ACC Update

Roughly midway through the college football season and Clemson and Florida State appear to be, once again, the cream of the ACC. They do not meet until November 7 however but each host interesting opponents this Saturday. FSU hosts a Louisville team that has lost three games but that was against a tough schedule. The Cardinals can score points and it will be interesting to see them against a Noles defense that has generally bent but not broken this season. Louisville must find a way to contain back Dalvin Cook and force QB Everett Golson into obvious passing situations. That's easier said then done. On offense the visitors will rely on freshman QB Lamar Jackson and his rushing ability against an athletic defense. Good luck. Clemson must face a Boston College team that cannot score, but does not give up many points either. Much has been made of the team's 3-0 loss to Wake but they have now played consecutive games in which neither team reached 10 points (9-7 loss at Duke). They will do their best to frustrate a Tigers offense that is inconsistent. The big game in the Coastal division may be Pitt at Georgia Tech, a game that has taken on a much different meaning than it was expected to in preseason. Tech was the preseason pick in the division but sit at a shocking 0-3. They can turn things around although the offense still looks broken. A tough Panthers defense won't help, although it needs to play the run better than it did against UVA. And the Pitt offense has room for improvement too, but if it protects the ball (unlike last year versus Tech) than it should have a close win to remain unbeaten in ACC play. There are some interesting games among the other ACC teams but those are currently for positioning.

View From Bennett Avenue

Not one of the big three college football powers from the state of Florida is ranked in the AP top 25 for the first time since 1982. That is stunning, but not surprising for various reasons.
The obvious one is that the many talented players in the Sunshine State get recruited by all of the major powers. Miami, Florida and Florida State rode the surge in talented Florida high school players that began after the post-war state population growth to great heights beginning in the late 1970s. But all three of those powers won with experienced coaches who knew how to exploit all of that talent in men like Bobby Bowden, Steve Spurrier, Jimmy Johnson and Dennis
Erickson. Even coaches like Butch Davis and Howard Schnellenberger, who had limited or no head coaching experience, arrived at Coral Gables with extensive NFL experience.
But now, with the competition for in-state talent fiercer than ever, those three programs entrusted these difficult, yet plum, jobs to men without head coaching experience in the since-fired Randy Shannon, Jimbo Fisher and Will Muschamp. Why?
Don't get me wrong. Every great head coach was once just a coordinator somewhere. And yes there are some coaches, like Bob Stoops, who can do extemely well with their first crack at a head job. But the odds are against them. The overwhelming number of national championship coaches in the modern era have come from coaches who were head men elsewhere. The last nine national title coaches were men who had been head coaches at other schools before their title-winning position. The job has become so difficult that to expect guys without head experience to succeed at high-profile jobs is silly.
Making matters worse is the individuals hired for these jobs. The first was Shannon, who had done an excellent job as the Miami defensive coordinator and was a respected former Hurricane player. The problem with Shannon's hire was that the university expected him to win every game and clean up the program (in terms of player arrests and getting kids to class, not as we know now with player purchasing). So Shannon no longer took every troubled kid from the area and was tough on his players in terms of behavior. With the wall enclosing South Florida high schools now breached, Miami could not overcome a host of problems and slipped accordingly.
Florida State, meanwhile, jumped on LSU QB guru Jimbo Fisher as their coach-in-waiting while Bobby Bowden's career wound down. Replacing a legend like Bowden would have been tough for any coach but to expect a guy whose claim to fame was good quarterback meetings with Matt Mauck and JaMarcus Russell always seemed like a stretch to me. He could recruit but so can 50 other guys.
Florida was in a weird position due to Urban Meyer's mind changing over his future. But again, all the school had to do was look at its record with recent hires. Steve Spurrier and Urban Meyer both won at second tier schools before winning titles with the Gators. Ron Zook was a former coordinator who could recruit. Sound familiar? Zook was fired after three seasons. So now they hire Muschamp, who seemed to have gotten the job because he is exciteable.
What is particularly stunning is that not one of these programs can even claim to have a better future. Miami will soon be put on probation. By the time Florida figures out a QB, offensive stars Chris Rainey and Jeff Demps will be playing in the pros and FSU will need a new QB next year too. It was telling that after FSU lost to Wake Forest yesterday, three of its higest-rated recruits for next year de-committed. The best Florida kids can go anywhere--why should they play for rebullding squads?

After Midnight

Usually our “After Midnight” posts focus on late night happenings on the West Coast, but last night bad weather in the Florida Panhandle forced the Florida State-Georgia Tech game into a long delay and an after midnight finish.

It was a long night, almost as long as coach Bobby Bowden’s week. Saturday didn’t help him one bit as afterward he admitted to ESPN cameras: “We just couldn’t stop them.” That’s for sure. Georgia Tech gained 401 yards rushing and 532 yards in total offense on the way to a 49-44 victory over the fading Seminoles, now 2-4 and 0-3 in the ACC.

It is hard to see how Bowden is going to survive past this season. If he is to be bounced by Florida State by season’s end, he would seem to have no chance of catching Joe Paterno as the all-time winningest Division I coach. Penn State’s Paterno, a winner earlier in the day over feeble Eastern Illinois of the FCS, leads Bowden 388 wins to 383. Both coaches have six regular season games left this year.

This brings up a point that has irritated us for awhile. Nothing against Bowden; he has been a great ambassador for college football. But, how in the world has the NCAA counted his 31 victories in 1959-62 at Howard College (now known as Samford University)? When Bowden coached his alma mater Howard, the school played in what was called the College Division. The higher University Division not only included the major powers of what we now call the FBS (I-A) but also many of the schools that make up the current FCS (I-AA), such teams as Furman, Montana, Villanova, and the Ivy League schools. When Barry Bonds approached Henry Aaron’s career home run record, did baseball count in Bonds’ minor league round-trippers? Of course not. So why count Bowden’s wins over Millsaps and Sewanee? In reality Bowden trails Paterno 352 to 388.

No “After Midnight” post can go without strange circumstances occurring on the “Left Coast” and last night’s Washington-Arizona tilt from Seattle was no exception.
Young, blond Texan quarterback Nick Foles played a brilliant third quarter and two-thirds of the fourth quarter to put his Arizona Wildcats in control of the game at 33-21 as the fourth quarter wound down.

Foles’ Huskies counterpart, Jake Locker, managed a TD pass with less than three minutes left to pull Washington to within 33-28. Hoping to force a punt and get one last chance, UW booted long on its kickoff.

On first down, Foles tried a delayed short slant-in pass to his wide receiver Delashaun Dean. Foles’ throw was low and behind his target. In attempting to make the catch, Dean lurched backwards and dug out a pop-up of the low pass that arrived just off the ground. The soft carom went off the edge of Dean’s foot and looped in a perfectly-timed arch to Washington linebacker Mason Foster (on right in above photo). Having mistakenly run past Dean (into the Arizona backfield) on his coverage, Foster curled back to catch the interception, then reversed his field for a stunning 37-yard touchdown return. When Locker lobbed a two-point pass, Washington had a 36-33 lead it would hold for the last two minutes.

Foster’s interception had to be one of the most bizarre, late game-deciding plays that ever occurred. But that’s what often happens out West while the East happily sleeps.

--Bob Boyles