• Jimbo Fisher's selfish mistake, why all the Miami love, Duke-UVa for I-AA bragging rights and potential trouble for Tommy Bowden and Clemson.
Florida State's rookie quarterbacks combined to produce three points and five interceptions in the Noles' ACC opener and Jimbo Fisher, in his infinite wisdom, is starting Christian Ponder, with D'Vontrey Richardson next in line if he fails, while leaving Drew Weatherford on the bench.
Bobby Bowden reiterated on today's conference call that Weatherford would not get a look against Colorado.
Say what you want about Weatherford, and it has all been said about the eighth-year senior, but with 33 career starts, he's the best option at quarterback to win right now.
The screwed up part about FSU's coaching situation is Fisher, the coach-in-waiting, cares more about 2009 and beyond than this season.
That's a disservice to not only the current players but to Bowden. But if Bowden's not going wake up from his Ensure-induced coma and make a stand against Fisher, than who am I to protest.
Actually, Fisher better hope he has good legal representation because his contract better be bullet proof after that laughable offensive execution in the 12-3 loss to Wake.
Yes, Wake is good, and yes, FSU was still missing as many as 18 suspended players from the academic scandal, but Fisher coached himself into a corner by yanking Ponder after one half.
If Ponder's the future, you can't cut him off at the legs after one bad half. That's Coaching 101. Now Fisher is in the same boat Jeff Bowden so capably occupied. He's flipping quarterbacks like mortgage loans and searching for the "Next Big Thing" instead of patiently developing a quarterback, which FSU's last real OC, Mark Richt, was so adept at.
• I'm perplexed by all the Miami love. I don't think UNC will win at Miami on Saturday, didn't think they would with T.J. Yates, but I also didn't think N.C. State had any chance to beat ECU.
Is Miami better than the team that went 2-6 in the ACC in 2007? Randy Shannon better hope so but let's look at the Canes' first three games:
— A 52-7 win over I-AA Charleston Southern
— A 26-3 road loss to Florida
— A 41-23 road win over Texas A&M. This is the same Texas A&M team that opened the Mike Sherman Era with a 18-14 loss Arkansas State.
Miami's defense looked good for three quarters against Florida and then melted down. Last time I checked, the game's four quarters.
Point is, Miami's a limited offensive football team in a similar quarterbacking boat to UNC, and missing one of their best running backs (Javarris James).
• The Duke-Virginia winner won't win the ACC or the Coastal Division but it should get an automatic bye into the I-AA championship game.
Duke beat James Madison and Virginia owns a win over I-AA No. 1 Richmond.
That Duke is a 7-point favorite should tell you everything you need to know about Virginia, which like every other ACC team is a quarterback mess.
The Hoos lost Jameel Sewell in the summer to academics and kicked Peter Lalich off the team after the Richmond win.
Lalich, by the way, has migrated to Oregon State.
• Keep an eye on the Clemson-Maryland game, Tommy Bowden haters. Clemson, the preseason favorite, can't make its season, or make its fans forget Alabama, with a win but the season is all but over with a loss to the Terps.
The last two times these teams played at Clemson — and they are generally regarded as two of the more innovative offensive teams in the ACC — the final scores were 10-7 in 2004 (Clemson) and 13-12 in '06 (Maryland).
Maryland's offense is sure to be better with the return of Da'Rel Scott, the ACC's leading rusher before missing the Eastern Michigan rout with a shoulder injury.
Comments
"UNC wore out Miami last
Thu, 09/25/2008 - 01:50 — jason (not verified)"UNC wore out Miami last year and not much has changed with either team. So why would you think the Heels wouldn't have a chance at beating Miami even if Yates had not been injured?"
you're kidding right. first the writer of the article, graig cooper...heard of him maybe? i know TAMU has a horrible run defense but 77 yards on 3 carriers, me thinks he can handle the load just fine. i also love how everybody is talking about playing for three quarters now after the fact, forgetting that every single expert picked this as an outright blowout and it was a six point game through 3 quarters. also it took a weird in bounds reversal call, 7 plays inside the 10 and a pass interference penalty for florida to score their first touchdown since their first drive in the first quarter....not exactly a melt down.
and now to commenter. same team? redshirt freshman robert marve at qb. aldarius johnson fr wide reciever. joseph nicolas, fr s, adwele ojomo fr de, brandon harris fr kr, thearon collier fr pr, sean spence fr lb, marcus robinson fr lb, allen bailey fr dl, marcus fortson fr dt. you know just a short list of contributors on both offense and defense that are all freshmen. not really a big deal you know. and of course UNC's starting qb is injured, so that wouldn't make a difference to the game at all. on paper, easy UM victory, but i like butch, he always prepares his teams, even if they do sometimes play really undisciplined ball like they did in the fourth quarter against va tech (never a good thing when you have more penalty than rushing yards in my opinion). it'll be a good game for a while, but the talent on miami's side SHOULD win the game for them, with or without yates.
oh and back to the article writer, that 18-14 loss was with mcgee playing the whole game. johnson orchestrated the win against UNM and looked much more comfortable against miami (275 yards and 3 touchdowns is good no matter when or where he got them for a rebuilding team). still not a great team, but i mean...limited offensive play, same boat as UNC? i mean...that line doesn't make any sense at all. i'd love for you to elaborate or try to explain that because it's baffling me right now.
