ACC Nation

Column by Will Ojanen
will@accnation.com

Shortly after the recent NFL Draft, ESPN’s Todd McShay posted a first round mock draft for 2009. I know it’s a year early, but it’s always interesting to gauge who the so called draft experts really like coming in to the next season. Some players of note include Georgia Tech DE Michael Johnson, going second overall, Maryland WR Darrius Heyward-Bey, going 15th overall, Clemson DE Ricky Sapp, going 23rd overall, and Georgia Tech’s DL Vance Walker going 29th overall.

Speaking of post season prognosticating for the upcoming season, I recently came across a top-25 poll for the 08-09 season, and was astounded to see Miami ranked 12th in this poll, one spot ahead of Duke, with UNC second in the poll. It appears that expectations are going to be very high for the Hurricanes this upcoming season. But I can certainly understand it, since they weren’t really losing anybody at all. I’ll be very interested to see, once fall rolls around, if more people feel Miami could be a legit team on the national scene this year.

Congratulations to former Florida State forward Al Thornton, who made the NBA’s All Rookie team this season. Thornton averaged 12.7 points and 4.5 rebounds in 27 minutes in his rookie season. Yeah, I didn’t know he was having a good year either. It’s hard to get recognition when you’re playing for the other team in Los Angeles. He is definitely off to a good start to his pro career.

The ACC’s athletic directors turned down the idea of adding a ninth conference game to the schedule starting in with the 2010-2011 football season. The main reason for dumping the proposal is because the coaches said it would hurt their chances of getting into a bowl game. I’m not necessarily in favor of it (I’m on the fence on this), but what I get out of it is the coaches don’t want to test their teams. Instead, the coaches would rather schedule a Richmond or a Wofford and win 45-7 rather than play in their conference and gauge just how good their team really is. And we wonder why the ACC doesn’t get much respect on the national level.

In case you didn’t see this before, Duke basketball found a replacement at assistant coach for Johnny Dawkins. Last week, former player Nate James was tabbed as the new man on the bench with Coach K. Aside from the national spotlight, there is another plus to playing basketball at Duke. If you don’t have a pro career, Coach K will take care of you. He has two of his former players, Steve Wojciechowski and Chris Collins, on the bench as well as assistant coaches as well.