ESPN College Football

Our series taking a look at the most important game on the schedule this year for each ACC school continues today with Georgia Tech. For those of you just tuning in, this is a look at which games will reveal the most or have the biggest impact on the 2012 race.

Georgia Tech

Most important game: Sept. 3 at Virginia Tech

Why it’s important:This one is a no-brainer. Historically, this game has decided the Coastal Division winner, and it wouldn’t be a surprise if that tradition continued this year. We’ll be talking about this game all summer and the anticipation for it will be through the roof. We'll know in Week 1 which team will be leading the race. Virginia Tech will likely be favored to win the division again, but Georgia Tech should be a contender. The onus will be on the Yellow Jackets, who have to travel to Blacksburg for what will be a nationally-televised Labor Day game. It will be a hostile Hokies’ crowd, and Virginia Tech is expected to have one of the best defenses in the country. Yes, the Hokies will have had ample time to prepare for Paul Johnson’s spread option offense, but it works both ways. Georgia Tech will also have had the entire summer to get ready for Logan Thomas. On paper, the Hokies should have the edge, but history says Georgia Tech has everything to play for in this game.

More in this series

• Boston College
• Clemson
• Duke
• Florida State

Florida State. Big 12. SEC. Rumors. Sigh ...

• On second thought, maybe this is a good time to jump ship ...
• What kind of a ripple effect will the new SEC-Big 12 bowl have?
• The ACC could lose its spot at the playoff table.
• That means FSU, Virginia Tech, Clemson and Miami should start looking out for themselves.
• Is luring Notre Dame to the league the answer?
• In other news, Virginia Tech kicker Cody Journell could have his suspension lifted.
• Heart problems haven't deterred NC State tight end Asa Watson.
• Miami's quarterback situation just got even more interesting.
• Georgia Tech coach Paul Johnson doesn't see much merit in Twitter.

Who doesn't love lists or rankings?

And, to take that one step further, who doesn't love lists that include 124 people?

Steve Greenberg and Matt Hayes over at The Sporting News took the unenviable task of rankings every single FBS coach, Nos. 1-124. It should come as no surprise that Alabama's Nick Saban topped all coaches after winning two of the past three national titles.

Frank Beamer tops the ACC contingent, and is the only coach from the conference cracking the top-10, as Virginia Tech's leader is ranked ninth.

The average ranking of the 12 ACC coaches was 45.6, fourth-best among conferences.

Here's how they stacked up:

9. Frank Beamer, Virginia Tech
19. Paul Johnson, Georgia Tech
27. Dabo Swinney, Clemson
31. Jim Grobe, Wake Forest
34. Al Golden, Miami
38. Jimbo Fisher, FSU
45. Mike London, Virginia
49. Tom O'Brien, NC State
53. Larry Fedora, UNC
65. Randy Edsall, Maryland
67. David Cutcliffe, Duke
110. Frank Spaziani, BC

Josh. Hamilton.

• From yesterday: Our ACC spring wrap, along with team-by-team breakdowns.
• The Sporting News ranks the ACC's head coaches.
• Virginia Tech wide receiver Marcus Davis makes CBSSports.com's Bruce Feldman's list of the game's 10 craziest athletes. FSU LB Kelvin Benjamin just misses the cut.
• Paul Johnson was not happy with Georgia Tech's finish last season, Chris Gay writes in the Augusta Chronicle.
• The Virginian-Pilot's Andy Bitter has an interesting story here on defense attorney Jimmy Turk, who is the go-to guy for Hokie athletes facing trouble.

Move over, Gamecocks. There's a new repeat champion in town.

Georgia Tech coach Paul Johnson and former hoops star Jon Barry defended their Chick-fil-A Bowl Challenge title Tuesday with a one-stroke victory to take home the $125,000 scholarship prize in Greensboro, Ga.

The Yellow Jackets duo finished 10-under par, with Barry nailing a five-foot putt on the 18th hole to hold off Maryland (Randy Edsall/Stan Gelbaugh) and Florida State (Jimbo Fisher/Terrell Buckley) and win the crown for the second year in a row. South Carolina's Steve Spurrier and Sterling Sharpe had won back-to-back crowns in 2008 and 2009, and that duo tied for eighth Tuesday.

There's apparently no truth to the rumor that Johnson and Barry stood up last year and guaranteed a repeat title, a la Pat Riley in 1987.

