What I Learned on My Football Vacation

Lessons learned around the ACC regarding that funny-shaped ball we don't really know what to do with:

• Georgia Tech is pretty good. That quick 21 point jump on Virginia Tech is exactly what you have to do against a defensive team hampered by a tentative passing scheme. Does anyone really think Chan Gailey will revert to his seven win season habits at this point?
• Miami is pretty mediocre. I wasn't shocked by the Louisville loss - Louisville's a good team. Houston, undefeated as they may have been coming in, is not. Grambling State, Oklahoma State, and Rice all managed to break 20 points against the Cougars. Miami not only failed to do that against Houston, they've only accomplished it once this season, steamrolling over the mighty FLorida A&M defense. What happens this Saturday when this stoppable force meets the movable object that is the UNC defense?
• Duke is really bad. You thought you already knew that, didn't you? Well, you may have to recalibrate your definition of bad. Virginia put up 37 points against the Blue Devils. Virginia only managed 36 points in their first three games combined, and that was against the stellar competition of Pittsburgh, Wyoming, and Western Michigan. Those three teams are a combined 6-5 against schools not named Virginia.  Duke had -1 yards rushing. Articles about them include "fail to score again" in the title. Caulton Tudor has stopped advocating firing Roof and moved on to championin dropping to D1-AA. This is a bad football team.
• UNC is exactly six points better than Louisiana Tech. The difference is apparently the Tar Heels can score against the Tigers' third string defense, and the Bulldogs can't.
• No one could have imagined Wake Forest would be undefeated. Except, you know, for all the people who did. Let's see how the next five games go, shall we?
• There's a soccer scandal brewing. Or not. I did get a google search for "Clemson soccer Virginia cheated" so someone's a little bitter, although I don't know why. The ACC holds spots 2-7 in this week's Soccer America poll.
• But then again, Google searches are not evidence of events. Especially since the most common search leading to this site is some variation of Butch Davis and UNC. It wasn't until one of the searches actually spelled it out for me that I realized there exist people who think North Carolina could land Butch Davis. Steve Spurrier will return to Duke before that happens. I'll coach at Duke before that happens.

Oh, and John Bunting is either the wrong coach or good man. Presumably he could also be both, but when the argument for whether you should keep your job is being framed like that, it doesn't look good.

The standings after one month:

Team Overall ACC Team Overall ACC Georgia Tech 4-1 2-0 Wake Forest 5-0 1-0 Virginia Tech 4-1 2-1 N.C. State 2-2 1-0 Virginia 2-3 1-1 Clemson 4-1 2-1 Miami 2-2 0-1 Boston College 4-1 1-1 North Carolina 1-3 0-2 Florida State 3-1 1-1 Duke 0-4 0-3 Maryland 3-1 0-0

Compare and contrast, and briefly think I know what I'm talking about. I didn't get to all of the non-football content I had intended to, so I might sprinkle some in between the portents of Miami doom this week, but otherwise it's back to football for the forseeable future.