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Friedlander: 5 questions to ponder before kickoff of Week 5 in ACC football
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There’s some good news for fans of North Carolina and NC State in the wake of their teams’ embarrassing losses last Saturday.
Basketball season is right around the corner.
The ACC released its schedule earlier this week and practice has already begun. In about a month or so, those partial to the Tar Heels and Wolfpack can put their disappointment behind them and turn their attention to the hardwood.
Just as the league’s founders intended.
Until then, here are 5 questions to think about and consider before kickoff of Week 5 action in ACC football:
5. Can Stanford’s defense frustrate Cade Klubnik the way it did Kyle McCord last week?
Star receiver Elic Ayomanor and kicker Emmet Kenny got most of the headlines from last week’s win at Syracuse in the Cardinal’s inaugural ACC game. But the real revelation was the performance of Stanford’s defense, which entered ranked 14th out of 17 ACC teams in defensive efficiency. It limited the Orange to only 26 net yards on the ground, sacked McCord 4 times and intercepted him twice, including 1 for a touchdown. It’s going to take a similar effort against Klubnik,who also has a history of making bad decisions when under pressure, for Stanford to have any shot at hanging with the 17th-ranked Clemson and an offense that has rung up 125 points in its the past 2 games.
4. Did Saturday’s win get Florida State back on track?
The Seminoles finally got off the schneid with a win against Cal. But they’re still a long way away from being “back.” It took a pair of missed field goals by the Bears and 7 sacks by a defense that recorded only 6 in the first 3 games combined for FSU to escape with 14-9 victory. Even with those sacks, the Noles were still outgained 412-289 and have yet to reach the 300-yard mark in total offense or score more than 21 points in any game this season. That’s not likely to be good enough on Saturday against an SMU team that hung 66 on rival TCU last week and seems to have found its groove with dual-threat Kevin Jennings taking over for Preston Stone at quarterback and Miami transfer Brashard Smith getting comfortable with the transition from wide receiver to running back.
3. Can Louisville take down Notre Dame again?
The Cardinals burst onto the national scene last season by upsetting the Irish in Louisville for the first signature win of the Jeff Brohm era. Despite that success, they’re flying under the radar again. That could change after Saturday’s rematch in South Bend. While the stakes for No. 15 Louisville are remarkably similar, the team that faces the 16th-ranked Irish is almost completely different. Different, but just as explosive. And as last week’s win against Georgia Tech proved, the Cardinals can also win with defense and special teams. It’s a defense, by the way, that limited current Irish quarterback Riley Leonard to just 9-of-23 passing when he was with Duke in a shutout win last year.
2. Will Dave Doeren fare any better against his old team than Mike Norville did against his?
Like UNC, NC State also needs to regroup from a lopsided loss last week – a 59-35 beatdown by Clemson. And like the Tar Heels, the Wolfpack will have to do it against a familiar opponent. At least it is for coach Dave Doeren, who led Northern Illinois to an Orange Bowl bid before leaving for Raleigh in 2013. Doeren can only hope his reunion game goes better than the one Florida State’s Norvell had against his old team, Memphis, 2 weeks ago. The Seminoles lost 20-12. As for Doeren’s Wolfpack, priority No. 1 is fixing a defense that ranks dead last in the ACC in scoring, giving up 37.8 ppg, and is next-to-last in total defense with an average of 417 yards allowed.
State has been especially bad against the 2 power conference opponents it has faced, losing to Tennessee and Clemson by a combined margin of 110-45. The good news is that Northern Illinois doesn’t play in a power conference and doesn’t have the size, speed or depth of the Volunteers and Tigers. But the Huskies have already upset Notre Dame in South Bend and were ranked for 2 weeks before losing last week. And the Wolfpack wasn’t exactly impressive in either of its wins against Western Carolina and Louisiana Tech. Even though State is a 6.5-point favorite, according to ESPNBet sportsbook, his is anything but a slam dunk.
5. How does North Carolina bounce back from Saturday’s JMU debacle?
The Tar Heels have their work cut out for them at Duke. They have to clean up the mess from a 70-50 disaster that included a blocked punt for a touchdown, 5 turnovers including a pick-6 and 611 yards of total offense to an opponent that managed only 13 points against Gardner-Webb in its previous game. They also have to regroup from a postgame drama that forced coach Mack Brown to walk back rumors that he’s ready to retire. And here’s the toughest part of their assignment Saturday: They have to accomplish all that on the road against an arch-rival that has improved with each game under its new coach.
Duke’s 45-17 win at Middle Tennessee State last week was its best performance to date. The Blue Devils combined an already solid defense with an offense that featured a 200-yard passer (Maalik Murphy), a 100-yard rusher (Star Thomas) and a 100-yard receiver (Nicky Dalmolin). Brown has won all 5 meetings with the Blue Devils since returning to UNC. But after barely squeaking out wins in the past 2 battles for the Victory Bell, including a double-overtime victory in Chapel Hill last year, that streak is in serious jeopardy.
Award-winning columnist Brett Friedlander has covered the ACC and college basketball since the 1980s.