"It was a first-class tournament," Johnson said. "It's fun to play out here and I’m very fortunate to have a partner that's as skilled as Jon. It got real competitive coming down the stretch. We knew on 16 that we had to get probably to 10-under because we knew the guys had strokes on us on the last hole."

Barry also won the celebrity long-drive contest, hitting a ball 308 yards for a $5,000 scholarship prize. Miami coach Al Golden won the coaches division contest with the exact same distance.

"I didn't want to have to hit a five footer to win this tournament, but coach hit a great chip in there," Barry said. "We knew we had to make par on the toughest hole in Georgia and we got it done. It was a lot of fun. I'll tell you, my mouth was dry and I was as nervous as I've ever been. Thankfully we got it done and had a great time."

Nine ACC pairings made up the 15-team field for the event, which had a scholarship purse of $520,000. An additional $243,000 was generated for charitable organizations. An ACC pairing has won the event four out of six times, with FSU claiming the top spot in 2010 and Virginia Tech's Frank Beamer and Dell Curry winning in 2007.

A complete final scoreboard can be found here.

Didn't know Cartman could sing so well.

• CBSSports.com's Tony Barnhart says Paul Johnson is carving out his own legacy in the shadow of legends at Georgia Tech.
• Al Golden says competition is on the way for Miami players without it, Susan Miller Degnan writes in the Miami Herald.
• UNC's Quinton Coples is considered an enigma by some, Andrew Carter writes in the Raleigh News & Observer.
• NC State and adidas have a new deal, J.P. Giglio writes in the Charlotte Observer.
• Clemson has few surprises on its post-spring depth chart, Travis Sawchik writes in the Charleston Post & Courier.

Sadly, spring football season is over, leaving us almost five months until we all get to see live football again. Unfortunately for Virginia Tech fans, it will feel like even longer than that after the way this weekend went in Blacksburg.

Here are the recaps of the last round of ACC spring games.

GEORGIA TECH
The Yellow Jackets' defense dominated the line of scrimmage Friday, recording sacks on three straight plays at one point in the White team's 31-7 win over the Gold. This, of course, was due in large part to four offensive linemen missing the contest because of injuries.

"Tonight was a little hard to tell because we wanted to stay fairly vanilla, and we couldn't do much with our injury situation on the offensive line," coach Paul Johnson said. "We were down to 10 guys. We had guys playing guard who have been playing guard two days."

Better than 18,000 showed up for Georgia Tech's first Friday night spring game, which Synjyn Days managed to play in despite hurting his left wrist two days earlier. He ran 15 times for 79 yards and a score but was ineffective passing the ball, going 5-for-15 for 71 yards. He fumbled twice, with one being returned for a touchdown.

Vad Lee completed 9 of 17 throws for 120 yards and two touchdowns. Returning starter Tevin Washington went 4-of-6 for 46 yards and carried it 14 times for 67 yards and a score.

"I think all three bring something to the table," Johnson said. "It's really a matter of who can improve most [by the opener]. The guys behind Tevin both bring different things."

MARYLAND
The Terrapins' defense dominated in a 67-53 win over the offense Saturday, recording 13 sacks and allowing only two touchdowns. (To be fair, it was a one-hand touch rule on the quarterbacks.)

Still, the defense had to like what it was able to do without players such as Joe Vellano and Kenny Tate, especially in its first public test in coordinator Brian Stewart's 3-4 scheme. Ranked last in the ACC a year ago, the defense sacked C.J. Brown nine times. Brown, the only quarterback with any experience, was 17-for-33 for 199 yards and a pick, and his line likely didn't benefit from the eased defensive rules.

"The guys had a lot of fun out there today, and they had the chance to go out there and play the game again with their teammates," coach Randy Edsall said. "Overall I thought we’ve had a really good spring. I thought the guys have done a really good job since January, getting started doing all the things we need to do to be better come August."

Maryland also announced that its 2012 captains will be Brown and Kevin Dorsey on offense and Vellano and Demetrius Hartsfield on defense. Hartsfield had 12 tackles, two for loss and a sack Saturday. Vellano was a captain last season as well.

