FanHouse Acc

This time, the gloves came off. So too, did the jacket.

There's not much novel about the Blue Devils being No. 1.

In fact, they've done it more times than Tiger Woods has won golf tournaments, than Detroit Lion fans have brown-bagged it to Ford Field and almost as many times as Mike Krzyzewski advised you on your choice of credit card, insurance or any of the other products endorsed with a smile by college basketball's top coach.

But whether the three-time national championship coach and his team admits it, there is something different this time around. This No. 1 comes with a question mark. At least, until Wednesday night's road game against Wake Forest.

Were Wake Forest ever to erect its own coaching Mount Rushmore, exactly two faces, Bones McKinney and Skip Prosser, would qualify for a place in oversized granite. Every one else would get patted down for so much as trying to get into the souvenir shop.

McKinney, who led the Deacons to their only Final Four appearance in 1962, was the perfect confluence of coaching and charm. Had the State Department opted to have McKinney oversee that Cold War business, he might've brought the two sides together and had Brezhnev telling knock-knock jokes.

Prosser, who led the Deacons to their only No. 1 ranking in school history and a record 27 wins, was a larger-than-the-sidelines, self-described "renaissance man," some parts Neitzsche, some parts Nitschke.

Fine, I don't know if they actually had any targets in the New York/New Jersey area for this game, but if you don't think that's a major reason why Duke likes to have a series going with St. John's you're kidding yourself.

Duke had little problem with a St. John's, winning 67-50. It wasn't even that close as Duke got out to a 12-0 start, with St. John's not scoring until 5 minutes into the game. At halftime it was 34-10. St. John's shot a pathetic 3-22 in the half.

I mean, Greg Paulus was able to have his way against the Red Storm with 19 points on 6-10 shooting . That should tell you all you need to know about how bad the Red Storm were.

I'm not sure but I think Coach K left the bench for a while during the second half and sat down in the seats with a couple area recruits to chat. That or he was working on a different monologue for his AmEx commercials. If he didn't, he should have. It's not like St. John's even showed up or had talent to even make this a competitive game.

There seems to be a lot of desire to give the ACC Coach of the Year award to Al Skinner because Jared Dudley is the best player in the ACC and carrying BC after Sean Williams was kicked off the team -- this time for good. Sure it was Skinner who took a chance on Williams and his sketchy behavior -- and had suspended him before -- in the first place; but damn it, it's about overcoming adversity even when you helped create it.

My pick is Virginia Head Coach Dave Leitao. In only his second season the Cavaliers are now 9-3 in the ACC -- tied for first with BC -- and look to be a lock for the NCAA Tournament following their 73-70 win over Florida State. This would be the first trip to the NCAA for Virginia in six years. The Cavs have won 9 of their last 10 including road wins over Clemson and Maryland.

Florida State sees their hopes continually fading with the loss that drops them to 5-8 in the conference and their 4th consecutive losses.

Last week, Brian Grummell posted about the Clemson Academic Advisory Review Committee deciding whether football recruits would be allowed to attend Clemson after being offered scholarships. About how there was a conflict between the athletic and academic goals and philosophies of the school. And more importantly, how Clemson fans and alum were taking the news as they found out about the Review Committee. Especially after some good recruits suddenly were turned away just before signing day.

It seems the Review Committee now finds itself heading for its own evaluation.

The issue took center stage last week when Tigers recruits receiver Dwight Jones and tailback Jo Jo Cox were denied admission by the school's Athletic Advisory Review Committee. Since then, Tigers fans have lit up phone lines on sports talk shows and filled Internet message boards critical of the decision.

Clemson may decide to keep the admissions process the same or make modifications, [Clemson President James F.] Barker said. His only goal will be maintaining academic integrity while "not putting Clemson at a competitive disadvantage," he said.

Clemson Football Coach Tommy Bowden has not directly criticized the Review Committee or said much about it in general. but he seems happy about the review of the Review Committee.

"I have confidence that the university administration understands the importance of recruiting on a level playing field," Bowden said in a statement. "And that we will be able to recruit on a level playing field in the future."

A cynic would suggest President Barker is looking for a way to make sure the football (and maybe the basketball program) can recruit with a freer hand, while still placating the academic emphasis. Especially since it was his "vision" to have the school be a top-20 athletic and academic institution.

The Big Ten leads all college football conference in number of Super Bowl players with 19. That's right, SEC fans, you don't rock the house - at least for this year's Super Bowl.

Perhaps this reflects the necessary cold-weather taste of Chicago and Indianapolis general managers who knew they'd need a few extra cold weather guys to survive icy playoff battles.

Whatever the reason, there she is with 19 participants among players on either the active roster, injured reserve or non-football injury/illness list.

The ACC came in second with 15 participants, the Big 12 third with 14, the SEC fourth with 12 the Pac-10 fifth at 11 and the Big East sixth at eight participants.

Reflecting the reality that football talent is not confined to D-IA schools (nor America, for that matter), 16 players arrive at the Super Bowl from someplace other than D-IA schools.

The rest of the data:

Independents placed six player representatives in Super Bowl XLI, the Mountain West six, the Western Athletic Conference five, the Sun Belt four, the Mid-America Conference two and one from Conference USA.

So there's your college football angle to this whole Super Bowl excitement. Signing Day is just a few days away at which point we can return to some normalcy with talk of Spring, Summer and Fall football practices and workouts and head into the 2007-2008 college football season.

After years of pressure from FSU faithful, Jeff Bowden finally announced that he was resigning as offensive coordinator of the Seminoles on Tuesday. The resignation is effective at the end of the season (the official end of the season).

