As a conference, the ACC was already bad enough on offense last year to wind up with this:

...as its grand showcase to the rest of the country, just a year after a similar scene for a rain-soaked championship game that featured zero touchdowns. Turns out teal seats are not so good for the brand, after all.

Under most circumstances, most teams could claim “growing pains” and pledge to be a little more explosive this time around. But heading into ‘08, the league doesn’t even get the luxury of writing off its descent into clutch-and-grab field goal fests as a “rebuilding year” -- with the notable exception of Matt Ryan, most of the passers who struggled through dismal efforts last season return not to expectations of improvement, but to pronouncements that the ACC is a “graveyard for passers,” and for some, that they’re not far from joining the ranks of worm food. Less than two weeks from kickoff, half the league is still wondering who’s going to be the primary signal-caller:

Florida State. With longtime foil Xavier Lee off to groom his dreds, run 4.2 forties and reduce his receivers’ gloves to tatters on his own time, Drew Weatherford should be the de facto starter in Tallahassee -- whatever else you might say about his arm strength or athleticism, a three-year incumbent who just posted the lowest interception percentage in the country would not usually be in much danger from a pair of totally green, mostly unheralded sophomores.

But Jimbo Fisher seemed to throw open the floodgates when he said last week the race is “getting interesting,” and even though the competition is inspiring lines like,

[D’Vontrey] Richardson may have dropped a few shotgun snaps during the scrimmage, but he also dropped a few jaws as well.

...the already embattled veteran didn’t seem to gain much ground at Saturday’s scrimmage to more mobile, live-armed youngsters Richardson and Christian Ponder. All three quarterbacks fumbled snaps, but all three produced big plays, too, including a 60-yard touchdown pass to Greg Carr by Weaterford (who didn’t complete a pass longer than 50 yards last year) and a 40-yard pass to Carr by Richardson, who also had a long run called back for holding.

Andrew Carter had a common sense take in his Orlando Sentinel blog: Richardson has the most ability but is too inconsistent, Ponder is an enigma, and it’s still Weatherford’s job to lose.

Miami. Nothing’s coming out of Cane camp any time soon, per Randy Shannon, though totally inexperienced redshirt freshman Robert Marve remains a hair ahead of totally inexperienced true freshman Jacory Harris, who at 6’4”, 175 pounds is a charter member of the Impossibly Skinny Quarterback Hall of Fame, at least. Neither seemed particularly impressive at the U’s latest scrimmage -- and that’s largely by their own account, since most of the practice was closed to reporters -- but as long as Harris is drawing comparisons to Garo Yepremian, Marve is your man. But it won’t be official for a while.

N.C. State. Tom O’Brien threw the partisans a curveball last week by eliminating Harrison Beck and Justin Burke from the competition; Beck was the highly touted Nebraska transfer pushed out of an expected starting job in Lincoln by Sam Keller, and who proceeded to throw nine interceptions to two touchdowns as the Pack’s second QB option last year. Burke was the highly touted prospect who couldn’t push past Beck or usual starter Daniel Evans last year despite their disastrous results. Burke didn’t show for the team picture over the weekend, and might be on his way out.

Instead, O’Brien is banking on the persistently underwhelming Evans as the sturdy old hand in front of a pair of even younger up-and-comers, highly-sought heir apparent Mike Glennon and more mobile redshirt freshman Russell Wilson, who have the makings of the stereotypical pocket/scrambler dichotomy that’s turning up as the rule here. Easy assumption is that Evans, with 17 starts in two years, will handle the raucous opener at South Carolina before gradually ceding the reigns to one or both of the bucks (based on his hype, probably Glennon, even if his gangly visage is a little too reminiscent of his inconsistent older brother) -- but O’Brien insists the Pack is too desperate to play a waiting game:

O'Brien hinted that he won't hesitate to use one of the freshmen on Aug. 28 in Columbia if he earns the job.

