Week 2 Sunday Thoughts

This past weekend's slate of games looked dull but Saturday turned out to be an exciting day.  Washington and BYU, Ole Miss and Wake Forest, ECU and WVU, and Miami and Florida.  

Since I've already talked about the Wash/BYU game, I want to start with Ole Miss and Wake Forest.  Jim Grobe is one of the best, if not the best coaches in America but he came very close to costing Wake the game about midway through the 4th quarter.  Down by 1, Wake Forest scored a TD to go up by 5 points.  Grobe chose to kick the PAT instead of going for 2 and putting his team up by 7.  You have to go for 2 at this point as being up by 5 or 6 does you no good.  A touchdown by Ole Miss still beats you and you have to kick a FG to win either way.  Sure enough, Ole Miss drove down the field and scored a TD with 1:02 left on the clock.  Riley Skinner led Wake down the field and talented kicker Sam Swank drilled a 47 yarder to win it, but he should have kicking for the win or OT instead of a win or a loss.  Grobe did realize his mistake and acknowledged after the game, "I was really down, my heart kind of sunk."  As for the game, Wake appears to be the clear cut team to beat in the ACC and Ole Miss is headed the right direction under the leadership of Houston Nutt.

East Carolina continues their winning ways and they didn't need any drama to get it done this time.  This game was never really in doubt and it appears that Bill Russell is in way over his head at WVU.  ECU controlled the clock and shut down Pat White and the WVU offense.  People are already wondering how much longer Skip Holtz will remain in Greenville.  His dad was known as a job hopper and if it runs in the family then this might be Skip's last year at ECU.  

In what has been a rough start to the year for the ACC, they did have a few bright spots this weekend.  Wake held serve at home and Miami did the same as well.  The final score of 26 - 3 is misleading as the game was much closer than that.  Randy Shannon's defense did a great job of containing the potent UF offense, but they just don't have the horses to run with Florida for a full game yet.  If Miami continues to play defense like that and the young QB's develop, Miami might start getting re-established in the conference.