The Duke Blue Devils was my ACC surprise team of 2022. Guided by first year HC Mike Elko, Duke turned on a dime and added six additional wins over the prior year (2021 – 0-8 conf, 3-1 OOC, 2022 – 5-3 conf., 3-1 OOC and a bowl win).

Elko took over after the end of the 14-year stint of HC David Cutcliffe – the QB whisperer. Though Cutcliffe had a good run in his early years including a division championship, he was only 10-25 in his last three seasons. It was time to move on.

Mike Elko was the DC at Texas A&M  prior to taking the Duke job. He worked his way through the DC position starting with Bowling Green to Wake to Notre Dame and A&M.

Elko may not have been the first person I would have hired but he and his staff was just what Duke needed.

Continue reading “2022 WTE Production Loss – Duke” →

Tony Elliott became HC of the Virginia Cavaliers on December 10’th 2021. He replaced Bronco Mendenhall who very unexpectedly resigned.

From the Deseret News :

 “I would love to say there’s been this buildup and a long amount of epiphanies and thought, but clearly this week, there was a sense of clarity to me that I needed to step back from college football and reassess, renew, reframe and reinvent — with my wife as a partner — our future and the next chapter of our lives,” 

I am happy for Bronco. I did the “reassess, renew, reframe and reinvent” twice in my life (but without a wife). After deliberation, I moved to Texas to become a rancher. Later, after my first wife died I did it again. I decided to retire early if I got remarried. I did and I did.

But this is not about me, it is a review of the Cavs 2022 season.

It was a bad year for Virginia. Not only on the football field but for an incident resulting in the death of two players and the wounding of a third.

On to the review starting with the 2022 and 2023 schedule:

Continue reading “2022 WTE Production Lost – Virginia” →

In 2013, the ACC welcomed Pitt and Syracuse into the conference. 2013 was also the first year for Dave Doeren as head coach of the NC State Wolfpack.

In his first ten years, his overall record is 72 – 54. But his record is driven by a 31 – 6 OOC schedule. The Wolfpack has only played six P5 teams in that ten year span (2-4). Like most stats, there are caveats. One year a game against West Virginia was cancelled due to a hurricane. In the Covid season, NC State did not play Notre Dame.

On to the review starting with the 2022 and 2023 schedule.

Continue reading “2022 WTE Production Lost – NC State” →

Miami enters the second season under the control of one of the legendary players of Miami’s golden years. No, not Al Golden, he had his chance. I am speaking of Mario Cristobal. Mario was to bring the Hurricanes back to prominence in his first season. He and his team failed miserably.

I may be mistaken but I thought a new HC usually replaces most if not all of the assistant coaches from the previous regime. If he kept Manny Diaz’s staff, I could see why the Canes went 5-7 in 2022. But he hired all new personnel. Well, he corrected his first Miami coaching staff by hiring two new coordinators, and five new position coaches (RB, WR, TE, DL and LB). I guess three coaches met his standard but for a guy with previous head coaching experience a 30% hiring rate is pretty bad.

On to the review starting with the 2022 and 2023 schedule.

For a team that was picked to win the Coastal and was the AP #13 ranked team after two games, it turned out Miami was not back.

Miami outscored their first two opponents by a combined score of 100 – 20. Your homework for the day is to calculate the average Miami score for the last 10 games of the season.

Continue reading “2022 WTE Production Lost – Miami” →