Maryland at Clemson – I often completely miss the boat when predicting what will happen in these games. I’m not ashamed about it; it’s practically impossible to accurately say what will happen in a college football game. In this game though, “The Desperation Bowl” I called it, I got it right with this prediction, “[Clemson will] continue their winning streak in a fierce, close and ugly match.” Actually, maybe I should have said very ugly. Or “fugly,” perhaps. I mean, good god. Maryland managed less than 200 yards of offense and Clemson was just barely better. There were only two turnovers, so that means that the two teams just kept bumping into each other for a few downs and punting. There were 16 punts in all. Death Valley? It must have been Bored-To-Death Valley on Saturday. I tried watching some of this one and ended up leaving a drool spot on my sofa.

Ironically, for as gawdawful a game as it was, it did have an exciting ending. Clemson scored the game winning touchdown with less than a minute and a half to go. Thankfully for everyone involved this one didn’t go to overtime. Otherwise we might have had something like a 13-10 victory in five overtimes.
So where does this leave the teams? I called it the Desperation Bowl for a reason. The winner still has a chance at redemption or at least mediocrity while the loser … well, hey, basketball practice started!
For Clemson, they actually still have a hill to climb. They are sitting at 3-4 and 2-3 in the ACC with games remaining against NC State, Miami, Duke and USC. They’ll be favored in one of those games. Odds are they’ll still end the season under .500 overall and at best at .500 in the conference. I wonder if the IPTAY folks have lawyers combing that extended contract for Tommy Bowden looking for loopholes?
For Maryland, it’s not much better. They are now 3-4 with three straight losses. They failed to gain 200 yards in any of those three losses, although I guess they did double their output in this game. With games left against Florida State, Virginia, Virginia Tech and Wake Forest, it’s extremely unlikely that they’ll scratch their way back to .500. I’d say they have a better chance of losing out. More likely, they’ll get one win the rest of the way.
Virginia at Duke – I really thought Virginia would come out in this one angry and blow Duke away. If you just look at the final score and some of the stats, including the eye-popping 348 rushing yards, you would think that that’s what happened. Nuh uh. Not at all. Virginia was a bit sluggish and failed to put Duke away until late.
Duke had the ball in scoring range down just two touchdowns in the middle of the fourth quarter. The Cavaliers held them on a fourth down though and drove the field for one more clinching score to make the final margin appear a bit better.
On the flip side, while the Cavs weren’t as sharp as they hoped, in large part due to a poor game from quarterback Marques Hagans, they had to be pleased with their rushing. Alvin Pearman, normally the #2 RB, rushed for 223 yards, just one shy of the school single game record. Wali Lundy added 82 more and two touchdowns. The Cavaliers realized early on that Hagans wasn’t sharp (evidently he was still banged up from the beating he took in Tallahassee), so they committed almost completely to the rushing game. It worked.
For Duke, well, it was yet another moral victory. They played pretty well, but still lost by three touchdowns. Interestingly, over the past four years, the Blue Devils lead the nation in moral victories that were actual losses.
Side note: I listened to some of this game on the radio via the Duke broadcasters. Man, talk about your homers. Every single flag thrown against Duke was a bad call. Every third play or so where there wasn’t a flag thrown, the refs missed an obvious penalty on Virginia. On top of that, Bob Harris, their play-by-play man routinely failed to mention the yards gained, whether first downs were made or whether actual penalties had been called. In fairness, he’s a very good basketball guy, and frankly that’s all Duke really cares about anyway.
Florida State at Wake Forest – Wow. I watched this game and could not believe my eyes. I’m not just talking about the fact that Wake was leading almost the whole game, but what really shocked me was Florida State. Was this the same team that I saw kill Virginia one week earlier? There was no resemblance at all. None. Where they were jumping up and down and constantly attacking one week, they were standing and yawning the next. I can’t remember such a jarring contrast in a team’s attitude from one week to the next.
As for the game, it was almost the biggest upset in Wake Forest history, but they just couldn’t quite hold on. In fairness, they really never did much to earn the win. Both of their two touchdowns were defensive scores. It’s not that those don’t count or that they weren’t great plays, but there was a lot of luck involved. Without those two scores, Wake probably never would have led. It still would have been fairly close and it would have been low-scoring, but the Demon Deacons wouldn’t have been in position to win.
For the Seminoles, it’s hard to know what to take from this game. A few things are certain – this is not a team you can count on to always bring their best (or even near their best) and Wyatt Sexton is not infallible. On the flip side, they gave up only three points to Wake Forest’s offense and they came through and made the plays they needed to down the stretch. Good teams find ways to win games even when they are playing poorly. I just wonder if this team isn’t playing poorly too often. Fortunately for them, they really only have two semi-tough games left, at NC State and home against the coachless Florida Gators. Both games are losable, but with any semblance of the effort they gave against Virginia, they’ll win both.
For Wake Forest, it was yet another heartbreaking loss. Wake has to be the best 0-4 team in ACC history, for whatever that’s worth. All four losses came in the closing minutes or seconds of the game. Fortunately for the Deacs, they get Duke next. They should be able to wrap that one up before the last minute.
Miami at NC State – This was a crazy game. In the kicking game alone, there was a kickoff return for a touchdown, an onsides kick, a fake punt, a muffed kickoff return, a muffed punt return, a blocked punt and a partially blocked punt. Add in five turnovers, over 860 yards of offense and 76 points and you can see why it was such an unusual game.
A big surprise for everyone was how much offense there was in this one. Going into the game, NC State was #1 in the country in total defense and Miami wasn’t too far behind. Imagine my surprise when I watched Miami roll up over 200 yards and NC State just under 300 in the first half alone.
At the half, Miami led 28-17, but it felt like State was still in the game. They had made a bunch of big plays, but had killed themselves with critical turnovers, including a fumble by TA McClendon inside the five yard line (haven’t we seen that before?). In the second half though, things settled down and Miami seized complete control. At one point, Miami led 45-17, but the Wolfpack scored the last two touchdowns to make the score a bit more respectable.
For NC State, there are two ways to look at this. On the one hand, they came out hard, with a lot of passion and they threw the kitchen sink at the Hurricanes. There is no doubt that Chuck Amato was going for the win. That’s a great attitude and it’s clear that his team bought into it. On the flip side, all that trickery can give the impression that you feel you need that stuff to win. So when it doesn’t produce a lead, you wonder if the team doesn’t let down a bit, feeling like they already took their shots. In the end, I’d say that NC State showed that they are a good team and that they do have a lot of talent, but they just aren’t yet in Miami’s class. That’s not so bad.
For Miami, there are also two ways to look at it. On one hand, they took yet another good team’s best shot and came away victorious. On the other hand, they gave up a ton of yards, big plays and points to a non-ranked team. Their defense looks great out there flying around, but they aren’t shutting teams down. At some point, that sloppiness might catch up to them.
Regardless of what the two teams do the rest of the year, they did give us an exciting game and laid the groundwork for a possible rivalry. It’s clear that State has targeted both Florida State and Miami as schools they really, really want to beat and they do a great job of getting up for those games. Coach Amato and his staff just need to find a way to channel that energy and passion for the other nine games on the schedule.