Turtledroppings.com – Maryland Football And Basketball Blog

Saturday brings us three ACC Bowl match ups.  If you are a die hard ACC football fan you will be watching ESPN pretty much from 1:00 PM on.  The day opens up with the Meineke Car Care Bowl.  This game features the University of North Carolina against our big rivals (even though they aren’t currently on our schedule) West Virginia Hoopies, I mean Mountaineers.  Both Teams finished with 8-4 records.  This game kicks off at 1:00 PM on ESPN.  This is possibly the last time you will see Pat White as a QB.  I can’t help but think his future in the NFL is at another position.  WVU had a bit of a down year.  Let’s be honest, any year they don’t win the Big East it should be considered a down year.  Their season took a big hit early, when they ran into that early season buzz saw known as East Carolina.  They were there the week after VT felt the ECU wrath.  Then they took a trip to Colorado and lost on a Thursday night in OT.  Do you think the Alumni were questioning the hiring of Bill Stewart after a 1-2 start, with the lone win against 1-AA Villanova?  The Tarheels on the other hand started out 5-1 with a crushing loss to VT where they lead 17-3 in the second half.  Carolina had some nice wins this year.  They beat Rutgers, when people thought Rutgers was going to be good.  They beat Notre Dame, UConn when they were ranked, BC when they were ranked, Miami, and GT when they were also ranked.  Then they lost to the Terps, and had a crushing loss to rival NC State.  This game should be full of some offense.  Carolina impressed me most of the year.  I am pretty sure the game in College Park would have had a lot more scoring had we not had that monsoon.  We all know WVU is capable of breaking the big play at anytime with Pat White and Noel Devine.  Carolina is virtually playing a home game, but we all know to well how the ‘eers travel.  I hate to say it, but I just have the feeling WVU is going to go out and win this one for White.  I am thinking the game will be somewhere around 38-27 in favor of the eers.

The second match up of the day is Florida State vs Wisconsin in the Champs Sports Bowl.  Here is one thing I do like about bowl season.  This is the first ever match up between the Seminoles and Badgers.  Florida State comes into the game with an 8-4 record.  All you need to know about FSU is they ripped the hearts out of the Terps when we still had aspirations of an ACC Championship.  The Badgers were 7-5, 3-5 in the Big Ten.  Wisconsin was once ranked #8 in the country this year, before losing to Michigan.  That was the first of 4 straight losses.  They were able to salvage the season late with big wins over the likes of Indiana, Minnesota and Cal Poly to wrap up the season.  I am not sure what I missed this year, but how does Wisconsin have a game against Cal Poly to finish the season.  I am guessing there was some kind of weather related issue for that one.  This game intrigues me.  Here are two teams that are perennial top 10 teams, that have struggled this year.  FSU at times has looked great, but Christian Ponder has been up and down.  I will admit, I did not see much of Wisconsin this year, but looking at their results, I don’t see any kind of scenario where the Badgers pull this out.  This game again is virtually a home game for Florida State as it is played in the old Citrus Bowl in Orlando.  After writing these last two recaps, it is really obvious the economy is hurting.  Usually the bowl want to bring teams from further away to try and drum up business for the cities businesses.  However, this year it seems the bowls want people there, and the best way to do that is to put the local teams in their bowls where possible.  Anyway back to the projection.  I feel this one is FSU’s to lose.  Can they do that, absolutely.  However, with about a month to prepare for the game I think they will take care of business and pull out a 23-10 win.  On a side note for this game, be sure to pay attention to Myron Rolle.   When you think of Florida State, you think football factory first and student second.  There have been thieves, people getting deals on shoes, and all other activities that lead to the moniker “Criminoles”.  Myron Rolle is different, and is what should be celebrated about College Athletics.  These athletes really have to put so much time into their sports.  Then put on the fact they are supposed to carry a regular class load and it is hard to imagine.  Now you might say they get all kinds of help, and benefits and who knows what else goes on that we don’t know about.  But for a player to graduate early, with grades good enough to win the most prestigious academic award there is, just blows my mind.  Then on top of all that, he is not just a player, he has started 30 some straight games since his freshman year, a streak that was snapped against MD while he was interviewing for the scholarship.  He has decided to put his NFL career on hold so that he could go to Oxford and accept his scholarship.  I just feel this should be applauded, and hope that we hear many more stories about student athletes, and not just athletes. 

The final game of the day is, the Emerald Nuts Bowl, which features, the Miami Hurricanes and the Cal-Berkley Golden Bears at 8 PM.  We saw up close and personal the 8-4 Bears.  They can cry all they want about flying across the country to face us at noon eastern, but we punched them in the face early, and then hung on for dear life late to pull the upset.  Miami (7-5) is lead by a tough, fast, albeit young defense.  I think they can pressure Cal all game, and will be flying around making plays on the defensive side of the ball.  The offense will give them just enough to hang on for a close win.  Lets say something along the line of 17-13.  This game again is a virtual home game for the local team as Cal is playing in San Francisco, but I still think the Canes are athletic and physical enough to take care of business.  Randy Shannon will make sure his team is ready as they appear to really be building for bigger things down the road.

Well I know it was lengthy, but I hope these previews get you ready for a huge day of ACC bowl action.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 26th, 2008 at 10:13 pm and is filed under Maryland Terps Football. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.