With basketball starting up and football nearing its conclusion, my head has been spinning with things I want to write about. To keep things easy for now, I’ll go with a quick recap of the week’s football games with some thoughts.
Clemson 20, NC State 14 – Yet another tough, close loss for NC State. If receiver Lamar Barrett’s foot had come down a few inches to the side late in the game, State would have won. Instead, they lost for the fifth straight time and clinched a second losing season for The Chest. Each of State’s five losses has come by one score or less. StateFans Nation has some of the pertinent stats from this game and season. They ain’t purty.

For Clemson, the game was just as important, as it snapped an unexpected two-game losing streak and gave them their eighth win of the season. Clemson can’t go to the ACC Championship game, but they can at least still make an argument that they are the ACC’s best team. Of course, that’s like being the sanest Jackson.
Georgia Tech 7, North Carolina 0 – Yawn. This was the most boring game in ACC history. Nothing happened. Nothing at all. The only interesting note is that the win clinched the Coastal Division for Georgia Tech. Congrats to the Yellow Jackets.
Maryland 14, Miami 13 – Maryland has now won five straight. The margins of victories in those game – 2, 6, 3, 1, 1. Crazy, huh? The Terps are like the bizzaro Wolfpack. With the narrow win, Maryland stayed atop the Atlantic Division standings with Wake Forest at 5-1. Their last two games are against Boston College (4-2) and Wake. It’ll be like a mini-tournament!
The loss guaranteed that Miami can finish no better than .500 in the ACC this year, They’ll have to beat either UVA in Charlottesville or Boston College to even be bowl eligible. And Butch Davis is off the market. Let’s just say it was a bad week for Hurricane football.
p.s. Maryland became the first ACC team to beat both FSU and Miami in the same season.
Virginia Tech 23, Kent State 0 – Ho hum. Sure, some folks thought that Hokies would win by more, but this year, no win should be diminished. Especially not a shutout.
Boston College 28, Duke 7 – Duke actually stayed close in this game for a while. That’s about the best the Blue Devils can hope for most weeks, to keep it close for a while. Now that basketball has started, I’m not sure even the players on the team care about football anymore.
BC has two critical games left on the schedule. They host Maryland next Saturday. A win keeps alive their chance at the ACC title. After that, they travel to Coral Gables to close out the year. Sure, Miami’s down, but a game in the OB is always a big deal.
Wake Forest 30, Florida State 0 – I think I’ve covered this one. This game will be talked about for decades.