Thursday night's game in Blacksburg will probably prove to be one of the more interesting in a down week of collegiate football.  It proved to be an interesting study on the subjective merits of ranking teams, because certain squads pulling out thrillers versus total domination lead to grand fluctuations in the rankings.  We've discussed the idea of teams "should" be winning games and "would" have four losses, yet they somehow survive and move on.

Last Saturday night against Georgia Tech, Clemson looked like gangbusters, despite the fact the only thing they really did was wear down a Yellow Jacket defense with their running game.  Due to the pigskin intelligence inadequacies of Chan Gailey and Reggie Ball, the GT offense wasn't on the field for more than a couple of minutes at a time, so Tommy Bowden made the correct decision: I'll make sure Will Proctor must make no difficult throws and I'll just pound away with my two All-World running backs.

Excellent call on Saturday.  Thursday night, Frank Beamer wasn't going to make the same mistake.  The All-World tailbacks were a little bit nicked up, but even if they were at a hundred percent, the Hokies were going to load up the box and make Proctor beat them, on the road, at night.  We were unsure how good of a defense Clemson had, since Ball didn't actually test it, so despite having some impressive talent across the defensive line, if you run right at them, they seem to sputter a bit.  The Hokie running game was so good that Sean "I Probably Shouldn't Be Quarterbacking A BCS Conference Football Team" Glennon was well-protected and could just take some shots down deep.

Of course, what do all the people that bumped Clemson up dramatically after their win?  In a five day period, they went from "Is Clemson top five?!" to "Fifteen or twenty?".  The ACC Superconference looks even more laughable, but at least we got a hilarious diary entry out of the night's events.

Upset City?  With necessary link to the speech.

A lame slate of football today that makes me feel like somebody is going to jump up and pull the upset.  Hopefully it's not Navy over Notre Dame, but we'll know that by early on in the afternoon.  Georgia seems overally too incompetent to compete with Florida, Texas Tech doesn't have the beef upfront to roll with their big brothers from the east, Michigan and Ohio State might as well have bye weeks, Louisville and West Virginia do have bye weeks and Rutgers/UConn doesn't come until Sunday night.  I'd say Miami has a good chance of knocking off Georgia Tech and Oklahoma could beat Missouri, but those aren't jaw-dropping upsets by any measure.

Where to look?  Perhaps Fulmer vs. the Ball Coach under the lights.  The Gamecocks are a different, more versatile team with Syvelle Newton, and Rocky Top has played down to their competition for the majority of the season.  Erik Ainge seemed to get back on track rather nicely in the second half against the Crimson Tide, and if that carries over, we could have the Vols putting up another fifty points on ESPN Saturday Night.  However, I'll say it's close, but Ainge pulls it out in the end for a befuddled (word of the week!) Fulmer.