Dave Sez

Logan's Run

The N&O wrote a piece today about something I've been meaning to write about - Steve Logan's radio gig on 620 The Bull. Logan first started showing up on the radio as a frequent guest of Adam Gold (and others, I'm sure) and very quickly became one of my favorites. When I heard that he was getting his own show, I was optimistic and it turns out I was right to be. His show is awesome.

Unfortunately, my lunch commute is terribly short, but the bits I have listened to have been sensational. Logan oozes charisma and seems to have a rare knack for being both entertaining and informative. As a former college (and current pro) coach, he has insights that few other radio personalities can offer. I particularly love listening to his technical bits and recruiting stories and find myself wishing I had a longer drive. I could listen to his podcast, but I haven't yet (I can listen to music while I work, but not talk radio - it's too distracting).

If you don't live in the Triangle, give one of those podcast shows a listen. You'll be happy you did and you'll see why I think Logan has an excellent shot at being the next Duke (or even Carolina) football coach.

(Updated to change his station from 850 to 620. The annoying Jim Rome is on 850 at that time.)

I Live In A Van Down By The River!

I've heard a lot of morons rant about their teams.  You know the guys, they care waaay too much and they know way more than the coaches.  They're funny and scary at the same time.

Well, one of those guys is a big Michigan State fan and somehow he got a radio show. You need to check that link out. The host of this radio show pretty much completely loses it and rants and rants. He loses his voice, but doesn't care because he's clearly already lost his mind.

Great stuff. State fans sound positively balanced to me now.

Chad Johnson Got POPPED

Man, did you see the hit that Chad Johnson took last Sunday?  That was incredible.  As a poster on the Sports Frog wrote, the guy knocked the color out of his hair.

The Mighty MJD, while writing for AOL, has a nice post up that shows a video of the hit along with another showing Johnson trying to give an interview after the game.  Ever watched someone try to convince their girlfriend that they aren't really drunk?  That's what Johnson looks like in that interview.  I'm not sure he has any idea what is going on.

ACC Dominant In Football

 ... or should I have spelled that "futbol?"  While the conference may be sucking out loud on the gridiron, they are kicking ass on the pitch. The ACC has the top ranked soccer team in the country (Virginia), four of the top five and five of the top seven. Further, the ACC has six in the top eleven and seven of the top twenty teams in the country.

Even by the ACC's lofty standards, that is an impressive collection of top soccer teams. Maybe they should be putting those games on TV.

Hot Or Not?

I had a great idea last night - I'd write an article ranking the 12 ACC coaches by how much heat they are under. Then, I check the Internets this morning and wouldn't you know it, StateFansNation beat me to the punch.

Ah well, I'm doing it anyway.

The way I see it, there are two kinds of job pressure for coaches. There's the intense scrutiny kind where fans and media constantly second-guess your every move and demand to know why you aren't winning more or by larger margins. And there's the am-I-going-to-lose-my-job? kind of pressure. They aren't necessarily the same thing. You can have one and not the other. The really hot seats are the ones with both types of Bunsen burners underneath.

So, let's have a look at all of the ACC coaches and see whether they are Hot Or Not. I'll list them in order of just how much heat they are feeling.

Larry Coker - Wow. Just a few years ago, this guy had one of the best resumes in the business. He had just won a national championship and was averaging less than one less per year. Maybe he set expectations too high. Fans jumped all over the Hurricanes lackluster 9-3 record in 2005, largely because they failed to earn a spot in the inaugural ACC Championship and they got waxed by LSU in the Peach Bowl. Coker replied to the negativity by firing every coach he could find. It didn't help. A 1-2 start this year has led to rampant rumors of his impending doom. On The Sports Reporters yesterday, William Rhoden gave a monologue on why Coker should be fired. That kind of attention just isn't given to most ACC coaches.

Chuck Amato - Is there anything I can add here? Everybody knows how things have fallen apart in Chuck's Wolfpack program. It's like a VH-1 Behind The Music episode over there. We're in the the-drug-addiction-has-turned-dark stage of the show. He hasn't wrapped his Corvette around a tree and found New Christian Rock yet, but that's coming. Amato's not going to be fired this year, but odds are good that his career will end in some dramatic fashion in the next 12-18 months. Maybe some sort of Woodie Hayes-type finale.

One odd measure of the growing ire - there's been a link to Dave Sez from firechuckamato.com for a while now. At least a year. I normally get a hit or two a month from folks there browsing around. Suddenly this month, it's one of the ten more popular referrers I have. Hmmm, looks like they've gotten quite a traffic increase over there!

