ACC Roundup

The final week of the ACC season is upon us and Saturday offers the big game, Duke vs. UNC (covered elsewhere on this site), Virginia Tech vs. Georgia Tech, Wake Forest at Miami and a most interesting rematch in Death Valley between Pitt and Clemson.

Sunday sees three critical games: Virginia at Maryland in Maryland's final regular season ACC game, Syracuse at Florida State and BC at NC State.

Maryland would obviously like to win the final ACC game, while Virginia would love to go 17-1 in the conference. Syracuse is slipping but Florida State still has aspirations to get off the bubble. And so does State. One win won't do it, but BC and a couple of tournament games might.

But back to Saturday. The most interesting game outside of Cameron is Pitt at Clemson.

When Clemson played up there, Pitt was still rolling and just hammered the Tigers, 76-43.

At that point, Pitt was 17-2. Since then, the Panthers are 5-6.

Clemson's record isn't much better since - the Tigers are 6-5 - but if there's a sense that Pitt is in slow-motion collapse, there's a sense that Clemson is improving.

Since the traditional whipping at UNC, Clemson has been a tough out. Syracuse won a tight game, Notre Dame took the Tigers in double overtime, Virginia won by just five, as did Wake.

In Clemson's second double overtime game, the Tigers took down Maryland.

It's a huge game for both teams. Clemson hopes to be on the bubble and Pitt hopes to stay off of it.

Our money's on the Tigers here. The teams are fairly similar, but the momentum is towards Clemson.

State has really come on late in the season, though it may be too late to make an NCAA argument. TJ Warren has been absolutely sensational down the stretch and the rest of the team has found roles.

State really should beat BC, but you never know for sure.

As for the battle of the Techs, it's pretty much irrelevant at this point.