Good evening. College football’s big opening weekend is not that far away. Today, we present the @AllSportsDACC team’s Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) open microphone post. Also joining us our guest writers, including:
- Ethan Moore – Ethan Moore of Louisville Sports Live is here. You can follow Ethan on Twitter at @_EthanMoore and Louisville Sports Live at @LvilleSprtsLive. Ethan and and his colleague, Tayler Lynch (you can follow Tayler on Twitter at @TaylerLynch) have a radio show dedicated to UofL sports on 93.9 FM the Ville (their twitter account is @939TheVille, which is powered by ESPN) every Wednesday night at 7:00 PM EST.
- Tim Thomas (@TimThomasTLP) is the Editor/Founder of The Tech Lunch Pail (@TechLunchPailD) covering Virginia Tech sports, recruiting, and more at techlunchpail.com as well as being a VT football pregame analyst for ESPN Blacksburg. He is also a 2018 grad of Virginia Tech with a degree in civil engineering.
- Dan Caro is the owner of TreadmillHorse.com, a Virginia Tech blog that focuses on Hokies football and men’s basketball. You can follow Dan on Twitter at @Treadmillhorse.
- Sam Jessee (@SamOfSaturday) is a member of the team over at the Virginia Tech athletics blog, the Sons of Saturday. He is a host on the “Two Deep” podcast and a Virginia Tech alum.
- Ben Parker (@slamdunk406) is a Foothill College & UC Berkeley graduate. Publisher @StanfordRivals. Returned LDS missionary. Follow me @nba_lord for NBA.
Open Microphone (a free opportunity to write anything within reason regarding ACC football, realignment, or even college sports media conglomerates):
- Matthew: I’m stealing a quote from my friend, Will Ojanen (@WillsWorldMN): Is the Commonwealth Cup game going to be a loser out in terms of which head football coach doesn’t continue next season? I might see the two hottest coaching seats in the country, they are ACC coaches in the Commonwealth of Virginia, and they might both be out of a job next season. I don’t see either team as bowl eligible at season’s end. Sam is right in his take that for ACC football to be better, the middle of the conference must be better. To be fair, I think that improvement is going to take place under new coaches at Virginia Tech and Virginia. Hokies fans, though, probably think the coaching staff is what it is at this point – and have larger questions about the athletic and university leadership.
- Jeff: If the ACC flops opening weekend the season is toast. Rarely has a single weekend been so defining for the rest of a year, but here we are. If Clemson loses to LSU, Miami loses to Notre Dame, Georgia Tech to Colorado and UNC to TCU where Virginia Tech and Syracuse will be considerable underdogs to South Carolina and Tennessee, then how will the conference recover? Your two playoff contenders, Clemson and Miami, suffering losses, and darkhorse Georgia Tech bowing out opening weekend. The conference would be largely a national afterthought by the end of Labor day. On the other hand, you win some of those games, at least go 3-3 and the negative narrative becomes far harder to set.
- Ethan: The first three weeks will make or break the ACC’s national narrative. The league must win more than its fair share of games and the opening weekend gives the league a lot of chances. The middle of the league must pull its weight, i.e. Virginia Tech needs to beat Vanderbilt when the ‘Dores travel to Blacksburg. Those types of games have to go the ACC’s way – for once.
- Dan: The ACC needs to win big non-conference matchups in the worst way. They are being left in the dust by the SEC and Big Ten. At some point, they need to start punching back. No one is going to take this conference seriously until they can win these games every once in a while.
- Sam: This is a pivotal year for the ACC to build its brand. Teams like Virginia Tech, NC State, Pittsburgh, and North Carolina have to be better if the ACC is to survive the next 5 seasons. Not to even mention Florida State. I think the Hokies are headed in a decent direction (albeit slowly), and North Carolina certainly has the potential. But other programs just don’t have the juice right now, and Florida State’s mercenary rosters are too feast and famine to rely upon to compete at a national level annually. At the moment, it’s just a matter of “how dominant is Clemson?” and “how does Miami screw it up?”.
- Tim: The societal talk about Dabo never changing things disregards the fact that his first run was built because he made changes and hired Chad Morris and Brent Venables as his coordinators. Dabo is intensely loyal but never to his own demise which is on full display the past couple years with the Garrett Riley, Matt Luke, and Tom Allen hires plus the return of Jeff Scott. Add in Clemson using the portal a little, continuing to recruit top 10 HS classes and develop them while lightly supplementing via the portal and you have a monster brewing at Clemson. The Tigers will make history this year and become college football’s first 16-0 national champion as Dabo climbs the mountain again built on a willingness to change after his intense loyalty has been used up.
- Ben P: ACC women’s volleyball is gonna be interesting! Make sure to follow!
Stay tuned for further content from the panel this week!
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