Ted Roof - Here's a perfect example of a coach who is under very little pressure from fans and media but who's probably going to be fired anyway. That's the beauty of being the Duke coach. There are no fans to yell at you! Doesn't mean he isn't going to be canned though. Look for Steve Logan to be the next Blue Devil coach (just a guess. I have no inside info.).

John Bunting - Roof is going to get fired. Coker will very likely be fired. John Bunting is probably the next most likely. Carolina has a well-earned habit of hanging on to their football coaches for a season or two longer than they should, so don't be surprised if Big John hangs around one more year. Of course, some would argue that he's already in his extra year (or second). The odd thing is, there doesn't seem to be too much vitriol in Chapel Hill. They just seem resigned to their fate. Or maybe they're having too much fun needling NC State fans about Chuck Amato. Either way, they've stopped going to their own games, and that's always the clearest sign to an AD that things are broken. Even Dick Baddour.

Al Groh - Groh's situation is very much like Chuck Amato's just not quite so severe. He built expectations in Charlottesville, but not as much as Amato did in Raleigh. He's failing to meet his own expectations, but not nearly so dramatically as Chuck is. Either way, he's in trouble and the fans are turning on him in droves. But he's not going to get fired. Not this year.

Ralph Friedgen - Just reread my Al Groh and Chuck Amato paragraphs. I mean, it's the same story! Alumnus returns to great expectations, wins, recruits, convinces fans that they will be a football power, then the house of cards crumbles. Has any coach ever recovered from that career arc? Friedgen is probably under less heat than Groh or Amato, but that's largely due to some institutional denial at Maryland.

Tommy Bowden - Tommy Boy is the toast of Tiger Town today, but he's always one loss away from the pyre. That's just the way it is with any Clemson coach. They are some mighty tough fans to win over. Sure, they'll tell you that Bowden was never in any danger of being fired in recent years, but that was not because they didn't want to. It was simply because his contract made it too expensive. That win on Saturday night went a long way to earning him another year or two down there, largely because those are the sorts of wins that they remember from the Danny Ford days and they've been mighty rare over the past 20 or so years.

Chan Gailey - Before the season, a lot of people felt that Gailey was in a tenuous position in Atlanta. It may be that he hasn't improved things any, but compared to most other coaches in the league, he's having a great year! That's the standard in the ACC 2006 - don't lose to any teams from 1-AA or with a compass direction in their name and you're king of the world! Of course, there's still time for Gailey to screw things up.

Jim Grobe - Being the Wake Forest coach is not too different from being the Duke coach. Nearly no one cares. Couple that with the fact that Grobe is an excellent coach and has Wake at 3-0, and I think it's safe to say that he's not going anyway. Well, unless he finally comes to his senses and takes a better job. I'd love to see what he could do somewhere where he had some real talent.

Bobby Bowden - If anyone else were the coach at Florida State, they'd be getting the Coker treatment right about now. I read in some article today that FSU is 3-5 in their last eight games and that they hadn't gone into halftime with a lead in nine consecutive games. Read that last part again. Nine games! Of course, Bobby is such a legend, that no one is pressuring the school to get rid of him. Just his son. Of course, if he were to announce tomorrow that he were retiring, I don't think too many fans would try to talk Ol' Bobby out of it either.

Tom O'Brien - O'Brien has built up a huge savings of good feelings in Chestnut Hill. O'Brien has done nothing at BC other than consistently win with class. Sure, fans have gotten pampered a bit and are now wondering why they can't now become a major power, but I highly doubt they'd consider kicking him to the curb. O'Brien would have to have two or three consecutive bad seasons to truly be on a hot seat.

Frank Beamer - The best coach with the best coaching staff is in the best position in the conference. By far. The fans love him and they should. He has done one of the hardest things there is in any major sport - build a national power from scratch. Sure, there's plenty of deserved criticism for the conduct of his players on and off the field - and the apparent soft handling of these incidents - but honestly most of that questioning comes from outside of Hokie Nation. The real Virginia Tech fans are nowhere near ready to throw the baby out with the bong water. The only real difference between Beamer and Bobby Bowden at this point is that Beamer is still a good coach.

Another Great Week For The ACC

Has this been a fantastic football season for the ACC or what? I thought things were going well already, but nothing prepared me for the stunning brilliance of week 3. The ACC picked up two huge, close wins over Furman and BYU, nearly knocked off MAC power Western Michigan and looked impressive against national titans Louisville and Southern Mississippi. Wow!

