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And that was their only loss in conference. Yet every Coastal team managed to lose at least 3. If the rule is set that there needs to be at least 2 conference wins more for the second place team in one division to play, you won't hear any complaints out of me. There needs to be a distinct set of rules, not something to be judged at a later date. You are assuming that there is some outside influence to set up the match, whereas I'm saying that there is a guideline, no different than the current setup, but that rewards a team that is far more successful than their opponents in the other division.

It's not coming back...

I think that Va Tech loss was great for Ohio State. Painful, but great. It humbled them and showed them how far they needed to go. They got coachable quick. The loss got them to hang together so that they didn't hang separately. It basically set them on a path to the NC. Thank you, but don't do it again!

I try to not exaggerate one way or the other. I am a fan, but there have been many seasons over the last 40 years where I have looked at Ohio State in the pre-season and said, "This team has serious issues here, there, here, and there, and they have depth/experience issues at these 3 position groups." Fellas, I'm just not seeing any of that with this 2015 version. Their 1s are ridiculous pretty much across the board, as is the depth behind them. The few questions they have revolve around TE depth, one DT, one DE, and one CB. They will be breaking in a new RT too, but the 4 guys to his left are all back. Of those questions, the DT is probably one most concerning because it isn't clear that the candidates can perform like Michael Bennett did last year, but they have a bunch of young uns to try if the older ones don't pan out. But as a whole, this is the most impressive looking and great-on-paper team I have seen at Ohio State. They also lost OC Herman, and will have a new game planner and play caller which raises some legit questions.

Ohio State's biggest weakness will not be personell, but things like dealing with complacency, the burden of #1, team unity given the 3 QB situation. etc. I think how they deal with that will determine their season.

But Va Tech, for sure, has their attention and respect - even if the media and some fans have failed to remember the score of last year's game. VT needs a real "decided schematic advantage" (not a fake Weiss one) like they had with Foster's Bear, they obviously need to play well and not turn the ball over, and it will help them a lot if Ohio State doesn't have it's act together on those non-personell issues. Most of what sounds like confidence is some mixture of hope and baseless conjecture from our fans and/or media. No one knows what is going to happen on Sep 7. I am willing to just enjoy watching it play out.

There has to be some rules governing when they can switch for a different team. For instance, if the 2nd place team in one division has 2 more CONFERENCE wins than the winner of the other division, then I am fine with having that team play against their 1st place in-division team. For instance, let's look at 2012. The ACC standings were as follows:

ATLANTIC CONF OVERALL
Florida State 7-1 12-2
Clemson 7-1 11-2
NC State 4-4 7-6
Wake Forest 3-5 5-7
Maryland 2-6 4-8
Boston College 1-7 2-10

COASTAL CONF OVERALL
North Carolina 5-3 8-4
Miami (FL) 5-3 7-5
Georgia Tech 5-3 7-7
Virginia Tech 4-4 7-6
Duke 3-5 6-7
Virginia 2-6 4-8

Both Miami and UNC were on post-season bans so GT went to the ACC Championship. I personally would have rather seen Clemson vs FSU part 2 because they were the two best teams. In that situation though, the 3rd place team in the division got in on a technicality. Regardless though, Clemson was far more deserving than any Coastal team that year. It should be a rarity that they break out of the current mold, not a common occurrence to boost TV ratings and draw exciting matchups.

Scraping the divisions would only work if it goes hand in hand with a complete teardown and rebuild of the current conference scheduling system. As for OOC games, you really couldn't count them for anything but playoff resume builder.

Having teams with the top 2 records simply does not work year to year because of the disparity in schedules that will happen inevitably.

As for the example above of Clemson and FSU lets say. Well Clemson had its chance to win the division by playing FSU, and lost. Now with a revamped schedule it is perhaps likely that FSU and Clemson would only see each other every few years. Is that really preferable? Or maybe we only get Miami once every 3 years, etc?

Makes sense actually, our division has been crap the last few years with Clemson and FSU clearly top of the ACC. That may not happen again this year but you can't tell me a 6-6 or 7-5 teams deserves to play for the conference?

As Buzz would say, the VT punting game needs to "get better". I'm hoping a healthy AJ Hughes will help with that.

Another thing that will help tremendously is if he has fewer punts from very close to his own end zone.

Hughes clearly wasn't punting up to his ability last year but punting stats can be very misleading.

I wonder how many times VT punted from inside the other 40 compared to other teams last year leading to a number of short kicks? My guess is, given that the VT offense could sustain many drives, that number is fairly high?

And how many times did VT punt from inside it's own 5 or 6 yard line thus forcing quick and often shorter punts? Again, my guess is more than most teams.

Business 17 in Murrells Inlet.

What players are we sending to the ACC kickoff? Anyone know or was it announced yet?

His trapezii are insane. Makes me think Gentry has been blowing him up on back lifts. That could mean some insane acrobatic catches.

That's pretty amusing...coming from someone concluding something from very little...especially given that my point is to not conclude anything from very little (go back and read what I said rather than what you think I said).