Around the ACC

NC State
-Linebacker Nate Irving apparently fell asleep at the wheel. He suffered a broken leg and collapsed lung. That sucks.

Duke
-Coach K is the highest paid employee at Duke. Does this really surprise anyone? I figured the Department Head of Foreign Lit would be making $2.5 mil easy.
-Duke guard Elliot Williams is transferring to Memphis.

UNC
-Good read by Yahoos!/Rivals about the importance of college seniors in the NBA.

Sweet 16 and college bball thoughts

Sweet 16 play kicks off today with Duke as one of two remaining ACC teams alive playing Villanova at 9:57 PM. Why 9:57 PM? Beats the hell outta me. That's an awfully late tipoff for two EST teams especially when there's a Mizzou game tipping off 30 minutes earlier. I think someone messed up the programming schedule here unless Nova's viewing share is very small.

Concerning the game itself, both teams are probably confused as to what to do tonight. Both teams have an overwhelming urge to underperform and lose in embarassing fashion. A winner has to be decided. Prediction: Nova draws a technical for attempting to walk off court with a tie when buzzer sounds. Duke doesn't know how to miss free throws and wins by 1.

Seriously, this is gonna be a pillow fight. There may be 8 guards on the floor at tip off. Duke NEEDS to win for the ACC. "NEEDS" cannot be more emphasized.

Thoughts on Sweet 16 welcome.

ACC football musings

Apparently Cutcliffe, like America, decided Zach Asack's name was too ironic to play quarterback and is moving the career punching bag to safety. Asack was suspended in '06 for plagiarism and has been stuck behind Thaddeus Lewis ever since. In case you were wondering, he's been sacked 27 times in his career.

Andy Staples wrote an interesting article about Russell Wilson on SI.com. Too bad all of this hype is for naught 'cause Jon Dwyer will take ACC POTY back to back seasons.

And finally FSU is fighting their win forfeitures. I understand their case. GT had a similar (not identical) situation but personally I think FSU's record should remain blemished. The sheer level of cheating was pretty reDUNKulous. However, why are they only attacking FSU when the NCAA truly needs to audit a lot of school's approaches to treatment of athletes in academia. If the NCAA wants to get on a high horse about FSU, why not other schools that relegate athletes to "General Studies" and "Communications" majors? Schools that truly don't care about educating their student athletes should all be punished.

So goes life.

Back to Reality

We are all excited about the one year future of Georgia Tech basketball here in the Dirty-Dirty. But alas, we did play a game last night. Well, maybe 1 half of basketball. Duke had a miserable offensive game last night. We even had them beat out in 3-point percentages. But when it comes down to it, Duke is so technically sound, even when they have a bad day, you still lose by 14. Look at these key numbers:

Free-Throw Shooting (Dear God)
Duke: 16/27 (.593)
GT: 7/19 (.368)

Turnovers
Duke: 8
GT: 18

The first half the crowd, was rockin' but I have seen it before against Duke, UNC, Wake Forest, etc. A rockin' first half where we have the lead or keep it close, only to completely run out of gas in the 2nd half. We looked like we out-hustled but we actually just out-energized because of inefficiency. Duke is just the better team and knows how to grind it out and get it done. No matter how much we hate Duke, we could learn a lot from that squad.

Sidenote: Derrick Favors plays on ESPN2 @ 9PM EST if you wanna see the man in action.

Puke Tomorrow

This game can make the season and it's time to turn it around. The Jackets are 0-2 in the ACC and it's not going to get any easier with back-to-back games against Clemson and Wake Forest at the end of the month. Tomorrow, Duke comes to town toting their 33% 3-Point shooting just overall good white boy basketball.

We play to the level of our competition which should (hopefully) mean that the trend continues and we will have an exciting game in the AMC tonight.

What do we need to do? Good God, it seems so simple but there are 3 things:

1. Defend the 3-point shot


2. Hit Free throws--hah!


3. Know how to run an offense. Move around or something!

Like I said, simple eh?

I always enjoyed this picture

What is an x-factor element that GT needs to take this game and turn the season around?

Monday morning review - the Terpacle

Damn you Maryland. 28 turnovers. We host the Dukies on Wednesday. That should be an interesting little danceoff. If we can play the whole game like we did against uga and the FANS COME TO THE GAME, then we'll have a shot. I mean come on, I live 250 miles away. I'd go to every game if I could. Attendance and wins/losses are slightly related.

If we win, people show up. On the other hand, if you show up, then the opponent plays worse. So either way people coming to games = good. The term "home-field advantage" is not just some made up word from Imagination Land.

I'm particularly interested in following the return of Mo Miller. AJC reports he's playing with a face mask in practice now. We need more guards to open up the floor for Lewis and our other three-ballers.

Comments are reserved for Duke vitriol. Nothing else.

Duke fans actually care?

Well I sure as hell ain't ever seen that before. That's right, Duke fans are actually pissed off about the score of this past weekend's game. Some go so far as to call Coach Paul Johnson an asshole for "running up the score".

I never in my life would have associated at 27-0 finish with running up the score, but it sure is nice to hear some Dookers actually expect to play some real football.

Duke Post-Game Rememberings

Welcome back to reality Dukies.

Alright so correct scoring prediction should go more to Dane but I’ll take a tie. We learned some big things this week. 1. Duke is clearly better but not there yet. 2. Josh Nesbitt does not have to worry about Jaybo taking the starting spot anytime soon, and 3. We are not the well oiled machine quite yet. Duke had seen our offense before and was pretty prepared. We just wore them down.

I haven’t been able to watch a replay of the game so this is all by memory from Saturday so bear with me.

Things we don’t like

Now I will admit that I came in to this game with some expectations that were a high for the offense. Jaybo proved himself competent as a quarterback in Paul Johnson’s system. However, Nesbitt is clearly the better of the two. As we get into better competition, we want Nesbitt.

