NCAA Football north carolina Tar Heels

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.

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.

Tom O'Brien teams traditionally get better as the season goes on -- as North Carolina State did in winning four of its last five games last year. With Wake Forest, Duke and Boston College coming up in the next three weeks, the surging Wolfpack could be 6-1 going into its bye week prior to an Atlantic Division showdown at Florida State.

O'Brien, however, isn't about to get caught up in such nonsense. He's a game-at-a-time head coach, and Saturday's meeting at Wake Forest is N.C. State's first ACC game and first road game.

"All I know is what team I got this week against the team I am going to play," O'Brien said. "I don't know who is going to be here next week. We continue to march on and try to be the best we can weekly."

East Carolina coach Skip Holtz is a believer. North Carolina is built around defense with nine returning starters. The unit, ranked sixth nationally in total defense, also has allowed the Tar Heels valuable time to develop their young offense.

"I said going into this that I think from a defensive standpoint," ECU coach Skip Holtz said, "the gaudy numbers they put up in the first two weeks, they are going to lead the country if they continue with those numbers."

Let's roll out those numbers, now after three weeks. UNC ranks sixth nationally in total defense (198.7 yards), sixth in third-down conversion defense (22.2 percent) and seventh in rushing defense (52.3 yards) as it prepares for Saturday's game at angry Georgia Tech.

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.

Scout.com released its updated Scout 300 on Monday, and offensive tackle Seantrel Henderson remains the site's top high school prospect. Two other offensive lineman were rated among the country's top 22 players, including tackle James Hurst of Indiana.

In fact, Hurst just might be the most heavily-recruited offensive lineman ever from the Hoosier state, which should put a smile on the face of North Carolina coach Butch Davis. Hurst is one of three verbal commitments for the Tar Heels.

"I ran out of good things to say about James a long time ago," Brian Woodard, Hurst's high school coach in Plainfield, Ind., outside of Indianapolis, told FanHouse.

The ACC championship game has seen diminishing attendance from the 70,000 plus in the first game in 2005 down to a dismal sub-28,000 in 2008. The problem, it seems, has not been the fact that the ACC has been a collective morass of mediocrity that makes it less attractive for fans to want to make last-minute travel plans to the game. It has nothing to do with teams with smaller alumni bases like Georgia Tech, Wake Forest and Boston College making appearances.

How about the fact that they have been held in Florida and only once has Florida State or Miami appear? Good luck getting the ACC to admit that was the expectation when they set it up for the first four games to be in Florida.

North Carolina quarterback T.J. Yates was taken down last Wednesday not by 300-pound teammates but a game of Ultimate Frisbee. Yates managed to sprain his right thumb, an injury that will require six weeks of rehabilitation. Congrats on having the most stupid sports injury of the week, T.J.

The game was actually part of an 'organized team activity'. With this coach Butch Davis has almost certainly nixed entertaining thoughts of further Frisbee-related gatherings. We suggest he kill any Nerf basketball thoughts as well, that's a killer. Underwater basket weaving's out. Perhaps even speed dating.

Ahmad Brooks. Michael Johnson. Um, Peter Lalich. Do Virginia fans really miss all those days when Al Groh was still that heat in the streets and VIrginia could crack the top 20's of most recruiting rankings? Well, it sure made Signing Day much more fun, as the past couple of years have seen UVA bank solid, if not unexciting classes filled with linemen on both ends and likely a solid tight end prospect.

2009 has been, well, not too much different, however, over the past couple of weeks there had been speculation that mountainous man Morgan Moses, a 6'7", 343 lb. masher from Richmond could be a key pickup for Virginia. On the one hand, you have UVA's reputation as an OL factory, with D'Brickashaw Ferguson, Branden Albert and most likely Eugene Monroe becoming top-15 NFL picks over the past few years. On the other, you have concerns that Moses may not qualify academically for Virginia (especially after the decommittal of Alex Owah, who qualified under NCAA standards, but not UVA's) and a head-to-head competition with the ascendant UNC program.

After last year's oversigning kerfuffle it's gotten to the point where people are emailing me the various malfeasances of coaches in search of hot young things with the expectation head will asplode to the entertainment of all.

Doctor Saturday might end up a little disappointed with this post, then, as he forwards along this shockingly frank admission from new New Mexico State coach DeWayne Walker: