Who’s season will be over before it starts (Virginia Tech, Boston College, Louisville)?
There were three stunningly bad performances in the ACC last week. Virginia Tech in an embarrassing loss to Old Dominion. Boston College fell apart late against Rutgers. Louisville didn’t even bother to show up at Syracuse. An 0-2 start for any of the three might just spell disaster for the rest of the season. Louisville has to travel to UCF on Friday night, and Virginia Tech will play Boston College. So at least one will have a chance to recover after dreadful week 1 performances.
What would a Pittsburgh win over Tennessee mean?
Pittsburgh survived rival West Virginia in an instant classic this past Thursday, but they don’t get a chance to relax. Hendon Hooker and Tennessee come to Pitt looking for revenge from last year’s loss. A loss to Tennessee doesn’t derail the season, but a win and Pitt could be favored all the way to an end-of-the-season matchup against Miami. I thought Pitt didn’t play all that well against West Virginia. Especially the defensive line played worse than I expected. They’ll need to play better to beat Tennessee. Another win over a pretty good SEC team would leave no doubt that Pitt is a program here to stay. Pat Narduzzi is becoming a master at using the disrespect card for motivation for Pitt. He’ll use it again for this one. Tennessee is favored.
Can the ACC continue its strong performance against the Power 5?
Boston College was a mess against Rutgers, but Pitt beat West Virginia and Florida State knocked off LSU as the conference went 2-1 against P5 opponents. It was nothing earth-shattering, but considering the ACC’s recent OOC results it was a positive result. This weekend Duke is at Northwestern, Wake Forest is at Vanderbilt, Pittsburgh hosts Tennessee, and Virginia heads to Illinois. If the ACC goes 2-2 in those 4, they should take it for a 4-3 record OOC P5 record through 2 weeks. That wouldn’t be bad.
Sam Hartman returns for Wake Forest and that’s big. I think Wake Forest and Virginia wins. Pitt is a toss-up and I’m not sure I ready to call Duke winning at Northwestern.
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