Empty bowls and other notes:
Ten ACC teams remain eligible for nine ACC bowl contracts. That's a technicality. The number could freeze on the current five (Boston College, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Miami, Virginia Tech), but two more teams probably will make the cut.
The likely survivors: North Carolina and the winner of the Wake Forest-Florida State game.
Because Carolina (6-3) scheduled two second-level opponents and only one such win can count in bowl math, Coach Butch Davis needs another victory with Miami at home, BC away and N.C. State away.
FSU (4-5) needs wins against Wake Forest and Maryland because No. 1 Florida looms as a major hurdle. Wake Forest (4-6) has notable Saturday advantages of the home field and the absence of FSU's injured quarterback, Christian Ponder. The Deacons will take a weekend off and then visit Duke.
The Blue Devils (5-4) must win two of three against Georgia Tech, Miami and Wake because beating N.C. Central (in transition from Division II) doesn't count. N.C. State (4-5) needs to sweep Clemson, Virginia Tech and Carolina because it beat two second-tier teams.
If the ACC qualifies only seven teams, the No. 9 (Mobile) and No. 8 (D.C.) bowls will come off the list. If Wake Forest and Carolina are the sixth and seventh qualifiers, one might wind up in Charlotte and the other in either San Francisco or Nashville.
Odds and ends
□ NASCAR holds its breath, waiting to hear whether Danica Patrick will test the Nationwide series (most likely in a Dale Earnhardt Jr. car) and later move up to Sprint Cup. Juan Pablo Montoya, a former Indy 500 champion, predicts that she will succeed. "I think you're going to have a lot of traditional NASCAR fans hoping she doesn't, that the good old boys show them how it's done," he said. "But at the same time, you're going to have a huge amount of people hoping she does well."
□ Statistical oddity No. 1: Wake Forest's Riley Skinner and Duke's Thaddeus Lewis head into the homestretch of their college careers with exactly the same passing yardage -- 9,163.
□ Statistical oddity No. 2: N.C. State's Russell Wilson, the All-ACC quarterback as a freshman, leads the conference with 24 touchdown passes -- 12 in ACC games and 12 in nonconference games. He has nine interceptions -- all in ACC games.
□ The Atlanta Falcons will roll into Charlotte this weekend with odd baggage. Tight end Tony Gonzalez and his wife, October, created a stir by posing without visible clothes (he swears they wore something) for an ad campaign against furs. The ad, sponsored by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), shows the couple sitting down with lots of arms, legs and shoulders visible. The message: "We'd Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur."
□ The NCAA basketball season doesn't really begin until a computer freak figures out tournament odds. The update: 65 teams will make the field out of 347 Division I schools, 332 of which are eligible.
□ Roy Williams, the coach of North Carolina's defending champions, hasn't joined the chorus of insecure bench jockeys lobbying for an expanded field. He likes 65 just fine. "I love college football and the pageantry of college football," Williams said. "To be able to have 800 bowl games for 800 teams at the end of the year -- whatever it is -- I don't think that is what we want to have in basketball."
Then again, who wouldn't want to watch First Round Game No. 127, sponsored by Eagle Bank?
lrawlings@wsjournal.com.
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