Clemson at Wake Forest

Okay, I've been sort of paying attention to this game. A few points:

- Clemson is really poor at tackling in space. They've got big, athletic kids who get to the right spot at the right time and then miss the tackle. It's no secret they were better in the red zone. Less chance to miss. Wake only has 12 points, but they moved the ball up and down the field with out much problem.

- With 4:26 left, trailing 12-7 and out of timeouts, Tommy Bowden went for a 4th and 17 on their own 25 and got it. ESPN's announcer Chris Fowler questioned the call, but color analyst Craig James gave some spiel about the season being on the line, blah, blah, blah. of course they failed to mention that Wake's backup kicker has already missed twice and even if he does make a field goal, Clemson is only down eight points. Certainly giving up a TD would put the game out of reach, but so would have punting the ball and giving up two first downs. Clemson didn't make it's second attempt at a long fourth down.

- Wake's offense is fun to watch with all the misdirection. I'm not sure why this doesn't work better at WVU with Pat White. Seems to be a fairly complex blocking scheme, maybe WVU just hasn't picked it up yet.

- That's three losses for Clemson after beginning the year ranked #9. What does Tommy Bowden have to do to get fired? I think a couple more losses might do it.

- Final score: Wake Forest 12, Clemson 7. That's the second win this year where Wake scored 12 points.

- the ACC is just a weird conference. one game we haven't talked about was Virginia's 31-0 win over Maryland last week. How in the hell did that happen? Virginia is God-awful and Maryland has been rolling. The ACC may not be good football this year, but it's interesting.