Blogpoll Roundtable 2, or when a Yankee comes in and runs the ACC

College Game Balls serves double duty this week, hosting both this past week's ACC Roundtable and the big boys roundtable. His questions are below followed by our answers.


1. Which freshman impressed you more last weekend: the California dream Matt Barkley who quarterbacked USC over tOSU or white lightening Tate Forcier who slashed through Notre Dame? Which one would you like to have on your team? Feel free to write in another worthy candidate.

I'm going to go with Tate Forcier here. While Barkley did have an impressive fourth quarter drive to win the game in the 'Shoe, Tate Forcier had a better day overall (23 of 33, 240 yards, 2 TD, 1 INT). Forcier is also the more mobile QB as he rushed for 70 yards Saturday in the win vs. Notre Dame. Forcier doesn't seem to have nearly as many weapons as Barkley does - cough, cough Joe McKnight - so the edge goes to Forcier again here. Finally, Barkley had nearly half of the fourth quarter to engineer his game-winning drive. A drive he threw the ball all of 4 times. All Forcier had to do was set up a game-tying field goal but decided to go for the jugular and the touchdown. One game a career does not make, and it is still way too soon to tell whether either of these freshmen are for real. But at this point I'll take Forcier over Barkley for the Eagles.


2. Let’s play a game of pretend the unthinkable happened. Commissioner __________ of your conference has been forced to resign after he was caught canoodling with some harlots. Great news, you’ve been chosen to succeed him. To make your mark you decide to make a big change. What is it going to be?

Swofford. Tsk, tsk.

This is an easy one. First, we are realigning the ACC's divisions so that they make, you know, sense to the rest of college football. The ACC remains the only college football conference that has divisions that don't break down along geographic lines (and as a result, make absolutely no sense to outsiders). Effective immediately, the ACC will be realigned into North and South divisions. The ACC North will be the old ACC Atlantic, sending Florida State and Clemson packing and replacing them with Virginia and Virginia Tech. Yes, I realize that this precludes a Florida State vs. Miami (Fla.) ACC Championship Game, but how many times has that mythical game happened, Hurricane fans? Exactly. Deal with it.

Second, we are doing away with these manufactured inter-conference rivalry games. We will be adopting the Big XII schedule format where teams play 3 teams from the other division on a home-and-home format, then play the other 3 schools over the next 2 year period. When the division crown is an 8 game race, is it really fair that Clemson-Georgia Tech and BC-Virginia Tech play annually while the Deacons get an easy win again Duke?

Third, the ACC Championship Game is moving to Charlotte. Permanently. This championship game played in Florida experiment was cute and all, but enough is enough. But what about Charlotte weather in December? you might say. The Big XII hosts championship games in cold-weather cities. They haven't seemed to have many issues there. And Charlotte is a major East coast hub and central to a majority of ACC programs.

Finally, we will threaten to pull out of the ACC-ESPN TV deal for basketball (No Duke-Carolina for you!) to negotiate a television deal where every ACC football game is available on television. No more of this ESPN360.com junk. Football is meant to be watched on a high-def TV, not my 19" Thinkpad laptop screen.


3. This week the quality of games is kicked up a gear. Other than your own, which game are you most looking forward to?

We are really looking forward to Georgia Tech at Miami (Fla.) tonight. The winner will have the inside track at the Coastal Division crown. In fact, over the next three or four weeks, it seems like the Coastal Division champ will emerge with Georgia Tech, Miami (Fla.), Virginia Tech and North Carolina all squaring off in early season action. Also looking forward to Nebraska at Virginia Tech this week as Tech looks to avoid starting the season 1-2 and defending what small shreds of credibility this conference has left in football.

Of course, we aren't looking forward to these games half as much as this Saturday's BC vs. Clemson game.


4. What mascot and/or tradition would you thieve from another school if it was socially acceptable.

Since I have chosen to matriculate at two schools with arguably the most generic school mascots of all time - Eagles and Wildcats - we need to spice things up a little bit around here. So we'll take on the mascot of the now-defunct Bradford College of nearby Haverhill, MA. The BC Fighting Squirrels, anyone?


He's even got a black eye. That's because he's one badass squirrel.

Since this rebranding attempt will never work, for the tradition, we're selecting the Auburn War Eagle. Having seen this thing fly around Jordan-Hare Stadium before the game, it is quite the spectacle. When the war eagle crashes down into the middle of the field, the home Auburn crowd gets totally amped. This is the perfect addition to BC Eagles football. For one thing, it will actually get butts in seats before kickoff as fans will want to get there to watch the eagle flying high above Alumni Stadium. Second, unlike Auburn ... our school mascot is actually an eagle. This makes a whole lot more sense as a tradition on the Heights than it does on the Plains. Just sayin'.