Adam Gold: Put that in your hot seat.

Last night at Carter-Finley Stadium two things happened; NC State seriously found out that they have a quarterback that can not only win, but win under pressure. And, Florida State University was slapped completely out of their perch as the leader of the ACC.

Not that the Seminoles can’t win the league this year – though it looks very unlikely – but, the days are over when people can just assume that Florida State is going to be the best team in the league. Tommy Bowden has a better team than his father, and Bobby’s other “son”, Chuck Amato, has his number.

NC State has now won 4 of the last 6 from Florida State after last night’s come-from-behind 24-20 win in front of a national television audience. Daniel Evans was a star, throwing three touchdown passes and showing poise after a rough start. You knew that the Noles were coming after him and they roughed him up a bit but he didn’t back down and made huge plays in the second half.

This was NOT a fluke for the Wolfpack. They have resurrected their season with back-to-back wins over ranked opponents by mixing their running game with a quarterback that knows what he’s doing. Some will say that Evans just threw the ball up for grabs on two of his scoring plays. I disagree. I say he took calculated risks, throwing the ball to taller receivers who were covered by inexperienced players. That’s called understanding the game and taking advantage of your opportunities.

Those are things that good football players do.

Speaking of good football players….how about Geron James, Donald Bowen, Anthony Hill, Andre Brown, Toney Baker, Darrell Blackman, Tank Tyler, Demario Pressley, DeJuan Morgan, A.J. Davis, Garland Heath, etc….those guys and a bunch of their friends played a hack of a ballgame last night. The defense stuffed FSU’s pseudo-running game, and the offensive line did a very solid job.

State is not a perfect team. I still believe that you can run wide against them. I still think that you can hurt State with short passes. But, State has answered the challenge of those losses to Akron and Southern Miss and they’ve decided that this season had a lot left on the bone.

That was a very mature win for the Pack.

It was also a very telling loss for Florida State.

As for the rest of the league we’re going to find out some things this weekend…

We’ll find out if Wake Forest is 5-0 merely because the level of competition has been low, or if they are up to the challenge of a team as explosive as Clemson – for my money the best team in the ACC through five weeks of the season. Can the Demon Deacons slow down the Tigers – even without Chansi Stuckey? Can Wake stop Clemson’s incredible running game, and inflict their own rushing attack on the Tigers’ defense that ranks 11th nationally against the run. Clemson, for those of you scoring at home, is 9th in total defense, 14th in turnover margin, and 2nd in scoring. They don’t rank below 54th in any statistical category, and they’re good at protecting Will Proctor. This is a very good football team, though they do have some special teams issues.
Pick: Clemson 27 Wake Forest 17

We’ll also see how Georgia Tech bounces back from a huge win at Virginia Tech when they deal with a very disappointing Maryland team about to play their first conference game of the year. Even though the Terps are 3-1, they struggled to beat Florida International last week, holding their breath as FIU had the ball in Maryland territory with a chance to steal the game in College Park. Meanwhile Tech is playing very good defense and forcing turnovers. They’ve caused 10 in the last four games and the Terps are -6 on the season.
Pick: Georgia Tech 31 Maryland 10

North Carolina travels to Miami and we’re hoping that John Bunting and company will have fixed the things that ARE broken. Following the Clemson debacle, Coach Bunting mentioned that not everything was broken. Well that may be true, but the things that are broken seem to be the things that cause you to get beat 52-7 and give up over 300 yards rushing and render you completely non-competitive. The best cure for what ails the Tar Heels is a win, and it doesn’t hurt that Miami is almost as offensively challenged as any team in the country. They just don’t seem to have an idea of what they want to do when they’ve got the ball. Look for Miami to try and control this game on the ground – hell, if Larry Coker’s watched ANY FILM AT ALL he might run it on every play – with freshman legacy Javarris James, the nephew of former Hurricane stud Edgerrin James. If they have success on the ground against the Heels, and who doesn’t, they’ll win this game going away.
Pick: Miami 34 North Carolina 13

Duke travels to Tuscaloosa to play Alabama for the first time since 1972. If you ask me, Duke should have waited another 34 years to make this trip. If Duke reaches double digits in 1st downs the Tide ought to be embarrassed. Although, the last time Ted Roof took his Blue Devils on the road in the SEC, they nearly beat Tennessee – losing 23-6 at Neyland Stadium before coming home to beat Georgia Tech for Roof’s first win as a head coach.
Pick: Alabama 23 Duke 0 (what, do you think the Blue Devils are going to score?)

And, Virginia steps outside of the ACC to take on ECU at Dowdy-Ficklen. This will be the second BCS school to make the drive to Greenville, as West Virginia was there a couple of weeks ago and had their hands full. The Pirates should be able to move the ball on the Cavaliers though we’ll see how much carry over there is from UVA’s 37-0 pasting of Duke last week.
Pick: ECU 27 Virginia 20

Around the country….

For the second time the SEC is the spotlight conference with a pair of highly-ranked match ups…

#9 LSU plays at #5 Florida and #13 Tennessee visits #10 Georgia…and #2 Auburn hosts Arkansas…

This is the weekend that Mack Brown used to dread. This is the Texas State fair and the home for the Red River Shootout with Oklahoma. Once upon a time, Bob Stoops used to roll up Brown’s Longhorns. Now, we’ll see how it stands – A.V., or after Vince. I also have a feeling that the Missouri-Texas Tech and Nebraska-Iowa State games are going to be worth the time.

In the Big Ten, the slow train wreck that is Michigan State football heads to Ann Arbor to get pummeled by Michigan. Many Wolverine fans tell me that Big Blue is every bit as good as Ohio State (home to Bowling Green on Saturday). If that’s the case then this game will not be close at all.

And finally, a big match up in the Pac 10 with #11 Oregon on the road at #16 California. Is this the weekend when we finally get a look at the Ducks’ yellow uniforms?