“You're going to have to learn to play before a crowd sooner or later,” O'Brien said during his news conference. “So why not start off the bat and go do it?”

A decision could be made -- almost certainly Evans, the incumbent -- by Wednesday.

Maryland. Ralph Friedgen insisted Sunday he’s naming a starter today, although there was no indication after the weekend who, exactly, that might be. Incumbent Chris Turner “played better” in Saturday‘s scrimmage, but the Washington Post suggested last week that Josh Portis was holding his own in practice, an enticing vision for Terp fans who expected Portis to emerge as a slam dunk when he transferred in after the miraculous arrival of the Tebow Child rendered him redundant as Chris Leak’s heir apparent at Florida.

Of course, Portis is lucky to be on the team after his petulent end in Gainesville and the cheating scandal that ended his season last year and opened the door for Turner, but he has the ever-tempting upside, athletically, and if Turner and/or Jordan Steffy are safer choices, it will be hard to keep Portis out of the mix if one or both of them struggle to the extent they did most of 2007.

Virginia. Jameel Sewell’s suspension leaves the job to one of three untested names: Scott Deke, Peter Verica and Peter Lalich, currently listed on the depth chart as such in order of seniority. Deke is a fifth-year senior who’s never taken a snap, a huge, glowing red flag when any competent option would have put some heat on the likes of Sewell, Marques Hagans and/or Christian Olsen, the meh-to-awful trio that’s held down the position at various points since Deke arrived on campus; in fact, Deke has been so nondescript through his career that he was “preparing to enter the work force” when Al Groh surprised him by asking him back for a fifth season. If this is your starter, Hoos, peace be with you.

More likely, the “honor” goes to Lalich, who played a good bit last year (61 passes in eight appearances) and was not shriekingly bad as a true freshman. That it’s still up in the air, to the extent that the candidates have been cordoning themselves off from any media contact for the last week, is a good indication to sell whatever UVA stock you have sitting around from last year’s skin-of-the-teeth run, pronto.

Georgia Tech. Sophomore Josh Nesbitt has been banged up in practice, opening the door for true freshman Jaybo Shaw, but Matt Wilnkeljohn at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution covered the Jackets’ starting lineup this morning and doesn’t even mention Shaw as a potential threat to Nesbitt’s hold on the job -- as anyone who watched Nesbitt run around with his head cut off as a freshman could have guessed, the run-first nature of Paul Johnson’s quarterbacks is a match made in heaven.

Virginia Tech. It’s been a good week since any mainstream report on the quarterbacks from Hokie practice, and last we heard, Frank Beamer was fretting about the skill positions in general while quarterbacks coach Mike O’Cain was cryptically suggesting to reporters that -- god forbid -- an injury or something might make his job a lot easier:

"To be very honest with you, I don't think it's going to get sorted out," O'Cain said Saturday.

"We're going to have to make a call, in my opinion. Right now, unless one of them gets hurt or one of them gets a sore arm and can't practice ... if something unforeseen happens then it helps us make a decision.

"We're not putting any pressure on ourselves, saying like, 'well, we want to make this decision by Aug. 21st. Shoot, we may not know until the Wednesday before we play East Carolina exactly what we're going to do."

Even direct practice observers on the message boards (maybe not surprisingly) disagree, not only on whether Sean Glennon or Tyrod Taylor is good enough to keep the other on the bench, but on exactly what’s going down in scrimmages ($) -- is Glennon taking too many sacks, or is it only because he’s being “touched down” by guys he’d easily escape at full speed? Or does he have “the mobility of a 101-year-old grandpa”? What’s the over/under on one of Taylor’s passes hitting a barn, or the broad side thereof?

One creative poster, however, has a solution everyone can agree on:

Only Tysean Glenrod can supply the Hokies with the perfect combination of veteran saavy and the first rate agility of capricious youth, in one unifying, multi-racial package -- if only that stem cell crap was legal. Mr. President, why are you standing in the path of progress?