ACC Notebook For 10-27-2006 - College Football News, Tips And Picks

ACC Notebook For 10-27-2006
By Calvin Watkins
Posted: 2:00 am PDT 2006-10-27

It seems the ACC is more about coaching changes than what's happening on the football field.

Bobby Bowden at Florida State received support that he can coach forever.

Larry Coker at Miami is on the hot seat.

And now, North Carolina coach John Bunting was told he won't return following the season.

Bunting's rumored replacements have come from all over the place, from the Steelers' Bill Cowher, Tulsa's Steve Kragthorpe, West Virginia's Rich Rodriguez and Navy's Paul Johnson, according to media reports.

"Well, we had about half of [our overall losses] in 2002 and 2003," Bunting said. "And I'm in charge of the program at that point, but I can tell you this: I'm not entirely responsible for those losses. We didn't have many players to play with. Since the 2004-05 seasons, we've been extremely competitive until this season, and this season has been a struggle."

The bottom line for UNC is finding someone who can coach a young team, because the Tar Heels redshirted their entire freshman class.

Patience and a good offensive scheme would help UNC, especially when Miami and Florida State are on the downside. You also have to concern yourself with the Clemson and if the Tigers are for real.

Carolina has to make a good hire, but the good thing here is that UNC is a basketball school, so few people will protest outside the athletic director's house.

"Certainly, we will have a plan," UNC athletic director Dick Baddour said. "We have a plan together. We will start focusing on the future. We will seek advisers from other avenues. We'll leave it at that at this point. It's certainly something we can talk about in the future."

Clemson: A short week for Clemson, but the Tigers have to handle their business tonight against Virginia Tech; the Tigers are -4.5 on WagerWeb.com. "You've definitely got to limit what you do," Clemson coach Tommy Bowden said. "We're not only cutting practice times, but you are cutting days as well. You go into the game with a smaller package. That's not always so bad, because sometimes you can execute a small number of things and sometimes you have the tendency with more preparation time to put more things in."

Florida State; The Miami Herald reports Florida State will be without leading receiver De'Cody Fagg for Saturday's game against Maryland. Fagg is out with a ankle injury. Florida State is -4 on WagerWeb.com.

Virginia: The Cavs have one of the younger teams in the conference, and that group will be tested by N.C. State (UVa is -2). "We've had seasons where we've played nine or 10 freshmen, and we were actually a more veteran team than we are now," Coach Al Groh said. "So even though we're using very few true freshmen this year, it's not our youngest team in that context, it's our more inexperienced team."

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