I will grant a pass to our O-Line as they seemed a little out of funk this game, kind of going through the motions and at times it really showed.

Things we do like

Scott Blair goes perfect in field goals!

Demaryius Thomas can catch a ball. The only one with a reception on the day for the Jackets, Thomas had 9 catches for 230 yards to lead the Jackets to victory.

Our defense is good our defensive line is one of the best. I don’t care who you play. But if a team has less than 50 yards of total offense at any time in the 4^th quarter, you have a good line. Duke was kept out of the red zone the entire game and the Blue Devils go to receiver, Eron Riley, was held to 20 yards receiving. Ballin’!

Key Stat: Duke was 2 for 12 on 3^rd down. The offense was slow to get going, the defense stood strong and dominated the game the entire way through.

Up Next:

Short write-up I know. The CSS replay is this Tuesday (I don’t have ESPNU so no dvr for the week). Gardner-Webb comes to town this week and the opening spread is 45.5 points! Who wants to take that bet? We’ve found a G-W blogger as well so be on the lookout for him to be our most welcome guest.

What are your post-game thoughts? Leave them in the comments!

-Winfield

It's not as bad as it looks. Yeah, I said it.

Right now the ACC is the laughingstock of the college football world, and rightly so. The only team from the ACC that is ranked right now is Wake Forest. Now, I don't mean any insult to the Deacs, but that would basically be like Vanderbilt becoming a top team in the SEC in 5 years from now. No one would give them their full credit, everyone in the SEC would still say "whatever, they are just Vandy," and everyone outside of the SEC would make fun of the conference for having Vandy as their best team.

It's true, as I posted before... the ACC, for now, blows. It is ridiculous. There is no respect for the conference anymore. FSU now also applies to Fresno State. Gone is Miami - Miami(FL) now takes its place. Georgia Tech plays second fiddle to uga. Now Clemson, in the year it is supposed to be in the MNC hunt, has gone and dropped the ball.

Brace yourself. You will be shocked to read that I don't think it is as bad as it sounded on Sunday. In fact, on second glance, it seems like the ship is finally righting itself. Expansion may be finally happening, 3 years after it actually happened. Hear me out on this one.

Georgia Tech, who malaised through the past six seasons with spurts of brilliance and dregs of just plain badness, finally has a coach that, well, acts like a coach should. Paul Johnson is a proven winner, who is expected by basically everyone (apart only a few Bulldog fans and other uneducated nobodies) to be very, very successful. FSU actually kind of had a decent season last year, toppling the ranked Alabama Crimson Tide, losing by a field goal to Wake Forest, and knocking off Boston College from the #2 spot. Honestly, they would have beaten Kentucky in their bowl game if it weren't for the trouble they found a few dozen of their players in, resulting in a depleted squad and a touchdown margin loss for the New Year's Eve game.

Clemson will always be solid (except for 2 games out of the year where they get embarrassed), and even though VPI lost to ECU, they will be back. Miami is on the upswing - GT fans like to think Randy Shannon is a moron because he kept a moron (Pat Nix) around for more than a year. Say what you will - they have the talent to win some big games, and as of right now, in my view, look to be Tech's biggest ACC opponent this year. Apparently Shannon has cleaned house (which, at Miami, would obviously take a looooong damn time) and has the program running like it isn't made up of a bunch of drug slingers and criminals - the first step to becoming competitive year after year. I'm not calling Miami to win this weekend against Florida; however, I will make it known that Miami hasn't lost to Florida during my lifetime, and they damn sure don't want to start now. It won't surprise me one bit if that game surprises everyone else, especially the Gators.

As I said already, BC grabbed the #2 spot last year, and even though a few dozen other teams seemed to do the same thing, it was still impressive. I think the team as a whole will continue to get better, and eventually be better over all without relying on Matt Ryan to make it rain like a true baller.

The jury is still out on UNC, and Duke can suck it until they go 3-5 (this year marks a decade of them not doing so) in the ACC and win a decent OOC game. And, even though I've already kind of talked smack about Wake, they are a good damn team (it's weird, it's almost like I'm turning into a Wake fan...).

So, what exactly is happening? In the Atlantic, Wake is great, BC is good, and FSU has the chance to become good to great again (even if it takes Bobby Bowden finally leaving to do so). Clemson will remain very solid, Maryland can play ball, and NC State will continue to embarrass the state of North Carolina in everything it does. In the Coastal, GT and Miami are both going to be damn good teams, and will easily challenge if not surpass Virginia Tech every year for the Coastal Title, starting this season (these two teamse will also very successfully carry the banner for the ACC in OOC games, mark my words). Not saying VPI won't compete, but I think everyone else is growing up around them very, very quickly. North Carolina will hopefully shape into a solid team, but I am not sold on the predictions that they will start winning conference or even division championships. Virginia - well, screw UVa. Duke will have at least 1 conference victory this season, and that will be against UVa, who is really, really at risk of having a 1 win season. More like the Cavalqueers. (Anyone who is a UVa fan, go ahead, bookmark this entry, mark October 25^th on your calendar, and remember to email me at EffinDane at gmaildotcom. I always manage to eat my own words.)

That's right, BC, Miami, and VT will be strong, strong teams, in addition to GT, Wake, Clemson, and hopefully FSU. All of these teams will get better, very, very soon, and as much as any commentator wants to bring up this season, these teams will be competitive with anyone in the country. (Except for USC, because Jesus is to humanity what Pete Carroll is to Trojans football).

This whole post may be completely wrong, and sorry if it is. However, I do think I have made some pretty valid points. The ACC blows, at least for now. Soon though, the mega-conference will finally arrive.