These Thursday night ACC Football previews are starting to have a Groundhog Day quality about them. (Insert team here) controls their own destiny unless they lose in which case the same scenerio repeats itself again, and again, and again. Shoot me now. This is why we need a college football tsar (of course he'd have to be Russian) to announce that the loser of Alabama-Florida or the Big 12 Championship Game will be deemed the ACC Champion this year. Wouldn't this be great? If your conference was so bad that by popular acclamation (or tsar dictatorship) Sergei Eisenstein could decree the winner of your conference? Anyway, Miami, winners of five straight ballgames, can get close to clinching the Coastal Division with a win at Georgia Tech.

Both teams are 7-3. Miami is 4-2, Georgia Tech is 4-3 in the ACC. If Miami wins out we know they'll be in Tampa at the ACC Championship Game. They might get there by splitting their past two games. Why? The other five teams in their division are coming off losses. But if Georgia Tech wins they become the first ACC team into the clubhouse with 5 wins in the division. Unfortunately for Georgia Tech they've already managed to lose to three of the five teams in their division. Meaning even if they get to five wins they're likely to lose the multi-team tiebreak on division record. Which makes things complicated once more.

So, of course, Georgia Tech is favored by 4 points and will find a way to win. Look for a low-scoring and ugly game. And lots of future engineers getting rowdy in the crowd. Oh, and one dumpy, moderately attractive girl who is going to spend the rest of her life thinking she is smoking hot thanks to the fact that she went to Georgia Tech. Hopefully she won't be your co-worker. Loser.

Meanwhile Virginia Tech is coming off a win last Thursday night against Maryland. That win broke a string of two consecutive conference losses and kept them alive in the race. Win this game at Miami and Tech would only have to beat Duke and Virginia in Blacksburg to advance to the ACC Championship game. Meaning your ACC Coastal Champion will probably be 6-2. Lose, and it's likely that there will be a scrum of teams at 5-3. Most likely a four-way tie at 5-3 in the Coastal Division. (In fact if Virginia Tech beat Miami but found a way to lose to Virginia and a few other things played out, we could even end up with the unheard of five-way tie in the Coastal Division).

In other game news, Wyoming is playing UNLV in the Mountain West, Buffalo hosts Akron, and some NFL team called the Patriots that no one ever heard of is playing another NFL team that no one ever hears anything about. Some quarterback named Favre? I think he's Dutch.

Ten other things that stuck out this weekend:

1. Does anyone else feel like the Terrelle Pryor run with one minute left against Wisconsin was the first of many such plays that will leave opposing Big Ten fans ripping out the hair on their "bad-ass" goatees? Pryor scored at half speed. The most dangerous thing about Pryor right now? He never seems to be in a hurry. The game is already slow enough for him that he can control the pace. Witness Wisconsin’s rushing defenders who have to move slower because they’re worried about rushing past him and giving up a big play. Yep, he's a true freshman and he’s already dictating the speed of the game.

It’s uncanny. There are 80,000 opposing fans screaming at him, his team has to have a touchdown on a final drive, and he trots into the end zone on a quarterback keeper without being touched. It’s Vince Young-ian—before Vince Young went crazy. Also, and this is key, VY was a redshirt freshman by the time he started playing significant minutes and he didn’t start outright until his redshirt sophomore season. Pryor’s already there and he’s a true freshman. It’s enough to make Ohio State fans want to burn incense in Maurice Clarrett’s honor because thanks to his getting shot down by challenging the NFL’s three-year draft rule, the Buckeyes are guaranteed three years with Pryor. Hell, maybe by the time he leaves they'll have done the impossible...beaten a single SEC team.

2. Alabama doesn’t walk on water. At least not when they play Kentucky. If Kentucky’s quarterback doesn’t drop the ball in the end zone, Alabama might lose at home to Kentucky for the first time in the history of the two football programs. Instead they managed to hang on for a 17-14 win. On the papyrus scrolls bearing images of his victories that must be lain down before He takes a single step, in the Book of Saban this win will be called, "The Immortal Conquest of the Bluegrass."

3. Penn State survived their first of four consecutive tests to determine whether Joe Pa can become the first senile BCS Champion with a workmanlike 20-6 win over Purdue. The offense wasn’t as impressive as they had been but the defense was even better. Can they win on the road at Wisconsin this weekend? Joe Pa thinks so. Of course Joe Pa thinks Wisconsin is actually in Florida, so that's a bit of a geographic challenge.

4.Tennessee beat a sub-par MAC team 13-9 en route to rolling up 225 yards of total offense. What’s the worst thing about this? On the drive back from the game, I found myself thinking, “We played pretty well.” And we beat a MAC team by 4 at home. Awesome.

5. Virginia beats Maryland 31-0 even though Maryland was favored by 14 points. That’s a 45 point swing vs. the spread. College football—making oddsmakers jump off buildings since 1895. If anyone knows of a website that lists the largest swings in outcome every year, I’d love to see it. For instance a few years ago Louisville went down to South Florida favored by 28 and lost by like 40. The difference between the spread and the result was over 60 points. This would be a superb and cautionary ad for the NCAA to put together to try and discourage people from gambling on their games.

6. FSU triumphed over Miami after almost blowing a 24 point lead and Illinois came into the Big House, went down 14-3 and then outscored Michigan 42-6 in the final three quarters. Long live the Zooker. Death to the Zooker. In somewhat related news, Chris Weinke just had sex with his 4,000,032nd Florida State undergrad.

7. USC bounced back to crush Oregon. In the process of destroying Oregon in the fourth quarter, USC ensured that they are the only Pac-10 team ranked in the top 25. Lending further credence to my suggestion that the Mountain West Conference take out newspaper ads proclaiming their eventual conference champion the Pac-10 champ as well.

8. The Big 12 demonstrated there’s a severe gap between their top 4 and everyone else. Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Missouri and Texas went on the road for conference games and won by 30, 32, 35, and 24 respectively. And these aren’t deceptive margins. None of these games was ever close.

9. Chase Daniel is going to win the Heisman unless he gets injured. Go ahead and write this in stone. It’s the gospel truth. Daniel looks like he’s playing a video game. And, be honest, if he showed up to play in a weekly football game with your buddies, no one would pick him for at least the first ten picks. Then, you’d probably put him on the line and tell him to run five-yard outs while your accountant friend got to play quarterback. Eventually you’d give him one snap at quarterback and he’d throw a 70 yard touchdown pass without even taking a step. Then, at halftime he’d disappear for ten minutes and when he came back your accountant’s girlfriend would be pregnant.

10. Vanderbilt beat Auburn for the first time since 1955 on Saturday. Auburn played their usual, choke you out football, going up 13-0 and then refusing to adopt such modern offensive plays as the “forward pass” and the “toss sweep.” Instead, they were content to wait for Vanderbilt to self-destruct and give them the win. And it almost worked.

Play of the game? Vanderbilt back-up quarterback Mackenzi Adams is on a second down quarterback sneak and has just broken into the open field. If he keeps going and gets the first down all Vanderbilt will have to do is take a knee. Instead, and inexplicably, he drops the football. It bounces behind him and lays tantalizingly on the field. Then, he runs back and covers it. In the past five decades, that ball would have been scooped up and returned for a touchdown. But not this year and not on Saturday. As the second best College Gameday sign said, “The Geeks shall inherit the turf.” Although, to be fair, the best sign of the day (in an otherwise weak class) was, “My butler went to Auburn.” Succinct, arrogant, devastating and self-mocking (I’m sure the student’s butler really went to Miss. State). Well played Vandy, well played.

1. ESPN's love affair with Tim Tebow is well established. Hell, America's love affair with Tim Tebow is well established. But, even still, did Gameday really need to bring us multiple segments featuring a shirtless Tim Tebow working out? I didn't think the day would ever come where I'd want more footage of Tebow performing circumcisions but, yeah, it did. It's time Vegas starts offering odds on what Tim Tebow's dark side actually is. I'm convinced it's something seismic. Like ESPN is going to do a story from Tebow's apartment where a shirtless Tebow will be reclining on his couch when suddenly 28 little naked Filipino boys keep walking into the room. Speaking of which, how overwhelming was the sexual tension when Erin Andrews interviewed Tebow after the game. Like televised viagra. Is ESPN going to have to pull Andrews off Gator games soon?

2. When did Houston Nutt get fat? The guy has put on about 20 pounds since he joined Ole Miss. Is this because he's not sending as many text messages to hot reporters now? Or does expecting to get fired burn many more calories than having job security? Also, starting quarterback Jevan Snead is white? I'm going to have to really reconsider how many third down conversions he's picking up when the pocket crumbles.

