well hang on
Don't let yourself go
'Cause everybody cries
And everybody hurts sometimes

Sometimes everything is wrong
Now it's time to sing along
When your day is night alone (hold on)
(Hold on) if you feel like letting go (hold on)
If you think you've had too much
Of this life
Well, hang on

'Cause everybody hurts
Take comfort in your friends
Everybody hurts
Don't throw your hand
Oh, no
Don't throw your hand
If you feel like you're alone
No, no, no, you're not alone

If you're on your own
In this life
The days and nights are long
When you think you've had too much
Of this life
To hang on

Well, everybody hurts sometimes
Everybody cries
And everybody hurts sometimes
And everybody hurts sometimes
So, hold on, hold on
Hold on, hold on
Hold on, hold on
Hold on, hold on

Everybody hurts
You are not alone

Clemson should have beaten TAMU by 17-21 points. They seemed to suffer from a lack of focus at times that is different from the NC State sickness which is to play up or down to the opponent. I thought FSU should be better, but maybe Jimbo really left them less than meets the eye. Or maybe some of their players don't buy in to Taggert. Richt is a 10 win coach in a world that demands 11-13 wins to be considered great. Carolina's problems are multiple and I think the biggest is the cultural disconnect on campus between Football and the University. None of State's running backs have really stepped up, but I suspect two thirds of the playbook has yet to be revealed. I don't look forward to another damn Hurricane game. I don't get all the love for BC. Cutcliff continues to impress. GT needs something different.

(09-09-2018 11:36 PM)Statefan Wrote:  Clemson should have beaten TAMU by 17-21 points. They seemed to suffer from a lack of focus at times that is different from the NC State sickness which is to play up or down to the opponent. I thought FSU should be better, but maybe Jimbo really left them less than meets the eye. Or maybe some of their players don't buy in to Taggert. Richt is a 10 win coach in a world that demands 11-13 wins to be considered great. Carolina's problems are multiple and I think the biggest is the cultural disconnect on campus between Football and the University. None of State's running backs have really stepped up, but I suspect two thirds of the playbook has yet to be revealed. I don't look forward to another damn Hurricane game. I don't get all the love for BC. Cutcliff continues to impress. GT needs something different.

I think Fedora won when the competition for NC recruits was weak. Now that there are more good coaches in the ACC, he isn't getting the players he was before.

As far as BC - I think you'll get why the love for them when the Wolfpack faces the Eagles this season...

(09-10-2018 08:17 AM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  

(09-09-2018 11:36 PM)Statefan Wrote:  Clemson should have beaten TAMU by 17-21 points. They seemed to suffer from a lack of focus at times that is different from the NC State sickness which is to play up or down to the opponent. I thought FSU should be better, but maybe Jimbo really left them less than meets the eye. Or maybe some of their players don't buy in to Taggert. Richt is a 10 win coach in a world that demands 11-13 wins to be considered great. Carolina's problems are multiple and I think the biggest is the cultural disconnect on campus between Football and the University. None of State's running backs have really stepped up, but I suspect two thirds of the playbook has yet to be revealed. I don't look forward to another damn Hurricane game. I don't get all the love for BC. Cutcliff continues to impress. GT needs something different.

I think Fedora won when the competition for NC recruits was weak. Now that there are more good coaches in the ACC, he isn't getting the players he was before.

As far as BC - I think you'll get why the love for them when the Wolfpack faces the Eagles this season...

Color me skeptical of BC right now too. They beat a UMass team that hasn't won more than 4 games in a season since they moved up to FBS, plus an average to bad FCS team in Holy Cross.

It's not like Wake Forest is a massive test for BC next week, but I'd like to see how BC performs against a P5 opponent before heaping praise on them. This is still an offense coordinated by Scot Loeffler... Mark, of all people, I'd think you know not to get ahead of yourself for this reason alone!

(09-10-2018 08:17 AM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  I think Fedora won when the competition for NC recruits was weak. Now that there are more good coaches in the ACC, he isn't getting the players he was before.