NORTH CAROLINA STATE
David Amerson picked up right where he left off in the fall, intercepting Mike Glennon in the second quarter Saturday of the Black team's 32-7 win over the White team. More importantly, the crowd of 24,797 at Carter-Finley Stadium helped raise more than $26,000 for the Kay Yow Cancer Fund.

The Black team consisted of the first-team defense and second-team offense, with the White team fielding the opposite.

"These guys are coming out here and getting after it," Amerson said. "Defense, we're all about winning. We're competitive and we're out here to compete. We don't like to lose."

Glennon went 12-of-20 for 154 yards and a pick, and the offense struggled throughout much of the day. The Wolfpack defense recorded three interceptions, one coming from safety Earl Wolff, who returned a pick off Brian Taylor 46 yards for a score. Safety Isaac Swindell added a sack for the Black team.

"I thought we were competitive," coach Tom O'Brien said. "We didn't do as good of a job protecting the quarterback today as we did a week ago."

VIRGINIA TECH
Inclement weather forced the Hokies to cancel their annual Maroon-White game.

"There was more bad weather behind this one, and we looked at every situation -- whether we could get in a couple of quarters and it didn't look good for that, or reschedule for [Sunday], and it didn't look good for that, or reschedule for Monday, and it didn't look good for that," coach Frank Beamer said. "So in the end, we had to cancel it."

Roughly 4,000 fans had to be cleared from the stadium as thunderstorms and lightning hit the area. Players were warming up for the 4 p.m. kick before the field emptied, and the game was canceled more than an hour later. Beamer said he was most disappointed for his end-of-roster guys who didn't get one last opportunity to showcase themselves before preseason practice.

Logan Thomas and Luther Maddy were named the Hokies' spring offensive and defensive MVPs, respectively. The program's website lists all of its spring award winners.

The ACC spring game lineup concludes this Saturday with three teams in action. Georgia Tech, meanwhile, will get a head start on the weekend fun on Friday night.

The Yellow Jackets moved their spring game a day early this year to add to the atmosphere, as "Friday Night on the Flats" will feature pre- and postgame concerts and a fireworks show. The game, which is free, will kick at 7:45 p.m.

The Yellow Jackets might be without quarterback Synjyn Days and guard Shaquille Mason, as both suffered injuries this spring, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Days hurt his left wrist on the last play of Wednesday's 14th and penultimate spring practice. He led three touchdown drives during Saturday's intrasquad scrimmage.

"We couldn't tackle him," coach Paul Johnson said. "He had a good day. He made a lot of people miss. Synjyn is good with the ball in his hands, he just needs to improve on his throwing."

More pressing than protecting the signal caller might just be protecting those who usually do protect quarterbacks, as the offensive line could be down to 10 healthy bodies if Mason is out. Guard Omoregie Uzzi has been out all spring, and J.C. Lanier was nicked up Saturday.

Georgia Tech will also be missing linebacker Daniel Drummond, who has suspended for 1.5 games to start the season after pleading guilty Wednesday to boating under the influence. The incident took place last July, and it will keep the likely starter out for the team's 2012 opener against Virginia Tech.

Paul Johnson and Jon Barry will be looking to defend their crown later this month, as the Georgia Tech duo will be one of 10 ACC teams competing in the 16-team Chick-fil-A Bowl Challenge charity golf tournament, with the hope of winning a share of the $520,000 scholarship purse for their respective schools.

The sixth annual tournament will be held April 29 - May 1 at the Reynolds Plantation resort on Lake Oconee outside Atlanta. Florida State's Jimbo Fisher and Terrell Buckley, the 2010 winners, will be competing as well, along with the 2007 winners from Virginia Tech, Frank Beamer and Dell Curry.

Clemson (Dabo Swinney/Steve Fuller), Maryland (Randy Edsall/Stan Gelbaugh), Miami (Al Golden/Gino Torretta), North Carolina (Larry Fedora/Roy Williams), North Carolina State (Tom O'Brien/Tom Gugliotta), Virginia (Mike London/Jim Dombrowski) and Wake Forest (Jim Grobe/Riley Skinner) are the other seven ACC teams participating in the tournament.

The Yellow Jackets' duo of Johnson and Barry won the event last year with an 11-under par, four strokes better than the Seminoles' win from 2010. South Carolina's Steve Spurrier and Sterling Sharpe, who won the 2009 and 2008 tournaments with 12-unders, will be participating again this season.