3. Riley Skinner and Sam Swank are Wake Forest football stars. They also have the greatest gay porn names this side of Vince Young. What's the over/under on number of inappropriate posters that are getting confiscated at rival ACC stadiums connected to Skinner's naked photos? Better question, name a BCS team that you would eliminate from contention to win the ACC this year. There isn't one. Vanderbilt would have a chance to win the ACC this year. Seriously, they would.

4. The Bill Stewart honeymoon is over; The Skip Holtz derby is going to be fascinating. Couple of questions about this game. First, what percentage of people turned on West Virginia at ECU and said, "Why is West Virginia playing at ECU?" Any college football fan with a pulse is the answer. This still makes no sense to me. Second, how many more awkward Lou Holtz and Skip Holtz interviews are we going to be subjected to? This thing made The Hills look inspired and fresh. Finally, in the wake of the latest double-digit underdog loss, I'm picturing bodies stacked like cordwood in the ditches surrounding Morgantown/Deadwood. All day Monday there are funeral processions marching up the hills which will end in a wooden cross being stabbed into the bare dirt. Then no one will ever question what happened to the dead. Which reminds me, who made the decision to cut Deadwood yet greenlit an HBO show about southern vampires? Meanwhile, right now, some poor fan base is going to pay Skip Holtz millions of dollars a year to take over their football program after this season. Tough luck.

(This man above will break your spirits. Eventually. But at least his nipples will be as sharp as razors.)

5. Jake Locker has to be the most frustrating quarterback in the country to coach. You have zero clue what he's going to do from one play to the next. His performance on the final drive of the game crystallized this fact. On three consecutive downs he missed wide open receivers. Leading a Utah native I was watching the game with to say, "See, this is when starting white cornerbacks starts to catch up with BYU." Then on 4th and 10 he drops back to pass and rushes for ten yards for the first down. Then, you've all seen it, he scores with 2 seconds left and promptly gets flagged for tossing the ball over his head. What I love about this is how everyone immediately rushes to the rule book to confirm that by rule this is excessive celebration. No shit.

But referees aren't hired to merely enforce the rules without any self-awareness. If they were every college football coach in America would be kicked out of the game for entering the field and arguing a call. What we ask referees to do is show discretion in applying the rules. Consider the situation, consider the intent, and consider the implications of your call. And the ref showed none in this case. Making a call like this isn't unheard of. The same thing happened to Vanderbilt against Florida in the 2005 season. Vandy scored to tie the game and their receiver did a shimmy of sorts. He was immediately flagged and Vandy had to make the ensuing extra point from a great distance. Vandy's coach said they would have gone for 2 and the win rather than play for overtime.

Finally, on Locker, whoever was calling the game for Fox Sports said that Locker would be the best running back in the Pac-10 if he played running back instead of quarterback. This is an insanely stupid comment, right? I'm not an expert on Pac 10 football but this can't possibly be the case.

6. Ohio State survived against mighty Ohio. Yeah, yeah. Is there any college football fan in the country who doesn't root for Ohio State that doesn't want USC to beat them 50-3? That was a couple of double negatives there and might have gotten confusing. Rephrased, unless you're a Buckeye fan the entire country wants to see you utterly destroyed come this weekend. Also, after the game we're traveling to the state and stealing all of your attractive women. All 14 of them.

7. What's up with Jimmy Clausen's hair? He looks like a lame French bus boy from 1963. "Quelle horreur, le JFK!" Was this a penalty for losing the Beer Olympics? Or is he just trying to enjoy having hair before the Clausen genes click in an he follows in the footsteps of Rick and Casey and loses his blond hair? I'm going with the latter. Nice win for the Irish hanging with the plucky San Diego State team that lost to a Div. II school last week. Great moxie. Put them in the top 25.

8. Can we get a referendum on no one else being allowed to be referred to as Tim Tebow-esque? Dave Rowe (who has moved from JP/LF/Raycom to Fox Sports; did he see the ax coming?) constantly referred to Central Michigan quarterback Dan LeFevour as Tim Tebow-esque. Same thing with Jake Locker. As much as I hate the Gators, find another comparison. LeFevour is Jonathan Crompton-esque at best.

