Your Weekly ACC Football Roundup, Week 1

There is a very simple rule for early-season ACC football. It goes something like this:
If an ACC team plays a school from a non-power conference (usually Elon), they win big. If they play a school from a power conference, they lose.


(Yes, I know Virginia Tech beat Ohio State last year. That would be the Ohio State team that had just lost its Heisman candidate QB and was starting a freshman who'd never taken a snap in college before. Every curve has its end points)

So, the teams that ACC teams beat this weekend included:

• Elon
• Alcorn State
• Tulane
• Rhode Island
• Wofford
• Maine
• Youngstown State (who made it exciting, because Pitt isn't allowed to have nice things)
• Bethune-Cookman
• Troy
• Texas State

The teams that beat ACC teams this past weekend included:

• South Carolina (whom UNC could have knocked off if they'd paid attention at any point)
• UCLA
• Auburn (aided in a small part by Louisville coach Bobby Petrino's failure to understand basic clock management)
• Ohio State

Throw in the fact that a number of high-profile league players (Syracuse QB Terrel Hunt, Pitt RB James Conner, VaTech QB Michael Brewer, Clemson WR Mike Williams) went down and are gone for some/most of the year, and suddenly Week 1's lacking in even moral victories. Sure, all those payday games got everyone one win closer to bowl eligibility, but that's about the only good news.

Week 2 should be better record-wise, as the only serious opponent running out there is the Mrs-Piggy-in-the-Muppet-Movie of the ACC, Notre Dame. Otherwise, it's a murderer's row of Furmans and Akrons and of course Tulane. The league should feast and the talk radio chest-thumping will be back. 

We'll see how long it lasts.