College Football’s Week Three:
DG’s “Pick 6” Includes Eli Drinkwitz,
App-ECU, BC, FSU, NCSU, UVa, Wake
By David Glenn
North Carolina Sports Network
Each week during college football season, we offer a “Pick Six” package of intriguing matchups — three “local” games that include one or more North Carolina-based team and three “national” contests that involve the Atlantic Coast Conference and/or the most prominent intersectional games.
Week Three: Top “National” Games
Game One
#24 Boston College (2-0) at #6 Missouri (2-0), 12:45 pm, SEC Network
Latest Betting Line: Tigers a 16-point favorite
Boston College, under first-year head coach Bill O’Brien, has entered the national Top 25 rankings for the first time since 2018. The Eagles shocked Florida State 28-13 in Tallahassee in Week One, then absolutely drubbed their FCS opponent, Duquesne, by a 56-0 score in Week Two.
Missouri is in its fifth season under the direction of former NC State offensive coordinator and former Appalachian State head coach Eli Drinkwitz (pictured above), and the Tigers are ranked #6 nationally.
After three mediocre seasons to start his tenure in the SEC, Drinkwitz led Missouri to an 11-2 record, a Cotton Bowl victory and a #8 final ranking in the national polls last season, and there are sky-high expectations for the Tigers again this season.
The quarterback matchup in this one is compelling. Brady Cook is a very accurate passer for Missouri, and BC’s Thomas Castellanos is one of the best dual-threat signal-callers in the ACC. He’s a little guy, but he can really run, and he looks much-improved as a passer so far this year.
Also on the Eagles’ offense, running back Treshaun Ward, formerly of Florida State and Kansas State, appears to be making the most of perhaps his biggest opportunity, as a sixth-year college player.
Remember, in BC’s convincing win at FSU, the Eagles ran the ball 52 times for 263 yards. They average 300-plus pounds across their starting offensive line, which comprises mostly fourth- and fifth-year players.
If the Eagles are going to have a chance to spring the upset at Missouri, they’ll probably have to eat the clock with their running game and ask Castellanos to work some of his dual-threat magic.
Game Two
Memphis (2-0) at Florida State (0-2), noon, ESPN
Latest Betting Line: Seminoles an 8-point favorite
Multiple factors have led to Florida State’s shocking 0-2 start, but it’s surprising how many fans and media have missed the Occam’s razor aspect of this national story.
Fun fact: There are 11 players from last year’s ACC champion Florida State roster who are on National Football League rosters right now. Eleven!
To help put that amazing number in perspective, consider that there are several ACC programs that have only a dozen or so current NFL players … from all of their past teams combined.
Eleven NFL rookies, from any single college team in any given year, is an insanely impressive number.
Such a powerful data point also should serve as a reminder that it’s extremely difficult to replace truly elite talents and highly productive players such as quarterback Jordan Travis, running back Trey Benson, wide receivers Keon Coleman and Johnny Wilson, defensive linemen Braden Fiske and Jared Verse, linebacker Tatum Bethune, and defensive backs Renardo Green and Jarrian Jones.
Unless you’re talking about the Bobby Bowden Era at FSU, or the Nick Saban Era at Alabama, or now perhaps the Kirby Smart Era at Georgia, there’s usually going to be a step back or an adjustment period when you send that many NFL-caliber talents to the next level in a single year.
Meanwhile, this Memphis matchup is interesting because the Tigers are expected to be among the best teams in the American Athletic Conference this year, and they have started the season 2-0 in convincing fashion. So it’s not exactly a cupcake visiting Tallahassee on Saturday afternoon.
Remember how nervous everyone (players included) got at Doak Campbell Stadium when the BC game got off to a rough start for the Seminoles? A quick start inevitably will be among Memphis’ main goals this week for the same reason.
Surprisingly, after FSU’s Mike Norvell said in the preseason that he might have the best offensive line of his entire coaching career, that group has not been very good so far this season, and the Seminoles’ much-hyped defensive front hasn’t been anything special so far, either.
That’ll be the first place to look for improvement this week; if the Seminoles don’t improve in the trenches, and quickly, everyone is going to start hearing a lot more about how FSU was a mediocre football program for a fairly recent five-year stretch (2017-21) before breaking through with top-10 teams these last two years.
Game Three
Maryland (1-1) at Virginia (2-0), 8 pm (ACCN)
Latest Betting Line: Terrapins a 2-point favorite
This is a fun matchup for many long-time ACC fans, for multiple reasons.
First, these two programs first went head-to-head in — wait for it — 1919(!), and they later played each other almost every year for about six straight decades, when they were fellow members of the ACC.
This is just the teams’ second meeting since the Terrapins left the ACC for the Big Ten after the 2013 season, with Maryland winning in College Park last year, 42-14.
Second, thanks in part to his team’s close win at Wake Forest last week, third-year Virginia coach Tony Elliott — the former Clemson wide receiver and former Clemson offensive coordinator under Dabo Swinney — has his first real shot at a breakthrough campaign.
Elliott went 3-7 in his first year at UVa, then 3-9 last year, and everyone in Charlottesville is simply asking to see clear-cut improvement this season.
With young quarterback Anthony Colandrea, a true sophomore, jump-starting the UVa offense, both with his creative play and his sky-high energy level, the Cavaliers are off to a 2-0 start, with at least a chance to get to 3-0 against a solid but unspectacular Maryland team picked to finish in the bottom half of the expanded, 18-team Big Ten.