9. Did you see Randy Shannon's reaction when Urban Meyer kicked the field goal to cover the spread—this made the score 26-3 and covered the 22 point spread— late on Saturday night? Shannon was cursing Meyer to the high heavens. Which led to the shortest post-game handshake between the two men this side of Bill Belichick. Also, Gators fans, back me up on this, leaving Tebow in until the end of the game was incredibly stupid, right? Why is Meyer doing this? What's more, why is he dropping Tebow back to pass with a unassailable lead and less than five minutes to play? Especially when Tebow had been decked a ton of times in this game. Miami's defensive line absolutely dominated Florida's offensive line for about 50 minutes of the game. Steve Spurrier used to catch an awful lot of crap for running up the score but Meyer does it more than any coach I've seen of late. Of course this might be because Steve Spurrier's teams can't score anymore, but, still, there were lots of Gator fans pissed that Tebow was still in the game, right?

10. I just finished Wille Morris's book, The Courting of Marcus Dupree. It's an amazing book that tells the story of Marcus Dupree, the top recruit of the 1982 football class who happens to be from Philadelphia, Mississippi—the town made infamous by the murder of the three Civil Rights workers in 1964. The book is over 25 years old but is one of the best sports books I've ever read. Insightful, compelling, and if you're like me and had never heard of Marcus Dupree before, incredibly compelling. Fairly often people email me wanting tips on sports books to read. Read this book. I sort of feel like LeVar Burton now.

11. And, lest we end with the literary, Central Florida fans threatened to kill Matt Grothe's father after they got ahold of his cell phone number. Meaning Grothe's father was under police protection for the entire game between South Florida and Central Florida. Ahh, college, such sweet and harmless prankery.

The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told ESPN's Chris Mortensen on Saturday that there was no signing bonus, but Williams' salary in 2009 could increase significantly over this year's base of $730,000.

The Miami tailback can increase his 2008 compensation with easily achievable incentives, the source said. Williams, 31, was scheduled to be a free agent in '09.

Dolphins general manager Jeff Ireland said Sunday that the team wanted to keep the 31-year-old running back so "he didn't become a free agent" after this season.

Williams hasn't played a complete NFL season since 2003, but has somehow won over Bill Parcells, the new czar of Dolphins football operations, so much that incumbent starter Ronnie Brown has been rumored to be shipped out of town. One could argue that Parcells has needed to mellow out for quite some time. Who in the league, then, would be better suited for the job?

Miami signs Williams to 1-year contract extension [ESPN]

That striking matches sound you just heard was every Dolphins fan trying to burn their Dan Marino jerseys in tandem. I know it's been bad for the Dolphins, but, Quincy Carter bad? You'll recall that Carter played for Parcells at Dallas in 2004. Before heading to the Jets for three games and then failing in both the CFL and the Arena Football League 2 (yeah, the junior division). Supposedly Quincy will be trying out on Friday.

Carter's defense of himself is stellar:

“I see Ricky Williams playing again,” Carter told the Palm Beach Post before he checked into a South Florida rehab facility in December. “I only failed one test. Ricky failed about five or six.”

Yes, exactly, just what Dolphins fans want, someone who compares himself to Ricky Williams and has never issued a correct audible in his entire football career. John Beck and Chad Henne must be looking awesome in camp. Where oh where have you gone Jay Fiedler?

Dolphins QB race reaches nadir: Quincy Carter coming in for a tryout?

Sons of Nev (URL link button not working):

http://sonsofnev.wordpress.com/2008/03/10/and-judging-by-the-attendance-you-havent/

No site captures this feel more than the great Free Darko, which we read like a doctor's chart every day during the NBA season. They understand the dichotomy between individual achievement and collective glory, and how those are not mutually exclusive. And they've got a way with letters too.

Therefore, we've asked them to look at the arcs of certain players going into this season, what 2006-07 means to them, their teams and their legacies. They'll be previewing a player a day, up to tipoff next Tuesday.

Today: Dwyane Wade. Your author is Dr. Lawyer IndianChief. His words are after the jump.

