ACC football fans should thank their lucky stars for Calvin Johnson. CJ provides a towering presence for a league where the hype is tall and the performance on the field is pretty short. Johnson is a 6'4, 220 pound receiver who runs a 4.35 40 yard dash. His coaches say he has a 45 inch vertical leap, although I am a bit skeptical about this, given that legendary hoops star David Thompson measured 44.
Be that as it may, Johnson is a surefire top five NFL draft pick who is just about impossible to cover-if and when his Georgia Tech team throws him the ball. Johnson's two touchdown catches in Thursday night's ACC game with Virginia added a large measure of star power to a game that featured two mediocre offenses.
This was a "throwback game" in every sense. Georgia Tech wore its old pre-1973 uniforms, conjuring up visions of Eddie McAshan-and further back-Maxie Baughan. The Yellowjackets even used a "throwback play" on their opening drive, with quarterback Reggie Ball catching a pass for a first down. Virginia wore navy blue pants, perhaps trying to restore the image of the George Welsh years. But uniforms aside, current coach Al Groh now surveys a team that looks more like the Cavaliers of Sonny Randle and Dick Bestwick than anything that has run the sidelines in Charlottesville for the past quarter century.
Virginia and Georgia Tech in 1990 played perhaps the greatest game in the history of ACC football. Florida State was not then in the league, but the 'Noles of 1990 would not have pre-empted either of these teams. Tech, which won a 41-38 thriller, went on to claim a share of the national championship. Virginia owned the No. 1 ranking much of the year, and played Tennessee in the Sugar Bowl.
If there was a future bowl team playing at Grant Field Thursday night it was carefully disguised, unless the post-season invitation could somehow be limited to the Georgia Tech defense. This is a unit that nearly shut down Notre Dame and definitely put the clamps on Virginia. But on the other side of the ball, the Georgia Tech running game dearly misses P.J. Daniels. And the Georgia Tech passing game makes noise only when fourth year starter Reggie Ball sees and connects with the afore-mentioned Mr. Johnson.
Virginia and Tech are certainly not the only ACC teams to fail to connect with the nation's football critics. Former NC State coach Lou Holtz says the Big East is better top to bottom than the ACC adding, "I never thought I'd say that." College football analyst Jim Donnan, who grew up in North Carolina, says of Miami's Atlantic Coast Conference slate -- "Miami has a three game schedule" in Georgia Tech, Boston College, and Virginia Tech. Obviously, the Canes have four other ACC opponents, including North Carolina. ESPN commentators Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit spent much of the second half Thursday night discussing Saturday's key national match-ups-not the kind of visibility the schools and the conference envisioned when they signed on to making this a nationally televised Thursday night game.
The ACC and its member schools cannot point fingers over the way the first quarter of the 2006 season has gone down. Most of the league's twelve teams have, to this point, under-achieved. On the bright side, there is Calvin Johnson.
