Boston College: First team to five wins the Atlantic Division and the Eagles (2-1 in the ACC), against all football logic, with a Carl Torbush clone at coach and Crash Davis at quarterback, are one step ahead of everyone else.
Maryland: True genius by the Fridge, laying down against Cal, Rutgers and even Middle Tennessee, to throw the rest of the ACC off the scent. Nice touch, too, giving up 118 points in those three losses.
Maryland gets to ACC play and, voila!, defense is served. Clemson's offense is only good for 15 points. (Note: That's what happens, Clempson, when you promote the gym teacher.)
Wake Forest: "Air" Grobe beats N.C. State at its own game, with a pair of Triangle recruits no less, and gets the Deacs back in business in the Atlantic. Kudos to Wake's Josh Bush, who'll go down in trivia history as the one who ended Russell Wilson's interception-less streak at 379 attempts.
ACC bashing: The meek inherited the Earth, with four of the five conference games won by the underdog, but that's not a reason to bag on the ACC (not this week anyway).
Miami beat Oklahoma on Saturday. Oklahoma, from the Big 12, played for the national title last year and opened the season at No. 3. No one judges the Big 12 based on Iowa State, so why is the ACC being judged by Maryland, Virginia or Duke?
Miami's win over a top 10 team is the bikini portion of the Miss USA pageant, the rest is just filler music.
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Think global, win local
The five major Division I programs in the state of North Carolina have taken the ecological footprint concept to heart.
North Carolina, N.C. State, Wake Forest, Duke and East Carolina have combined for eight wins over what the NCAA, for marketing purposes, calls "Bowl Subdivision" opponents.
Take out Wake's eco-friendly win over State and UNC's win over ECU and the Old North State Illuminati is a combined 6-8 against what normal football fans call Division I-A opponents.
The group's six out-of-state wins are at the expense of the awe-inspiring collection of Pitt, UConn, Stanford, Army, Marshall and Central Florida.
The good news is the in-state group gets four more games against each other.
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Coachspeak-to-English translation
"Four weeks in a row you get into the same situation, and the first one doesn't turn out right, turn out the way you want it, and now three weeks in a row they've come up."
— Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis after his team's fourth straight dramatic finish, a 37-30 overtime win over Washington.
Translation: If the alumni's going to give up on me, I need NBC in my corner.
