This is a very simple weekend in ACC football. There are only six games of which two of them really matter and when I say matter I mean ACC standings will be affected.
Army at Georgia Tech
The Yellow Jackets beat Miami last week and are likely happy to get an easier week in Army. It should be noted that Army is not necessarily as bad as years past but I expect the Yellow Jacket defense to be sufficiently stingy even if the offense does not fire on all cylinders.
Georgia Tech 31 Army 6
Central Michigan at Clemson
You have to wonder where Clemson would be without the cupcakes on the schedule. Nothing better than a bye week and a team you should reasonably beat to stave off the rabid fans for a bit.
Clemson 28 CMU 10
Wake Forest at Navy
This is an interesting game that unfortunately no one will see because it has been banished to CSTV. My question is what happens when you get two spread offense on the field against one another. Do we have some kind of rip in the fabric of reality. I can just imagine with all the weird alignments you will see all game long in this one, decades from now archaeologists are going to find a tape of this game and draw some interesting conclusions about college football.
Wake Forest 30 Navy 27
NC State at East Carolina
Yes, I realize East Carolina thinks this game is for the "State Championship" of North Carolina but I imagine the folks in Boone and Winston-Salem might have something to say about that. It is interesting to note that ECU has practically owned NC State in five of the last seven meetings. That is almost as good as what UNC has done to the Pack in recent years. I have no reason to believe tomorrow will be any different, unless NC State found an offensive line, a QB, miraculously healed Anthony Hill, Toney Baker and Andre Brown over the bye week. Since none of those things happened, the Pack hopes hang on the defense scoring a TD and shutting out ECU. Not likely.
ECU 28 NC State 16
Miami at Florida State
Remember when this used to be a national game? Yeah, they have been asking this all week and the answer to it is last season when ESPN did their Full Circle circus with enough camera angles on ESPN2 to make your eyes bleed. The point is well taken in that no one outside the ACC cares about this game. As for in the ACC, one of these two is going to be tossed to the bottom of the pile at 1-3 in the conference. It also puts one of the two in bad position concerning bowl eligibility. Miami is sitting at four wins. They see NC State, Virginia, Virginia Tech and BC remaining. Falling to 4-4 puts the Canes in the position where they must win two of their final four. The Pack game is probably a given but the other three not so much with Virginia being the best chance. FSU is looking at a similar path with one sure win after this game(Duke) and then facing BC, VT, Maryland and Florida. If the Noles are 4-3 heading into those five games the chances of going 1-4 are pretty good leaving FSU at 5-7. So while this game does not mean much to anyone else, it might be the whole season for one of these two teams.
FSU 16 Miami 13
#19 Virginia at Maryland
This is the week Virginia runs out of whatever it is they have been surviving on for the past few weeks. Maryland got an extra week to prepare and the QB situation in College Park looked more stable than it did prior to the win over Rutgers. The X factor is the UVa defense with Chris Long creating all sorts of havoc
Maryland 21 Virginia 13
Boston College and Virginia Tech continue to stare at each other across four states ahead of the Thursday night game next week. UNC and Butch Davis take the extra week to try and unravel the mystery of the Jim Grobe offense and Duke....I have no idea.
Record Last Week: 4-2
Record This Season: 44-15