In regards to those losses against Western Michigan and Southern Mississippi - as I always say, anytime you can come close (and anything less than three touchdowns is close) to a directional school that might be the third best in their state, that's a great game!

Now, we all know about the long, prestigious history of Louisville football. I don't need to tell you! So, I was terribly proud of the way the Miami Hurricanes hung with the Cardinals for a quarter. I mean, come on, Louisville is the second best team in the mighty Big East!

But you may not all know about the long, fantastic histories of Western Michigan, Furman, BYU and Southern Mississippi. Allow me to highlight some particularly impressive, uh, highlights.

• You may have heard that many BYU players leave school on two-year missions. You know why? Ninja training.


• In a game last season, Western Michigan ran a counter play that resulted in a four-yard game and the complete, unconditional surrender of Guatemala's military.


• Furman scored 42 points on UNC not because that was all they could score, but because 42 is The Answer.


• Last season, Southern Mississippi's coaches mistakenly had the whole team run sprints at the same time. The turbulence created by their jaw-dropping size and speed created an actual rainstorm. Maybe you heard of Hurricane Katrina? That wasn't just God's wrath at New Orleans' wickedness.


• Furman is the #4 team in 1-AA. The extra A? It's for Awesome.


• BYU linebacker Cameron Jensen hit an opposing running back so hard last year that he actually killed the man's great-great-great-grandfather. We know this event as the assassination of president William McKinley.


• Western Michigan finished third in the MAC-West last season. Did you know that MAC stands for Most Amazing Conference?


• Furman rolled up 511 yards on North Carolina's award-winning defense. 600 would have just been tacky.


• When Southern Mississippi commits a late hit, it's not a mistake; they know where the next play is going.


• In BYU's first game this season, quarterback John Beck threw the ball so hard that it exploded in midair. The shrapnel killed nearly everyone on the field and in the stands (everyone other than the Cougar players, of course). Not wanting to have an extra-long press conference because he had to run off to build an orphanage, Beck reversed time Superman-style (he ran really fast around the world a few times) and took a little mustard off his pass. You'll see it in the play-by-play as a 25-yard pass to Daniel Coats.


• Furman doesn't attempt kicks. They decide.


• Southern Mississippi won 13 consecutive national championships in the 60s. Look it up.

Apologies to Chuck Norris and Vladimir But.

Catching Up (And Looking Ahead)

Has it been a week already? Man, this one flew by.

Since I never did a rehash of last week's games, I'll try to combine that with a look ahead to this weekend's games. Let's see if I can pull it off...

First things first - last weekend did nothing to dispel the notion that the ACC sucks this year. It's bad. No more making fun of the Big East's inclusion in the BCS. Not this year, anyway. I mean, NC State lost to Akron, Virginia needed a missed extra point to beat Wyoming in overtime at home, Wake Forest barely squeaked by Duke and Florida State very nearly lost at home to Troy. Troy! Not the USC Trojans, but these guys! (Wanna bet a lot more coaches spring for a big slip 'n' slide next year?)

But the big story of the week was Chuck Amato and his big, fat, red-shoe-filled mouth. Man. Talk about your bad press conferences. Nothing like a presser that manages to alienate a huge hunk of your fanbase (more, more and more), insults the opponent who just beat you and inspires a coach of a completely unrelated team to call you out and challenge you to a game this year! That's a historically bad showing. (Read Dave Glenn's take)

The thing is, a lot of the criticism about Chuck's comments misses the critical issue. Yes, he said something really dumb (oh, the irony) in whining about non-qualifiers and compounded that by randomly listing schools, but that's just your run-of-the-mill foot-in-mouth mistake where you say something that you (and others) believe, but you just shouldn't say outloud. But what really rubbed me the wrong way was that he was making excuse after excuse for why his team lost to Akron. To Akron! Sure, the MAC is a actually a pretty good conference that takes out a few BCS teams every year (and Akron won the MAC last year), but when you are program that aspires to elite status, you shouldn't lose games like that. If you do lose, you need to man up and take responsibility. You don't go pointing fingers in every direction and try to explain why you can't hang with a school from the Big Mean MAC. You don't whine that you've only had your world-class facilities for a year or two. You say that Akron is a good team and they played very well, but we have high standards here and we expect to win games like that. We played and coached poorly and we let our fans down. I promise you it won't happen again.

