Good to see Someone (else) Upholding the ACC

News just broke of another Duke player dismissed from the team for "failing to uphold the conduct expected of a Blue Devil student athlete." After all the crap with FSU this year and historically Miami and even UNC at times it's good to see that other teams actually do uphold the integrity of the ACC. As much as I dislike the guy TOB doesn't put up with much so NC State is pretty reliable and I have to feel the same way about Grobe. Coming from Navy I'd have to say Johnson is a pretty reliable disciplinarian as well and I haven't heard of any problems in Blacksburg. So that leaves FSU, Maryland, UNC and Miami, 1/3 of the conference. Aside from Maryland if you look at the teams that are always projected to do well in the ACC you'll see a correlation. Maybe Swofford should take notice or something because it seems to me that teams willing to turn a blind eye on character issues are getting an advantage.

Edit: The second half of the argument
After a little research I'm going to pull Maryland off my conduct watch list. The only thing I could find was Rich Costa who was suspended through the end of his senior season, skirting the issue. I know there were some issues with Da'rell Scott last year but I couldn't find anything, so without substantiation I'll move to the other schools.

First up is UNC, Butch Davis is a win at all costs type guy, a somewhat ruthless recruiter who doesn't take much into consideration other than ability. A substantial amount of last years recruiting class won't make it on campus this year because of arrests or academic problems.

Next we have Miami, and I must say that I think Randy Shannon has really shut down the culture of problems that was sprouting there. He did give Marve a bit of a leash but eventually cut ties. This is nothing compared to the issues of violence, arrests and general character issues (google Miami-FIU brawl) that plagued the team in the past. Randy Shannon has already thrown a number players off the team but he has come under fire for it and many of the players, have spoken out against him which suggests to me that Shannon may be the only one making a true effort to change the culture.

Then finally we have FSU. I'm not here to say that Bobby Bowden is not one of the greatest, if not the greatest coaches of all time (for some reason I like Bear Bryant for that nod) but the fact is that he is so out of touch that the teams lost control. Maybe it was the great success in the late 90s but the culture @ FSU is all about winning and not student athletes. I for one agree with the NCAA ruling, FSU should vacate the wins. Half of the starting lineup was nailed for cheating, every syllabus @ BC contains a paragraph stating that crap like that gets you expelled. Aside from that the team has been nailed with a number of arrests in the past few years. My impression was that the ACC was supposed to be a premier Academic-Athletic conference. Maybe some rules should be shifted so that Swofford can start policing the ACC like Roger Goodell polices the NFL (though in my opinion Goodell seems to have gotten a little powerhappy).

BC is not without it's share of problems. Most recently the Brady Smith situation came to light, ultimately the justice system found that Smith was not responsible for a felony. I can't find details but ultimately he was found guilty of a misdemeanor. Still he was kicked off the team as (at the time) Jagz became judge, jury and executioner of Smiths career. (if Smith had been here no one would be doubting our d-line this year). Next up was the Cherilus/Tribble bar fight. If you read the full story Cherilus and Tribble were only helping the owner, who also works as a Massachusetts State Trooper, throw out a drunk troublemaker. The guy ended up getting severely hurt in the process because he caused trouble on his way out. You go quietly, minimum force is used, you try to be a tough guy and a state trooper, a brawler of an o-lineman and a hard hitting defenseback have to use more force, and in this case the guy got hurt in the process. Sometimes AJ Brooks is involved in this story as well but Brooks was actually suspended for the ACC title game because he got in a fight ON Campus and kicked the crap out of a student (sometimes described as a visitor other times described as an RA, who knows). What a lot of people don't know is that Brooks was actually released in the end, all the stories call Brooks a Junior, but he was a RS Junior. BC effectively dismissed Brooks but it never became a story because they simply refused to grant him his fifth year of eligibility. Most recently Dominique Davis was suspended because he didn't meet the universities academic requirements and before that BJ Raji was given the same treatment, both players were important parts of that years team.

Ultimately the point is that the playing field should be level. If you want to play amateur football, play in the Arena League. If you want to play College ball, go to class and don't spend your weekends getting arrested.

I forgot about Week 12 on the Schedule
We play Maryland and it should stay that way. Its an Atlantic matchup and theres a recruiting overlap. Geographically these teams are closest in conference anyways and makes for a fairly easy and cheap road trip for either team. I like having the game late in the season as well because it generally has implications for the division title as well.