College Football Week Three: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of the ACC

North Carolina 44, Rutgers 12

Maryland 35, California 27

Duke 41, Navy 31

Clemson 27, NC State 9

Virginia Tech 20, Georgia Tech 17

Florida State 49, Chattanooga 7

Virginia 10, UConn 45

This week was a solid one for the ACC as its teams went 4-1 in non-conference games and featured a Coastal Division showdown with the Hokies taking on the Yellow Jackets in Blacksburg.

The California Golden Bears were shocked by the Terps in the best ACC surprise of the weekend. Maryland caught the West Coast Bears sleeping early, and when Jeff Tedford's squad woke up in the fourth quarter it was too late for them to salvage the victory.

North Carolina showed America that the preseason hype wasn't completely unwarranted as they blasted Rutgers, and even Duke got into the action by beating a solid Navy squad.

With that said, let's get into The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of the ACC's third week of football action.

The Good

Maryland Rush Defense

The Terps' defense against the run was spectacular, holding Jahvid Best and the Bears to a measly 38 yards for the game. Best entered the contest with over 300 rushing yards on the season but was held to only 25 by a defense that looked passive in the weeks leading up to the game. David Philistin led the way with 13 tackles, including one for loss, as the Terps stacked the line and shut down the Bears rushing attack.

Florida State Quarterbacks

Devontrey Richardson and Christian Ponder were a combined 22-for-36 for 297 yards and four touchdowns Saturday against Chattanooga. Yes, the Mocs are an FCS team, but for the 'Noles this is a sign that the two-quarterback system of D-Vo and Ponder is slowly maturing and readying itself for the ACC schedule quickly approaching.

It is clear that the Seminoles have started their crawl way back to national prominence, entering the Coaches Poll at No. 25 this week.

UNC Defensive Back Seven

The unit is young but the linebackers are starting to understand their fits, and the secondary is benefiting from the experience from a season ago. Nabbing four interceptions from Rutgers' quarterback Mike Teel the unit is beginning to gel nicely in their zone drops and making good reads on the football. If they can play as physical with the Tech's and Miami the team will definitely be competing for the Coastal Division title come November.

The Bad

NC State Offense

The Wolfpack produced only 288 yards against the Clemson Tigers' less than suffocating defense. While the team moved the ball well at times between the 20s, it continued its 13-quarter offensive touchdown drought. Yes, it has been over three games since the Pack offense has put the ball in the end zone against an FBS team. Next week against ECU, the countdown continues.

Virginia Rushing Attack

Mikell Simpson and Cedric Peerman were expected to be All-ACC contenders entering the 2008 season, a tandem second only to CJ Spiller and James Davis of Clemson. The two were supposed to take the heat off Peter Lalich and give opponents fits with their smash-and-dash running styles.

The duo rumbled for 24 total yards at Connecticut, bringing their combined season total to 200 yards. Without some increased production from these backfield mates Virginia's woes will continue.

The Ugly

Virginia Tech Passing Attack

The un-redshirting of Tyrod Taylor was designed to jump-start the Hokies' offensive attack. In a way, it worked, as VPI has two wins with Taylor at the helm and their rushing production has increased substantially. But, Taylor's 48 yards passing are one of the worst showings for a quarterback in the modern era. He threw for 61 fewer yards than the triple-option conservative attack of the Ramblin' Wreck.

Sure, he completed around 64 percent of his passes, but, to put it in perspective, Taylor was 9-of-14 for 48 yards while Georgia Tech had one pass for 41 yards during the game. In other words, if all of Taylor's completions were lined up from the 1, they wouldn't even reach midfield.

Virginia Rushing Defense

The Wahoos offense looked bad, their rushing defense was abhorrent. Donald Brown is nobody's All-American, but the Hoos defense sure did their best to make him look like a world-beater in allowing him to rush 20 times for 206 yards through three quarters. The Cavaliers surrendered 382 total rushing yards or 163 more rushing yards than their offense gained total.

Clint Sintim, Jon Copper and Antonio Appleby, the senior linebackers and core of this defensive football team, have got to find a way to turn this once proud defense around.

All in all, this week was strong for the ACC and next week the conference schedule features only two games as the Tar Heels play host to Virginia Tech and Wake Forest heads down to Tallahassee. The ACC also has nonconference games against the SEC (GT vs MSU), Big XII (UM vs TAMU) and Conference USA (BC vs UCF, NCSU vs #15 ECU)