They say that the true measure of a man is how he performs when his back is against the wall. Anyone can say the right things when life is going smoothly. Anyone can be brave when there is no danger present. Not everyone can stand up to pressure, look himself in the mirror and then find and admit his faults. How can Amato get in his players' faces and demand excellence? He's giving every excuse he can find for failure, so how can he honestly tell his players they shouldn't do the same?

I think it's a safe bet that Chuck Amato's NC State career ended this week, not on the field against Akron, but on Monday when he opened his big mouth and showed what a small man he really is.

Whew. Sorry, that rant's been welling in me all week, and I'm not even a State fan. I can't imagine how they are feeling about it.

Now for a quick rundown of the rest of the league...

Boston College kept their quiet excellence (well, very goodness) rolling with a huge win over Clemson last weekend. The Tigers led most of the way, but the Eagles stayed with them and outlasted Clemson in triple overtime. With the next three weeks bringing them BYU, NC State and Maine (followed by a bye week), don't be surprised if BC is 5-0 and ranked in the top 10 when they play Virginia Tech on October 12.

As for Clemson, their season's high hopes are now teetering precariously. They travel to Tallahassee this weekend to get a Seminole team looking for revenge for last year's loss and disappointed after their flat effort against Troy. I have a feeling that the Tigers are going to be 1-2 and screaming for blood.

Duke nearly got a win! That has to count for something, right?

Georgia Tech performed as expected in their scrimmage against Samford last week and now gets that same Troy squad that scared FSU. Think Coach Gailey was able to use that game to get his guys' attention this week? Don't look for the Trojans to repeat their (near) upset ways.

Holy crap, did you see that Maryland - West Virginia game last night? Man, talk about your beatdowns! It was 21-0 practically before ESPN had a chance to introduce Maryland's offense. Their defense in the first quarter, particularly against the run, was some of the worst I've ever seen. Sure Steve Slaton's a great running back, but the Terrapins made him look like Barry Sanders on speed last night. I guess those two games against William & Mary and Middle Tennessee didn't do much to learn them about how to play against the big boys. Fortunately they get Florida International next. Boy that Ralph Friedgen really put together quite a schedule this year!

Miami got a chance to work on their offense a bit last week against Florida A&M and they'll need to show off what they learned tomorrow when they play at Louisville. The Cardinals haven't seen the kind of defensive speed the Hurricanes will bring, but they will still score some points. The 'Canes will need to score to win this game. I think they will.

UNC lost pretty soundly to Virginia Tech, but honestly the score was a bit misleading. The Tar Heels looked better on defense than they did against Rutgers (was that praise faint enough?), but they gave up too many big plays on special teams and, well, on their offense. I'm sorry, but you can't throw four picks against a good team and hope to stay within three touchdowns. Once again, I don't know what to make of this squad. They look bad, but Bunting seems to have a knack of turning things around. He better hope they figured out how to do that this week. A(nother) loss to Furman would surely mean the end of his Tar Heel career. And they most certainly could lose.

I talked about Chuck Amato above, but didn't say much about the loss to Akron. It appears that the refs blew the call on the last play, but why would NC State be in that situation anyway? How can a team that prides itself on defense give up two critical, long drives to a MAC team late in the fourth quarter? They better have learned from that failure, because they are traveling to Southern Mississippi this weekend absolutely needing a win. Vegas has them as three-point dogs.

Virginia squeaked past Wyoming at home, winning in overtime on a missed extra point. Not much else really needs to be said about that. I'm sure the Cowboys have a good team and all, but good ACC teams shouldn't be relying on overtime miracles to win at home against Mountain West squads. Of course, the easy answer is that UVA isn't a good ACC team. This weekend they host Western Michigan and if they don't play better, they just might add one more embarrassing loss to the ACC's 2006 growing collection.

I mentioned the Hokies' efficient win over UNC above. They weren't super, but they were plenty good enough. With Duke traveling to Blacksburg tomorrow, the "plenty good enough" bar will be even lower. Somehow I don't think Frank Beamer will let his guys play down to the competition though. More likely, they'll simplifier their play book a bit and nail down their execution while they nail down the Blue Devils.

Wake Forest is 2-0, and that's always reason to celebrate in Winston-Salem. On the flip side, their first win was against one of the worst teams in Division 1-A and their second win relied on a blocked field goal against THE worst 1-A team. They'll learn a bit more about themselves and their post-Benjamin Mauk future when they travel to Storrs, Connecticut this weekend. The Huskies are a surprisingly solid, if young, program. If the Deacons can get a win there, they might start thinking about bowl possibilities this year.

To wrap things up, a quick note about the three putrid Triangle teams. They have a combined record of 1-5 with the one win against a 1-AA school. Caulton Tudor of the News & Observer wrote articles in the past week calling for the firing of both John Bunting and Ted Roof, and compared to Chuck Amato, they had good weeks! How long until basketball season?

ACC Roundup

A few thoughts about last weekend's abysmal start to the ACC football season ...

Virginia Tech and Clemson both pretty much did what they needed to do. Good teams win games like those easily and both did. You can't learn too many positives from cupcake games, but you can learn negatives. No obvious negatives were exposed, so that's good.

Boston College might be a bit concerned that their game was so close, but you should never underestimate MAC teams, especially playing in their stadium. In many ways, that was the biggest game ever for Central Michigan. The Eagles should be content with that win.

Maryland looked like they were headed for a laugher at half-time, up 28-7 over William & Mary. Then they were beat 7-3 in the second half. Now maybe Friedgen intentionally shut things down, but I tend to think that scoring 3 points in a half against a dejected and overmatched 1-AA opponent is a warning flag.

Georgia Tech had a rare good loss last weekend. Sure, they would have much rather have beaten #2 Notre Dame, and you could argue that they deserved to win, but they looked good in defeat. If the Yellow Jackets can maintain that level against their whole schedule (and they probably can't), then they could have a very good season. Or maybe the Domers are just grossly overrated. It happens.

Florida State and Miami played a near repeat of last year's defensive snoozer. The 'Noles got the critical win, but they have to be concerned about their offense. Both teams should be concerned. Yes, the defenses were incredible, but that was partly because both O-lines sucked. Also, neither team has the number of playmakers on offense that they used to have. Think about it - who was the last good player that FSU sent to the NFL? Laverneandshirley Coles?

And can they stop playing that game on opening weekend? It's just a travesty and a very public reminder of Bobby Bowden's cowardice. He begged to get that game early so that if they lost it wouldn't hurt their chances at a national title. That's just sad. Who wouldn't rather see those teams late in the year when the game means more and both teams are better prepared?

North Carolina was supposed to be better this year. So was Rutgers. Guess who was right? Someone has to be bad in college football, so if teams like Rutgers and Navy step up, someone has to step down. Tag! UNC, you're it!

BTW, what was up with John Bunting never putting Cam Sexton in the game? He said he'd get both QBs in the game, but yet stuck with Joe Dailey the whole way despite losing for most of the game. Sure, Dailey's numbers were pretty decent, but he made two critical mistakes and wasn't leading the offense to points. You have to wonder how a decision (or mistake, depending on how it happened that Sexton never got in) will affect the team. Will they still trust Bunting?

Virgina got thumped up at Pittsburgh and it's very likely that it was the first of many Cavalier beatings. The Panthers might actually be good - they were supposed to be last year - but then, they are coached by Dave Wannstedt. One of the first rules of football is that you should never lose games to teams coached by Dave Wannstedt. It's gonna be a long season for Al Groh. Well, unless the ACC is as bad as it's looked so far.

NC State got a solid win against App State. No win over the Mountaineers should be discounted, but the Wolfpack should be very concerned about their passing game. It sucked last year and Marcus Stone threw for a whopping 36 yards on Saturday night. 36 yards. That's a decent screen play.

Wake Forest had a nice win over Syracuse, but most people are talking about the broken arm of quarterback Benjamin Mauk. That's bad luck for the Deacs (and Mauk), but lets not forget that Mauk has been much more hype than performance in his career. Jim Grobe's game is a power running game, so if they can get that rolling, they'll be OK.

By the way, did you notice that Wake beat a BCS opponent, one with a very solid football program, and still failed to cover the spread? Has that ever happened before? Wake was favored by something like 15 points! That right there should have been enough evidence to fire Syracuse coach Greg Robinson on the spot. Once that line came out - boom! - fired.

The evidence:

• The ACC added Florida State in 1992, improving the strength of the football league.


• The ACC added Miami and Virginia Tech in 2004 and then Boston College in 2005, again improving the strength of the football league.


• With those new teams and increased spending and efforts at nearly every other school, the ACC is clearly stronger than it's ever been in football.


• Richmond is a 1-AA school.


• Duke was playing at home.


• Duke lost.


• Duke was shutout 13-0.


• Again, Duke was shutout by a 1-AA school.

The conclusion:
Duke's loss to Richmond was the worst loss in ACC football history.