Alabama, Mississippi State, Ohio State, Ole Miss and Tennessee are the other schools competing.

ESPN is taping the event for broadcast in the fall.

The guys over at AthlonSports recently released their list of college football's top 25 head coaches heading into this season, and a pair of ACC coaches make the cut.

Virginia Tech's Frank Beamer lands at No. 4 while Georgia Tech's Paul Johnson checks in at No. 22.

Born in the Commonwealth, playing in the Commonwealth and coaching the Commonwealth, “Beamerball” has been a fixture of Virginian football for more than four decades. Prior to his arrival in Blacksburg, the Hokies had been to six bowls games. After six years and a 24-40-2 record, Beamer broke through with his first bowl appearance in 1993. He has been to 19 straight bowl games since, including a Michael Vick-led chance at the 1999 national championship against Florida State. Beamer has claimed three Big East Championships (1995, 1996, 1999), four ACC titles (2004, 2007, 2008, 2010) and five conference Coach of the Year honors. He is the longest tenured and winningest active FBS coach in the nation and has had at least 10 wins in eight straight seasons and 11 of the last 13. Beamer was there to usher in two new eras of Hokie football as he transitioned his team from Independent status to the Big East in 1991 and then into the ACC in 2004. Virginia Tech has won the Coastal Division five times in its seven-year history and will likely be the preseason favorite once again in 2012. There are few better in the nation than Beamer.

After two I-AA National Championships at Georgia Southern, Johnson completely reinvented the Naval Academy before bringing his patented triple-option attack to the big leagues. Navy had been to nine bowl games in over 100 years of football when they hired Johnson. He led them to five bowl games in six seasons, including two wins. At Georgia Tech, there were doubts about whether or not the antiquated system would work in the ACC. After five seasons, two division championships and one ACC crown (2009), the answer is most definitively yes. The Jackets have led the ACC in rushing all four seasons under Johnson and finished no worse than fourth nationally on the ground. Georgia Tech enters 2012 as the top contender to Virginia Tech in the Coastal Division.

Miami's Al Golden (No. 26), Virginia's Mike London (No. 27) crack the "best of the rest" section as well.

Bubba Golf. Count me in as a fan.

• Former Miami and NFL star Warren Sapp has filed for bankruptcy.
• FSU's Greg Reid has big plans for his senior season, Coley Harvey writes in the Orlando Sentinel.
• Georgia Tech coach Paul Johnson wants more from Jeff Greene, Ken Sugiura writes in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
• N.C. State's Mike Glennon is addressing the fundamentals, Andrew Carter writes in the Raleigh News & Observer.
• Virginia has no plans to redshirt David Watford, Mark Giannotto writes in the Washington Post.

You've got to hand it to Dabo Swinney. On Wednesday, the Clemson coach told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Michael Carvell that he would like to see the NCAA permit a spring scrimmage against another team.

The basics of Swinney's plan:

• Teams have the option of a normal spring game or one against an opponent.
• The opponent must be out of conference but within driving distance.
• The coaches must agree on scrimmage rules beforehand.

Win. Win. And win.

More money for athletic departments. More exposure for both schools. More for coaches to learn about their teams, not having to monitor both sides of the ball and measuring them up against another team of equal stature.

Here's more from his interview with the newspaper:

"The good thing about doing something like this is that in the spring time, you don't have your whole team there. Like last spring, for example, we were missing 31 guys for spring ball. So we were very, very thin. This year, we have more bodies on hand. But still, every time you practice against each other in a scrimmage, you're 100-percent invested with your personnel, as opposed to if you go and scrimmage somebody else. You're scrimmaging their defense, while your defense is on the sidelines. When your offense is out there, your defense is on the sidelines. You’re not 100-percent vested with what’s going on. I just think there’s something good with that.

"Plus I think a scrimmage would be a great way to further teach our guys and prepare them for the season … to be able to implement your schemes against another opponent, and it could be against anybody. Obviously, I don't think you should do it against a team in your conference. But anybody else … maybe the NCAA could put stipulations like it's got to be a team within a 100 or 200 miles or something like that. Most everybody could find somebody to scrimmage against.

"I think it would be fun. I think the players would enjoy it. I think the fans would enjoy it. But that’s just one guy's opinion."

Injury is obviously a risk, as it is every time a players steps onto the field. But it's not like players aren't going hard in practice when starting positions are up for grabs.

