First, since we are talking about the college football schedule then you need to click here and bookmark!
Secondly, you can use this entry to serve as an open entry during the games on Saturday. But PLEASE limit your comments to the sharing of information and value-added conversations. Useless “thank yous” and short one-liners only serve to diminish the convenience of reading and interacting for our community.
Now…on to Saturday….
After the ACC’s year to forget, the conference’s week one schedule will – for the most part – play out on Saturday. You can click here for your ABC afternoon television coverage map.
Saturday, Sept. 1, 2007
The Irish Bowl, 6pm (ESPN360 -web only)
East Carolina at Virginia Tech, 12pm (ESPN)
Marshall at Miami, 12pm (ESPNU)
Connecticut at Duke, 2pm (ACC Select – web only)
Virginia at Wyoming, 2pm
Georgia Tech at Notre Dame, 3:30pm (NBC)
Wake Forest at Boston College, 3:30pm (ABC)
Villanova at Maryland, 6pm (ESPN360 – web only)
James Madison at North Carolina, 6pm (ESPN360 – web only)
Monday, Sept. 3, 2007
Florida State at Clemson, 8pm (ESPN)
Football Bytes:
* Mr O spelled out why you should pull for which teams in a previous entry that deserves to be brought to the top here.
In terms of who we should be pulling for this weekend in the two conference games, we want BC and Clemson to win.
BC plays Miami, GT and Va Tech in the Coastal while Wake gets Duke, UVa and UNC. So based on Wake having a the easiest possible, we need Wake to lose whenever possible. We play both BC and Wake on the road, so again no advantage in our head to head matchups therefore we should pull for BC based on Wake’s easy schedule.
Clemson plays GT, Va Tech and Duke. FSU gets Miami, Va Tech, and Duke. Schedule is pretty even, so we would probably prefer Clemson to win because we get Clemson at home and FSU on the road.
I don’t think I need to explain who we are pulling for in the JMU/UNC game.
* If you need some multimedia to help you feel like it is the 21st century then you can click here for Fox’s ACC Video Vault.
* Additionally, this link will provide a nice preview entry of some key games on Saturday from SMQ.
* Speaking of SMQ, this is the kind of analysis that absolutely rocks and is what differentiates blogs from the mainstream media. The conclusion is very similar to some of the analysis that Phil Steele provides:
But there’s a very good argument N.C. State was good enough to win three or four more games, be a very minor bowl team and possibly (not likely, but possibly) save Chuck Amato’s job. Very clearly, turnovers were the not-so-silent killer: the difference in the Wake Forest game, again, turned out to be the second quarter fumble- safety, Swank’s field goals and the blown two-point conversion; the final score at North Carolina was inflated by a late fumble return. Even with its yardage advantage, Akron doesn’t pull that upset without the benefit of those three turnovers.
* We didn’t run a whole lot of preseason football preview entries because they all started to blend together and look the same. Despite NC State’s selection as a ‘sleeper’ by a few well-respected pundits, the almost-unanimous prediction for the Wolfpack’s 2007 is a last place finish in the Atlantic Division. There were a couple of previews who boldly put the Pack in the 5th spot of the division; and this one got us to our highest placement of 4th!
* Even in the middle of ugly predictions the Wolfpack was able to get a little love:
Get ’em while they’re down, because starting in 2008, the Wolfpack should be headed straight toward the top of the division. The talent inherited by Tom O’Brien is a bit of a mismatch for his coaching style, but the refreshing stability and strict focus on the basics he brings is enough to improve upon last year’s fiasco by a few games. Unfortunately, it won’t be enough to climb out of the division cellar.
* If all of this football isn’t exciting enough for you then maybe Carolina football in particular will do it for you!!!
* If you haven’t checked the blog frequently the last week then we encourage you to spend some time on the front page surfing around. There are some good entries that have been made even better by some great conversations from the smartest set of fans around!
* If you want some more national ‘bytes’ to chew on then you will enjoy clicking here
* I want to find myself shouting out to App State with a big good luck vs Michigan…but the Mountaineers’ ECU-like fans recent telephone calls into WFNZ-610 AM in Charlotte have done nothing but turn my stomach. If you haven’t heard how ASU ‘should’ have beaten NC State last year (when the Wolfpack manhandled the line of scrimmage and dominated ASU despite our turnover problems) then you don’t know what you are missing.
* Lastly, if you absolutely HAVE to have links to other ACC and NC State football previews then an organized list of URL’s to various previews follows:
