Light orderves in the ACC

So I wake up this morning all stoked for game week, ready to start writing about all the great games on the college football docket.

Pull up the ACC's slate, and there's some light orderves that lead up to next week's main course.

(Yeah, I'm going with "orderves." Actually had to look up the correct spelling -- hors d'oeuvres -- and concluded that such a spelling is way too stuffy for this blog, and way too stuffy for college football.)

Thursday brings us two barn-burners (Presbyterian at Wake Forest and Florida A&M at Miami).

And here's Saturday's lineup:

Samford at Florida State; South Carolina State at Georgia Tech; Weber State at Boston College; North Texas at Clemson; Richmond at Virginia; Western Carolina at N.C. State; Elon at Duke; LSU at North Carolina.

Shoot, even the big game in Atlanta between the Tar Heels and Bayou Bengals has lost some of its luster as a result of the current fiasco in Chapel Hill.

We'll have to wait two days for the real biggie, Boise State vs. Virginia Tech in Landover, Md. And the game earlier that day, between Maryland and Navy, is actually quite compelling.

But looking at the long list of dud games, it occurred to me that this is where the ACC can start to prove itself worthy of being better than usual this season.

The conference can send a strong message by winning some key non-conference tilts -- North Carolina vs. LSU, Virginia Tech vs. Boise State, Florida State at Oklahoma, Miami at Ohio State, Clemson at Auburn, etc. -- but the ACC also needs to avoid the ugly losses that have marred past seasons.

Last year, Virginia kicked things off by getting kicked around by William & Mary at home in a double-digit defeat. Maryland lost to Middle Tennessee for the second consecutive year, this time in College Park. And the Terps were lucky to escape with an overtime victory over James Madison. Duke lost to Richmond. Florida State stunk it up at home in a loss to South Florida and came perilously close to losing to Jacksonville State.

What are the top candidates for an upset this week?

You'd have to start with Virginia at home against Richmond. The Spiders lost a ton of players from last year's team. But there's a ton of motivation because the Cavaliers' coach, Mike London, is Richmond's former coach. The Spiders also have QB Aaron Corp, a transfer from Southern Cal. And Virginia has lost four consecutive openers.

Elon over Duke has to be considered a possibility. The Phoenix are considered an elite FCS team, and last year they made the playoffs before losing to Richmond (a team that beat Duke).

Don't sleep on Weber State, either. As Magnum notes here, the Wildcats are no pushover.

The Wildcats, ranked 18th in the FCS coaches poll, have a senior quarterback in Cameron Higgins who is on pace to break school and Big Sky Conference passing records.

Under veteran coach Ron McBride, who coached Utah for 13 years, Weber State is coming off its second consecutive postseason berth. And though the Wildcats have some of the same experience issues as BC - WSU has just a dozen seniors on the team - they have the ever-fretful Spaziani concerned.

“There’s a lot of unknown,” Spaziani said. “We’ve never been on the field with them, there’s not too much commonality. They’ve got a veteran quarterback, they’ve got big linemen, big running backs . . . they know how to throw the ball and run the ball. They’re well-coached. Defensively, they’ll blitz you, they’re sound, they’re tough.

“They’re a good football team, and their expectations this year are a national championship. They were in the playoffs last year, (and) they’re better than they were last year. This is a very difficult game in a lot of ways.”

Should North Texas over Clemson be on the list of upset possibilities?

Not if you consider these developments from the Mean Green's practice:

The bad

1. UNT's offensive production

UNT didn't do much in scrimmages to show that it was ready to score on anyone. UNT went more than 50 plays without scoring in live, length of the field situations in its second scrimmage. Granted, UNT was missing a lot of key players, but it didn't look good.

2. The loss of several key players

Jeremi Mathis walked away from the program, despite seemingly having a role as a utility back, Micah Mosely has a broken foot, Chris Neal is done as a player at UNT due to a torn ACL, and Jamison Hughes, D'Andre Wood and Mike Miller didn't qualify. That's a lot of talent to lose in the span of a few weeks. All three guys who didn't qualify were supposed to be impact players. The combined losses could catch up with UNT.

The ugly

1. The kicking game

Zach Olen will likely end up being the answer at some point, but it looks iffy if that time will arrive soon enough. UNT struggled to make anything in the field goal or even extra point department throughout two-a-days.

Speaking of North Carolina, the Tar Heels put up a united front at fan day.

As much excitement as the Jimbo Fisher era is generating at Florida State, there's still plenty of aluminum for sale at Doak Campbell Stadium.

So there’s about 15,000 tickets remaining for the season-opener against Samford. Fifteen thousand. This comes from Ben Zierden, the director of ticket operations at Florida State, who provided the figure earlier this afternoon. Have to say I’m surprised that many tickets are still available for the season-opener. It’s not just a season-opener, of course. It’s an era-opener. The official start of the Jimbo Fisher era. Undoubtedly, that has created excitement. Fisher has inspired belief. Yet that hasn’t translated into ticket sales.

Even Fisher seemed surprised when I asked him about this after practice. He said, “I ain’t got no money to buy ‘em. Dadgum. That’s a lot of tickets.” Indeed.

At N.C. State, Tom O'Brien remains confident he can turn things around and produce some winning seasons.

“There isn’t any reason why we can’t be” a top ACC program, O’Brien said. “But you can’t be unless you have the pieces in place to be that way. And for the last three years, we haven’t had enough guys to do what we wanted to do.”

At Auburn, everyone is talking about the benefits of being in Year 2 under Gene Chizik.

Auburn fans can discuss the cavalry charge of the new faces, but Auburn coaches say that veterans being in the same system for two years in a row may be the key to the Tigers making noise in the SEC West.

Returning the entire coaching staff and 15 starters doesn't hurt, either.

"I know we're ahead of where we were last year," Roof said.

"We're quite a bit ahead," said offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn.

At The ACC Sports Journal, a look at Clemson and what to watch as the Tigers inch closer to the season.

In The Charlotte Observer, Ron Green Jr. has a good story on Chris Hairston's rise from obscurity.

And in Charleston, Gene Sapakoff cranks up the Braggin' Rights Barometer and predicts South Carolina 24, Clemson 17.

What the heck does a barometer look like, anyway?



LW