http://www.wral.com/sports/blog/1575328/Barry Jacobs has covered ACC sports and other topics since 1976 for a wide variety of national and regional publications and Web sites. For 14 years he wrote the Fan's Guide to ACC Basketball. His fifth book, "Across the Line," is now out by Lyons Press.Copyright 2009 by Capitol Broadcasting Company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Sun, 28 Sep 2008 12:41:40 -0400Sun, 28 Sep 2008 12:41:40 -040060http://www.wral.com/sports/blogpost/3629469/Virginia and Duke engaged in a bit of role reversal on a pleasant, variably cloudy Saturday afternoon before 25,527 fans at Wallace Wade Stadium. Al Groh’s Cavaliers, a bowl team last year, fell to 1-3 and often looked befuddled, bedraggled, and, frankly, bedeviled as they committed six turnovers. Coach David Cutcliffe’s first Duke team looked quite competent as it improved to 3-1, the school’s best start since 1994, also its most recent bowl season.Sun, 28 Sep 2008 12:41:40 -0400Sportshttp://www.wral.com/sports/blogpost/3629469/http://www.wral.com/sports/blogpost/3593633/Mary Garber died the other day. Lenox Rawlings, a colleague from the Winston-Salem Journal, wrote a lovely remembrance, and an obituary appeared in The New York Times headlined: “Mary Garber, 92, Sportswriting Pioneer.”Tue, 23 Sep 2008 15:38:31 -0400Sportshttp://www.wral.com/sports/blogpost/3593633/http://www.wral.com/sports/blogpost/3580319/We can only speculate whether the disclaimers would have persisted if North Carolina put away Virginia Tech after leading 17-3 midway through the third quarter. Most Tar Heels may have stuck by their refusal to call this a chance to measure themselves against the ACC’s top program, the expansion member that had won 28 of its first 32 conference contests and the 2007 league title.Sat, 20 Sep 2008 22:25:44 -0400Sportshttp://www.wral.com/sports/blogpost/3580319/http://www.wral.com/sports/blogpost/3575253/What seems important in September will fade by year’s end like a defeated candidate’s hopes, woven into the greater tapesty of a football season lasting a dozen games or more. So it's worth celebrating a few undefeated starts while they remain fresh and bright, beginning with 3-0 East Carolina, which visits Raleigh Saturday to take on N.C. State.Mon, 22 Sep 2008 10:01:51 -0400Sportshttp://www.wral.com/sports/blogpost/3575253/http://www.wral.com/sports/blogpost/3551402/The course of change, like true love, never did run smooth. Just ask the LPGA, which announced, then withdrew, a plan to suspend playing privileges for golfers insufficiently fluent in English to converse with sponsors or make acceptance speeches after winning tournaments. The U.S. may be an international crossroads but, in case you haven’t noticed, custom and practice still favor English, the historic native tongue.Mon, 15 Sep 2008 23:05:24 -0400Sportshttp://www.wral.com/sports/blogpost/3551402/http://www.wral.com/sports/blogpost/3535440/Butch Davis repeated the theme with minimal variation for anyone who would listen, including twice at his weekly press conference. “This is a business trip,” Davis said of his North Carolina squad’s journey to New Jersey to face a veteran Rutgers team on its home turf. “We’re not going there to visit the Statue of Liberty. We’re not going to the zoo. We’re not going to stay overnight at Broadway and try to catch a play. It’s a business trip.”Fri, 12 Sep 2008 12:09:45 -0400Sportshttp://www.wral.com/sports/blogpost/3535440/http://www.wral.com/sports/blogpost/3507988/This is not the outcome league leaders expected when they took drastic action to boost the prospects of ACC football. Surely no one envisioned that, five seasons after contorting into a new configuration, the conference’s rallying cry would be “Thank goodness for Wake Forest!”Mon, 08 Sep 2008 19:15:43 -0400Sportshttp://www.wral.com/sports/blogpost/3507988/http://www.wral.com/sports/blogpost/3497060/What’s done is done.Sat, 06 Sep 2008 18:57:57 -0400Sportshttp://www.wral.com/sports/blogpost/3497060/http://www.wral.com/sports/blogpost/3486160/Crafting a basketball schedule may involve risky calculations, particularly as the roster of non-league opponents grows in apparent importance as a determining factor in alloting at-large bids to the NCAA tournament. Thu, 04 Sep 2008 22:39:42 -0400Sportshttp://www.wral.com/sports/blogpost/3486160/http://www.wral.com/sports/blogpost/3471518/ACC men’s basketball schedules were released last week, opening an early window into the 2008-09 season. Compare a team’s schedule to others within the conference, and to various measures of strength and daring, and suddenly a lot more is revealed than which matchups promise to be the most intriguing.Tue, 02 Sep 2008 16:39:18 -0400Sportshttp://www.wral.com/sports/blogpost/3471518/