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In the 2005-06 season, Dwyane Wade crashed needlessly into TV cameras, skidded across hardwood floors and carried a collection of misfits, headcases and self-aggrandizers on his back on the way to winning the NBA championship. As Heat teammate Shaquille O'Neal showed true signs of aging, Wade played the role of the anti-Kobe, balancing late-game takeover skills with enough "aw shucks" shoulder shrugs and million-dollar smiles to grace the pages of magazines ranging from Esquire to GQ to People. Wade, as much as his 2003 draft counterpart, LeBron James, became the face of the New NBA last year, and in some ways even surpassed 'Bron-Bron in terms of giving Commissioner Stern a hard-on for purity: Wade (with high school sweetheart, Siohvaughn Funches) named his son Zaire Blessing, campaigned for Penguin Classics by pimping out Pride and Prejudice and was touted as proof of what the new NBA age limit could do for the league. Short of pulling out front row tickets to the latest Okayplayer concert, Wade played the perfect college graduate.

The problem with Dwyane Wade, as has been documented ad nauseam by the Freedarko brass, is that his excellence is boring. Furthermore, the dullness of 50-Most's game is a specialized case, as this boring-ness does not actually stem from a mundane repertoire of moves or a generally unintense on-court demeanor, but rather from a surplus of greatness, and to a certain degree, style. Wade's crossover dribbles and Spiderman dunks (of which we have seen a decent variety) have simply become tiresome, and he is in need of a personal Renaissance. Whereas Jordan reinvented himself with perfect tempo, chameleoning seamlessly from dunker to scorer to defensive stopper to world champion team leader to clutch-shot-maker, Wade is at an unfortunate point in his career, in which he has done too much all at once, and hasn't had a chance yet to traverse through such varying roles. Furthermore, we don't really know what he can do without Shaq garnering so much attention on the court. In Wade's Shaq-less rookie year, I would argue that he was an entirely different player altogether, and a more compelling one as well.

The intrigue surrounding Wade during his first year largely concerned the fact that so much ogling had been devoted to Lebron and Carmelo, despite Wade putting on equally promising display of talent and advancing further into the playoffs than either 'Bron or 'Melo. Until the playoffs, even Bosh and Darko had more buzz surrounding them. Something about the Wade-Butler-Odom combo taking form in South Beach was so refreshing — a bizarro "Big 3," with each player playing slightly out of position, and possessing the capability of pulling off any move, from a huge rejection to a three-pointer, at any point in the game. Whatever luster existed surrounding this promising trio of stylistic geniuses, Wade seemed to lose with the arrival of Shaq, and then Riley. Wade went from enigmatic, to simply expected to win it all. And when he did indeed win it all last year, none were too shocked. The largest question surrounding Wade, then, is: Can he intrigue us again? Can he surprise us and show us there is more to his player persona than "he who was groomed to win the championship?"

In order to fulfill this plea, Wade must exhibit a hunger like never before and win the whole damn thing all over again. Shaq and Riles, despite their lip service about repeating, have now solidified their legends by proving they can win "wherever they go." White Chocolate and 'Toine are now off-the-hook as career egotistical fuck-ups, and Glove and Zo are now redeemed, shedding the label of guys who were always great but never won the "big one." This general sense of complacency across the board is what will make Wade's job so difficult and will serve as the true test of his hunger. That is, the question that should be asked: Can Wade overcome his own teammates to inspire them to defend their title? We haven't seen a repeat champion since 2002, and no one seems overly inclined to pick the Heat to win again. Wade's task is monumental, but if he succeeds, he can recapture that element of surprise that made him such a delight to watch three years ago.

Aside from 50-Most's will to win, the greater worry concerns his physical sturdiness. \No player has played more games over the past three years than Dwyane Wade. From a second-round playoffs exit in 2004, to the ill-fated Athens Olympics, to a Eastern Conference Finals strained rib muscle in 2005, to going all the way in 2006, to voluntarily participating in the ESPN's nationalistic propaganda-laden reality series, Team U.S. "K," Wade has to be exhausted. The guy has constantly seemed to battle various bumps and bruises in his first three seasons, and if he keeps doing the fall-to-the-floor routine, he is destined for severe durability problems. Given that so much of his game relies on sheer athleticism, it will be interesting to see if fatigue affects D-Wade at all, in his quest for another title. If Wade succeeds, then you can call me a believer; and if not, I hope he at least cultivates some new flashes of brilliance, to convey the same spontaneity he showed as the J.O.-posterizing, undersized off-guard out of low-profile-Marquette we saw three years ago.