Welcome back to Season 3 of Cal in the ACC. Let’s take a look at what our neighbors on the East Coast are doing.
Florida State at Louisville (Louisville wins 44-20)
Christopher Helling - I'm convinced that FSU and NC State are always as good or as bad as they need to be. FSU was absolutely dominant to start the game, leaning heavily on their run game, and pressing their advantage over Louisville’s interior defensive line early, jumping out to a 14-0 FSU lead and completely shutting down the Louisville run game early. However, FSU abandoned the run game plan and tried tricky/creative plays in the redzone to no avail, and Louisville outscored FSU 44-6 the rest of the way. Louisville did a really good job in coverage against FSU, particularly CB Tayon Halloway who locked down WR Duce Robinson (2 catches on 9 targets for 14 yards). FSU also misused Robinson, constantly sending him on deep routes in man coverage expecting him to win contested catches with a quarterback who is not particularly accurate. FSU ended up trying to stack the box to slow Louisville’s run game, but creative plays (e.g. WR in motion to pull away the deep safety) led to a number of huge TD runs from RB Isaac Brown, including both a 68-yard and 97-yard TD runs (longest of the season in FBS), as well as his 235 rushing yards being a season-high in FBS as well. FSU shows briefly that they can be a top tier team (such as their early lead over Alabama) before abandoning what works and falling apart. FSU really does have a coaching problem.
Stanford at 3 Notre Dame (Stanford loses 7-58)
Christopher Helling - The game opened with Stanford leaving ND’s best defensive end unblocked for an immediate forced fumble and ND TD, and that was basically how the entire game went. Stanford’s only score came on a busted coverage for a 52-yard catch by WR Caden High, plus roughing the passer to get to the 3, then the 3-yard TD to TE Benji Blackburn on the mesh route. You don't even need to watch this one to know how it went, just take a look anywhere at the play-by-play in the first half. It'll be something like: Stanford 3 and out, huge ND punt return and 31 yard TD, Stanford 3 and out, 70 yard TD, and so on. "Complete dominance" doesn't begin to describe it. Stanford is bad-bad.
Rob Hwang - Im more disappointed ND didn’t drop 60 on them.
UNC at 25 Pitt (UNC wins 21-17)
Christopher Helling - Two teams that just didn't want to win. I'd like to point to my previous week's comment that we'll see Pitt's freshman QB Corey Dailey at some point; they put Heintschel in last year for a lot less. This one wasn't a defense struggle, just... bad offenses. Quite possibly the ugliest game of the weekend, and that includes the Cal-VT game.
Rob Hwang - Pitt might be in freefall for a few weeks until Daily gets his feet under him.
Wake Forest at NC State (Wake Forest wins 38-14)
Christopher Helling - QB CJ Bailey was on fire in the first half with 16/16 completions to start the game, and NCSU completely shut down the WF run game to jump out to a 14-7 lead, and although NCSU was able to stop the WF run, they were not able to stop WR Carlos Hernandez (117 yards) and WR Jack Foley (156 yards), and QB Gio Lopez was constantly able to find them open for consistent drives and went on to score 31 unanswered points (including 28-0 WF in the 2nd half). WF had so many unnecessary penalties, but QB CJ Bailey lost his rhythm by the second half: while QB Gio Lopez went 15/16 for 218 passing yards in the 2nd half, QB CJ Bailey went 12/22 for 68 yards. WF did a better job of getting pressure in the second half on Bailey to disrupt him, and WF has been really good at second half adjustments—see also the Miami game earlier this year.
Rob Hwang - Jake Dickert is worked some voodoo magic, because Gio Lopez looks like a fairly decent QB option in the ACC compared to how he looked at UNC.
Duke at Georgia Tech (Georgia Tech wins 28-25)
Christopher Helling - The ACC's best rush offense against the ACC's worst rush defense and you guessed it... the rush defense won. GT completely shut down the ACC's leading rusher in Nate Sheppard. He was apparently dealing with a nagging injury, but GT came off the bye and was clearly ready for the variety of ways Duke tried to get him the ball. GT's defensive line came ready to play, and Duke choked this game away. Like Virginia Tech a week ago against Pitt, Duke missed a short game-tying FG that would have sent this game to overtime.
Rob Hwang - How did you lose to GT Manny? HOW?
Syracuse at Virginia (Virginia wins 28-25)
Christopher Helling - QB Beau Pribula had a terrible game, and it looked like UVA’s passing game was out of sync all game. QB Malachi Nelson played much better than I would have expected, and he was able to rely on big plays from WR Umari Hatcher and TE Daunte Bacheyie who came down with some nice catches for big plays. RB Tylik Hill also had some big plays for Syracuse. Syracuse dominated early, and came out with a 17-7 lead at halftime, but UVA’s defense brought better pressure to disrupt the Syracuse offense. A big special teams miscue (punter kneeled picking up the low snap) led to an easy UVA TD on the short field which proved to be the difference in the game. QB Dany Lauter came in late after Nelson was blown up on a hit, and threw a 46-yard TD on 3rd and 22 to make the game close, but was overwhelmed with pressure (and in the rain) on their final drive of the game. Syracuse does not look good, and UVA looked really bad by comparison, but ended up doing enough to sneak out a win.
Rob Hwang - The Syracuse win seems less and less impressive. (Repost from last week)
Any other thoughts on the teams?
Rob Hwang - 2-1 in conference. Can we make it to 3-1?
Christopher Helling - Cal-VT, UNC-Pitt, Duke-GT, and Syracuse-Virginia were all just different flavors of the same game. If you watched one, you watched them all, and you probably didn't feel great about your team doing it.