NCAA Football duke Blue Devils

It's becoming clear that Florida State's Bobby Bowden, who turn 80 on Sunday, wants to coach the Seminoles in 2010.

The feisty Bowden has tipped his hand many times since coming under fire from high-level boosters, fans and the media following a 2-4 start.

Consecutive victories over North Carolina and North Carolina State have helped quiet restless critics -- and a victory Saturday at Clemson would vault FSU into second place in the ACC Atlantic Division -- and Bowden said Wednesday he will make the final call on who replaces retiring Mickey Andrews as defensive coordinator.

However, Bowden also stressed that head coach-in-waiting Jimbo Fisher will make a strong contribution to the process, so don't expect a disagreement conspiracy between the pair.

Both Virginia Tech and North Carolina want to move forward Thursday night following difficult losses. One of the two will be disappointed.

The No. 14 Hokies (5-2 overall, 3-1 ACC) say they are no longer stewing over their 28-23 loss at Georgia Tech on Oct. 17, despite the lingering chatter about the Yellow Jackets' chop-blocking techniques and how Virginia Tech no longer controls its destiny in the ACC's Coastal Division.

UNC is coming off a tough loss, too. Playing its first Thursday night home game a week ago, the Tar Heels led Florida State 24-6 after halftime and then fell apart, losing 30-27. The Seminoles had 285 of their 395 passing yards in the second half to keep the Tar Heels (4-3, 0-3) winless in the ACC.

It has reached this point at Florida State: panicking Seminole fans are searching for victories.

At 2-4, FSU and head coach Bobby Bowden need to find four more victories in their remaining six games to become bowl eligible. That challenge starts Thursday night in a nationally-televised game at North Carolina. The Seminoles close October against North Carolina State and tangle with Clemson, Wake Forest, Maryland and Florida in November.

FSU has played in 27 consecutive bowl games dating back to 1981, when the Seminoles went 6-5.

Virginia Tech travels to Georgia Tech on Saturday in what may be the biggest hurdle left on the Hokies' regular season schedule. The fourth-ranked Hokies are in prime position to be in the national title race with some help. They will also virtually wrap up the ACC Coastal Division with a win in Atlanta.

Of course, this isn't expected to be a walk in the park for Tech either.

The Yellow Jackets, who have won three straight, present a unique challenge to the Virginia Tech defense behind their triple-option. Over the last three games, Georgia Tech has averaged 472.3 yards of total offense. The Hokies, always strong on defense and special teams, appear to be finally clicking on all cylinders now that quarterback Tyrod Taylor and running back Ryan Williams are propelling the offense.

A solid rivalry has developed between Boston College and Virginia Tech.

While the Eagles have won the last three regular-season games against the Hokies, Virginia Tech has beaten Boston College when its counted most in the past two ACC Championship games. Plenty is at stake again when the two tangle Saturday in Blacksburg, Va.

"These guys are a premier program in the country and they haven't skipped a beat since the last time we saw them," BC coach Frank Spaziani said.

Matt Daniels doesn't even want to think about the repercussions if Duke loses to North Carolina Central University on Saturday.

The two campuses are just five miles apart, and locals in Durham, N.C., have been chatting for months about whether the Eagles can compete against a Blue Devils team that already this season has lost to a Football Championship Subdivision school.

"A lot of heads are going to be turning," said Daniels, Duke's sophomore safety.

This was not the way the ACC was hoping to start the 2009 college football season. The conference is still trying to establish that it is on par with the SEC, Big 12 or the Big 10. Instead, it has barely kept itself in front of the Big East. The early returns suggest more of the same this year.

Through the 10 games to start the season, ACC teams went a combined 4-6. That's bad enough, considering that the ACC was a collective 0-4 against teams from the other BCS conferences. With Virginia Tech losing to Alabama in a semi-neutral site, Wake Forest suffering a home loss to Baylor, Cal destroying Maryland, and of course the opening night nationally-broadcast loss by NC State as the harbinger for this lost weekend. When the best win of the weekend is Clemson trouncing a middle-of-the-pack Sun Belt foe in Middle Tennessee State, that is not a good sign.

A swine flu outbreak has hit the Duke football team hard this off-season, as more than 15 players have been diagnosed with symptoms that medical personnel believe are caused by the H1N1 virus.

When Thaddeus Lewis arrived at Duke as a freshman quarterback in 2006, he had already given thought to his legacy with the Blue Devils. Lewis wanted to be recognized and remembered as the quarterback that started a new trend at Duke. It is called winning, a novel approach for a football program that last experienced a winning season in 1994.

Lewis hasn't accomplished his goal just yet, but he has certainly helped make Duke football fun again. The Blue Devils won four games in 2008, as many as they had won in the previous four years combined, and won their first Atlantic Coast Conference game since 2004.

Greg Paulus has chosen to go from being the focus of verbal abuse and scorn as a guard for Duke basketball to physical abuse as the quarterback of Syracuse. The senior has one year of eligibility remaining, and was one of the top quarterback prospects in the country before opting for basketball at Duke.

Paulus made the decision quite a saga, as he traveled from working out with the Green Bay Packers to a flirtation with Michigan before narrowing the field to Nebraska or Syracuse. He ultimately chose Syracuse, his hometown team and the one he originally scorned in favor of Duke.