It took nearly 6 years of an underachieving offense for this to happen, but not a moment too soon. It is painfully obvious week-after-week that our offense is not prepared going into every game. 90% of the time our running game is nonexistent, even though we have 2 running backs that were ranked #1 in the nation coming out of high school. Just think about how pathetic that is.

Baby Bowden leaving Tallahassee is just the first step to a return to glory. There are more changes that must be made. Next up: QB coach Daryl Dickey. With him teaching our signal-callers, the position will never improve to be at the level it should. Charlie Ward and Chris Weinke would not have ever made even all-conference learning the position from this clown. Like I've said before, FSU QBs have only gotten worse the longer they are tutored under him.

I could go on about the things that need to be done in this program, but we'll take things one step at a time. This is truly a great day for Florida State fans, players, and their families. There will be much rejoicing tonight throughout Seminole Nation. However, there is one member that might not do too much celebrating. After the announcement, Bobby Bowden had this to say, "I am disappointed in Jeff's decision. This is a big loss to me personally. His decision is an emotional one for me." Sorry Bobby, but at least one Bowden was willing to do what it took to get this program headed back in the right direction.

Let me start off by saying I'm not one of those people who say that rioting is disrespectful to the Maryland tradition or makes the Terps look bad. Screw all that. It's great. However, rioting and rushing the field should only happen when it's deserved. Rushing the field otherwise just makes you look like idiots and, as an alumn and Terp fan, that's something that I can have.

I think the current students watched the Terps from 2000-2005 and saw all the great riots. I'm lucky. I was a freshman in 2001-2002. The first major riot of the modern era -- meaning not Vietnam -- was a year before when the Terps lost to Duke in the Final Four. That was an angry riot. The next year, there were some good football riots, such as after Maryland beat Georgia Tech in overtime on the Nick Novak kick and when they beat Clemson to go undefeated at home. Of course, the National Championship is riot worthy and the ACC Championship in 2004 was as well. The ACC Championship one is my favorite because that's when the students lit a fire in the middle of Rt 1, although tipping the buses during the Women's Championship last year looked pretty good.

However, since the defeat of #5 FSU in 2005, there hasn't been anything worth mass celebrating in football. So don't. Beating unranked FSU and Miami at home does not deserve rioting at all. As fans, you need to acknowledge when a team isn't as good as you. When you run onto the field, it's because you either won a title of sorts or beat a team that's ranked much higher than you. By rushing the field against two unranked teams, it's showing them respect they don't deserve.

Unfortunately, this post is poorly time. If the Terps beat Wake Forest and advance to the ACC title game that is reason to rush the field. Unless Maryland had a tradition that the fans can celebrate with the team on the field after every win, which would be pretty cool, the fans need to show prudence in when to rush the field. Save it for the best games. Rioting or rushing is often a show of respect for the team you beat. So before you do it, make sure they deserve it.

FSU lost 30-0 at home Saturday night to Wake Forest. That's right, 30-zero. As in not one single frickin point. I don't even want to talk about the actual game itself. The score says it all: We are terrible. Things need to be done. QB changes are not the answer. We have the players most coaches would give their first born for (insert Bobby-Jeff joke here). Both QBs were less than unproductive in this game, but I've seen enough FSU football to know why that is. They both have the goods to be great college QBs. They were both top QB recruits coming out of high school. The problem lies in that no QB here since Mark Richt and Chuck Amato left have improved even one little bit from the time they step on campus to when they leave. Chris Rix? He looked pretty good his freshman year. . . never improved. Fabian Walker? Never improved. Wyatt Sexton? Well I'm not even going to go there. Drew Weatherford looked good for a freshman last year. While his numbers haven't been all that poor, his play seems more disappointing than that of a year ago. Like with Rix, he may actually be getting WORSE with FSU coaching. I wish I was joking. Lee seems like he has only learned one thing since he arrived on campus as well. That he made a mistake. These players and their families have trusted their futures with the coaches. It is their job to develop their outstanding talent and get them to be the best football players they can be. That just is not happening. Hasn't been since 2000.

We know that changes need to be made. Everybody in the country can see that. However, Bobby Bowden has insisted that he will not fire Jeff. When asked this week about the situation, he responded that he does not believe in firing people. This is honest to God the first thing that came to my head: What he just said was the most stupid statement I have ever heard in my life. Well what the hell do you do when someone can't do something right? If they can't perform the job that they get paid to do then what do you do Bobby? We just got shut out at home while compiling a total of 139 yards with a bunch of 5 and 4 star recruits. If you get paid to do something and don't do it, well that's as good as stealing. And it's not just Jeff. He doesn't deserve all the blame. Daryl Dickey has not done his job as QBs coach. He simply can't develop talent. Billy Sexton (RBs) hasn't seemed to have done too great of a job either. Some of that is probably due to other factors on offense, but we have to clean house and only a select few should stay in my book. But of course this all falls from the top. Bobby, if you don't believe in firing people, you will get fired. Here's why. If changes are not made VERY soon, boosters will stop giving their money (they've already said so), obviously we will not be getting the $14 million each year for making a BCS bowl game, and oh yeah, the top recruits will no longer come here. This wouldn't be as much of a problem if we had good coaching (see Wake Forest), but then again that's why I'm writing this. And if we have only mediocre talent with this horrible coaching staff then 1-11 and 2-10 seasons would not be out of the question. Our stadium will only be half full each home game. The money FSU football generates for the university each year would take an incredible hit from a number of areas. And we all know that money is power so if you are holding the school back from receiving tens of millions of dollars each year while you are making over $2 mil a year yourself. . . well, I think you know what happens then.