Booking ACC Football: Trying to make the best of a weak Week 1 schedule

Pitt and Wake Forest, the two teams in last year’s ACC Championship Game, held serve for us on Thursday, with Pitt beating West Virginia, and Wake blowing out VMI.

Most of the rest of the weekend schedule is squash matches.

Here’s how I’d book things to get the ACC in the best position for Week 2.

Friday

Virginia Tech at ODU

Temple at Duke

This is easy. We need wins in both, nothing less. Both Tech (Brent Pry) and Duke (Mike Elko) have first-year coaches who can’t afford a hiccup.

Saturday

NC State at East Carolina

North Carolina at Appalachian State

In-state matchups on the road. State is ranked, a sleeper in the ACC title race, and will win, and win convincingly.

UNC is a bit of a mystery with a new QB, and App State is going to be out for blood.

The best we can do here is have the Heels escape with a ref bump finish.

Richmond at Virginia

Bethune-Cookman at Miami

A pair of squashes here. The Richmond-UVA game will have a few more high spots.

Rutgers at Boston College

Maybe we can put this one on the pre-show. You need to have something in the ring as the fans are in the concourse getting merch and a hot dog.

Louisville-Syracuse

Now we’re splitting hairs. Louisville needs to go over here. We need Malik Cunningham to look good, too, so that a win over Louisville means something for Virginia in October.

Sunday

Florida State at LSU

Not sure what we’ve got here. Two marquee names, but they haven’t played like marquee teams in a while. A win for FSU would be nice, but as long as they don’t get blown out, a loss doesn’t necessarily hurt.

Monday

Clemson at Georgia Tech

I guess this qualifies as the main event on our weak card. We really need a big Clemson win here, with Georgia Tech getting no offense, Clemson playing all the hits, the rest.