The newspaper surveyed a number of college coaches on the idea, including North Carolina's Larry Fedora, Georgia Tech's Paul Johnson and Virginia's Mike London, each of whom appears open to the idea.

Some of these matchups seem natural — Clemson vs. Georgia, Georgia Tech vs. Auburn, Miami vs. Florida, North Carolina vs. South Carolina, Maryland vs. West Virginia, Boston College vs. a number of Big East schools, to name a few. Colleague Edward Aschoff of the SEC blog offers up a few not-so-convenient options, though they'd be every bit as entertaining — namely, Alabama-Florida State and Tennessee-Virginia Tech.

I know I'd be more entertained by this than by teammates hitting each other and switching sides for three hours. Interested to hear your takes.

Florida State defensive tackle Timmy Jernigan and receiver Josh Gehres will miss the remainder of spring practices because of knee injuries.

"He had an MCL tear, slight meniscus tear," coach Jimbo Fisher said of Jernigan, who injured his knee Saturday. "He'll be out for about 4-6 weeks and he'll be fine. He'll miss the rest of spring practice, but he's fine. It's relieving. After I saw it on film, I didn't feel as bad. It was a deal where someone fell from behind."

Gehres slightly tore his MCL. The junior missed most of last season with a knee injury, playing in just two games and catching zero passes.

Jernigan played in all 13 games last season as a true freshman, recording 30 tackles and 2.5 tackles for loss.

Nearly five hours north, Georgia Tech coach Paul Johnson told reporters that linebacker Julian Burnett will likely miss the upcoming season with a neck injury. Mark Schlabach has the details here.

Georgia Tech still had one of the best rushing offenses in the country in 2011, but there was one noticeable difference -- the Yellow Jackets lacked a superstar at the B-back position.

“The guy who had the stats was the quarterback, which was different than the first few years,” coach Paul Johnson said.

In 2008, Georgia Tech’s leading rusher was B-back Jonathan Dwyer, ( 1,395 yards). In 2009 it was Dwyer again (1,395). In 2010, B-back Anthony Allen led the way with 1,316 yards.

Last year?

Georgia Tech’s leading rusher was quarterback Tevin Washington, who had 987 yards and 14 touchdowns. Starting B-back David Sims and backups Charles Perkins and Richard Watson combined for 823 yards (698 by Sims).

In his first season as a running back, Sims, a former quarterback, averaged 5.2 yards per carry and rushed for eight touchdowns. Perkins has the potential to challenge him for the starting job this spring, and he is a player Johnson said the staff is eager to see this spring.

“We didn’t get as much production out of our B-backs as we needed to, for sure,” Johnson said, “so that’s something we have to take a long, hard look at.”

When Georgia Tech begins spring practices on Monday, it will do so knowing that Tevin Washington will be its starting quarterback.

There's no question, though, that Washington will pushed this offseason -- and the pressure will be on him to keep his spot at the top of the depth chart -- but the bigger competition will be for the No. 2 spot behind him.

“Oh I think it will be a battle,” coach Paul Johnson said. “You’ve got Synjyn [Days] and Thad Lee, both who are going to get a ton of reps this spring, and we’ve got Dennis Andrews, who’s a freshman who came to school in January. He’s going to be behind, but certainly Thad and Synjyn ought to have a chance to push Tevin and challenge him. We’ve got to come out of that mix with one of them on top of the other one.”

Washington had an inconsistent season as a first-year starter in 2011, but his game experience will be tough for the others to overcome. Washington finished the 2011 season ranked fourth in the ACC in rushing with 986 yards and 14 touchdowns, far and away the most of any signal caller in the ACC. His rushing total was the fourth-best single-season effort by an ACC quarterback and the 14 rushing touchdowns were the third-best single-season total by an ACC quarterback.

He also had eight interceptions and 11 passing touchdowns and completed 49.3 percent of his passes.

“We started out the season being much more efficient throwing the ball, and towards the end of the year, we weren’t as efficient as we needed to be there, either,” Johnson said. “It’s combination of things, and we’re in the process of looking at it now. I think some of it was better competition. It’s just like anything else -- the protection plays into it, we had some drops, and we just didn’t throw it was well.”

Washington will have at least two good reasons to be more efficient this spring -- Days and Lee.