Fedora benefitted from Butch Davis' recruits his first few years, even his best year (11-3), he had Marquise Williams (3rd all-time passing TD's, 5th in yards) who was a Davis recruit.

Trubisky was a HUGE get, but it wasn't just Fedora that landed him. Sure, he loved Fedora's offense, but he also loved the campus and the chance to get into action early without competition in his respective class; Ohio State snubbed him by signing J.T. Barrett, I believe.

So ol' Larry had two back-to-back excellent QB's (three if you count Bryn Renner) and then Chizik's defense came in and mixed things up a bit for Fedora's best and tied for second best season in 2015 and 2016.

The football culture at UNC will always be in the shadow of the basketball program, but when the team is playing well, the fans do show up. Unfortunately, I don't expect many people to care about the current program at this point unless they are die-hards. Fedora turned off a lot of people in the summer (and prior to that considering the talent) and he just doesn't seem to be equipped for the job. To think he could be at Tennessee or another SEC program.

(09-10-2018 09:14 AM)esayem Wrote:  

(09-10-2018 08:17 AM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  I think Fedora won when the competition for NC recruits was weak. Now that there are more good coaches in the ACC, he isn't getting the players he was before.

Fedora benefitted from Butch Davis' recruits his first few years, even his best year (11-3), he had Marquise Williams (3rd all-time passing TD's, 5th in yards) who was a Davis recruit.

Trubisky was a HUGE get, but it wasn't just Fedora that landed him. Sure, he loved Fedora's offense, but he also loved the campus and the chance to get into action early without competition in his respective class; Ohio State snubbed him by signing J.T. Barrett, I believe.

So ol' Larry had two back-to-back excellent QB's (three if you count Bryn Renner) and then Chizik's defense came in and mixed things up a bit for Fedora's best and tied for second best season in 2015 and 2016.

The football culture at UNC will always be in the shadow of the basketball program, but when the team is playing well, the fans do show up. Unfortunately, I don't expect many people to care about the current program at this point unless they are die-hards. Fedora turned off a lot of people in the summer (and prior to that considering the talent) and he just doesn't seem to be equipped for the job. To think he could be at Tennessee or another SEC program.

Imagine if Fedora was at Tennessee and Pruitt was at UNC...

(09-10-2018 08:32 AM)H.U.S.T.L.E. Wrote:  

(09-10-2018 08:17 AM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  

(09-09-2018 11:36 PM)Statefan Wrote:  Clemson should have beaten TAMU by 17-21 points. They seemed to suffer from a lack of focus at times that is different from the NC State sickness which is to play up or down to the opponent. I thought FSU should be better, but maybe Jimbo really left them less than meets the eye. Or maybe some of their players don't buy in to Taggert. Richt is a 10 win coach in a world that demands 11-13 wins to be considered great. Carolina's problems are multiple and I think the biggest is the cultural disconnect on campus between Football and the University. None of State's running backs have really stepped up, but I suspect two thirds of the playbook has yet to be revealed. I don't look forward to another damn Hurricane game. I don't get all the love for BC. Cutcliff continues to impress. GT needs something different.

I think Fedora won when the competition for NC recruits was weak. Now that there are more good coaches in the ACC, he isn't getting the players he was before.

As far as BC - I think you'll get why the love for them when the Wolfpack faces the Eagles this season...

Color me skeptical of BC right now too. They beat a UMass team that hasn't won more than 4 games in a season since they moved up to FBS, plus an average to bad FCS team in Holy Cross.

It's not like Wake Forest is a massive test for BC next week, but I'd like to see how BC performs against a P5 opponent before heaping praise on them. This is still an offense coordinated by Scot Loeffler... Mark, of all people, I'd think you know not to get ahead of yourself for this reason alone!

I totally get the Scot Loeffler issue -- I just think his kind of offense* probably works better at a place like BC, where they prefer/are accustomed to getting their yards between the tackles.

* no offense intended.