News flash
Thu, 09/25/2008 - 06:23 — joegiglio (author)Texas A&M is not good, hasn't been for awhile.
Miami's offense is not good, hasn't been for awhile. Marve is better than Freeman/Wright but that's a hollow victory.
Miami went 2-6 in the ACC last year. It's not 2001 anymore and while this group of freshmen is good, the Canes are not miraculously going to go 10-2 this year.
My point, as it was in the original post:
Miami beat a bad I-AA team, a bad Big 12 team and couldn't score a touchdown against a good I-A team. So I repeat, why is everyone so excited about Miami?
— JPG
double news flash
Fri, 09/26/2008 - 04:20 — Anonymous (not verified)no they're not the canes of 2001, they remind me more of the canes of 98. 97 we had a 5-6 record, 98 we went 9-3 and were at that point 2-3 years away from a national championship.
though i thought you know we were comparing them to a 5-7 (2-6) team from last year. really marve isn't that much better talent wise than kyle wright, but one thing he does have is an offensive line that gives him time and recievers who don't drop the ball nearly as many times as they were for kyle.
we hit a horrendous low last year offensively, we didn't score over 40, and only hit 30 twice, and failed to reach 20 points 6 times. these are important numbers because, if i'm correct, most of our losses in the past...8-10 years, have come when we score less than 20 points. in fact in a lot of games i've watched miami lose, 20 points would have done it, 2 games last year i believe (which would have been a 7-5 record for shannon first year and a bowl bid).
we've never had to be that good offensively since the 2000's at UM, that was until last year, our defense absolutely collapsed. this year the defense is very young, very fast, and very hungry. the offense is clicking (you try playing your first game, as an 18 year old in a night game at the swamp against the #5 ranked team and see how you play), both running and passing.
would i pick the canes in almost any other conference (except maybe the big east and apparently the pac-10 too after tonights loss), no probably not...but the acc is horrible this year, and the canes have what it takes to take advantage of this fact. wake looks really undisciplined on offense, and their kicking game needs work. vatech hasn't looked comfortable all year and is just waiting for a team not to play themselves out of a sure victory. fsu is...well did you see the wake game? ga tech looks pretty good, and the rest of our schedule includes NC state, duke, ucf, and virginia.
really the question is why are you fighting this possibility so much? on paper, this looks like the luckiest year for the canes to be finally producing with it's young talent. nobody yet has stepped up in the acc. how about this, if the canes win by more than 15 against UNC you concede, it's about time to think these canes really do have a chance of stealing the acc crown in a really down year. if we win in a close one, or lose, i'll admit that we'll have to scrap our way for wins and bowl eligibility.
one last thing, i really really wish you would answer me about what you meant by in the same qbing boat as UNC. it looks to me like miami has a healthy starting qb, and UNC doesn't. whether marve is truly tested or not, well yates wasn't either. he looked good at mcneese state and rutgers, fantastic. now i'll admit he really did look good leading UNC over vatech, but we'll never know how he'll have fared against miami's D.
b/c they are going to win
Thu, 09/25/2008 - 22:45 — gvillegatrb/c they are going to win the Coastal Division.
"Miami's defense looked
Wed, 09/24/2008 - 20:35 — gvillegatr"Miami's defense looked good for three quarters against Florida and then melted down. Last time I checked, the game's four quarters."
why is it NCSU defense got tired after three quarters at USC but Miami melted down after three quarters??
both offenses were horrific but NCSU gets the pass and UM does not?? oh yea, we live in NC! my bad.
Miami
Wed, 09/24/2008 - 19:34 — stock picks (not verified)Miami is an up and coming team. They are young with a lot of true freshman seeing playing time. Their QB, Marve, is only starting his second game. UNC seems to have Miami's number. Wont be much of a crowd with the noon start time.
Butch makes his return. With all that, I have the game as a pick em.
UNC wore out Miami last year
Wed, 09/24/2008 - 14:56 — C. Scott (not verified)UNC wore out Miami last year and not much has changed with either team. So why would you think the Heels wouldn't have a chance at beating Miami even if Yates had not been injured?
UNC-Miami 2007
Thu, 09/25/2008 - 09:43 — scocca"UNC wore out Miami last year"
Not so much. UNC shot out to a 27-0 halftime lead and then hung on in the second half to win by six.
They beat 'em, but they sure as heck didn't do it by wearing 'em out.
Didn't say wouldn't have
Wed, 09/24/2008 - 15:19 — joegiglio (author)Didn't say wouldn't have had a chance with Yates, just that I didn't expect them to win.
Just because UNC beat Rutgers on the road, doesn't suddenly make them a great road team.
Plus, coming after the VT game, I figured UNC would be emotionally flat.
I think UNC will have a resolve...
Wed, 09/24/2008 - 15:27 — UNCAlumnusborne out the adversity of having it's leader hurt and not playing. The players will unite for the cause. I'm not saying UNC will win. I'm not thinking it will shock the world if they do, though. If they beat Miami, that will set the tone for the rest of the season. That's what this guy thinks, anyway.