ESPN College Football

As of today, there are 100 days until the start of the college football season.

You bet we’re counting.

If you’re Scot Loeffler, Virginia Tech's new offensive coordinator, 100 days must feel like a nanosecond. The Hokies aren’t the only ones, though, with plenty of work to do before the season begins. Here’s a checklist of five things the ACC and its teams must accomplish before the opening kickoff:

1. Name starting quarterbacks. Syracuse can’t even talk about Oklahoma transfer Drew Allen yet because he’s not on campus and won’t enroll until next month, but the Orange are just one of several teams in the ACC that still have an ongoing quarterback competition. Virginia’s quarterback controversy has seemingly gone on for years, and Florida State coach Jimbo Fisher has yet to officially anoint Jameis Winston as EJ Manuel’s successor. Pitt is also still searching for a dependable leader, along with NC State.

2. Find an offense in Blacksburg. Virginia Tech has become one of the ACC’s brand-name programs, a consistent winner and a representative in the Top 25 and BCS standings. That changed last season when the Hokies bumbled their way through their most disappointing season in 20 years. Coach Frank Beamer made sweeping changes to his offensive staff, but little improvement was seen in the spring game. Loeffler said it wasn’t a true indication of the progress that was made in the other 13 practices, but also conceded there is still a lot of work to be done. With Alabama looming in the season opener, all eyes will be on the ACC in Week 1. When the Hokies are good, the ACC is better.

3. Improve defensively. With the exception of Florida State, which finished the season ranked No. 6 in the country in scoring defense, 2012 wasn’t a banner year for ACC defenses. The conference usually has some of the nation’s best defenses -- including Boston College -- but there was no Luke Kuechly and no identity for the Eagles last fall. Miami beat Duke 52-45. Georgia Tech beat North Carolina 68-50. Clemson beat NC State 62-48. Clemson took a major step forward defensively with its bowl win against LSU, but the defense must become elite in its second season under coordinator Brent Venables if Clemson is going to be a national-title contender.

4. Minimize the turnovers. Virginia Tech was No. 86 in turnover margin last year, and quarterback Logan Thomas threw three picks in the spring game. Boston College was No. 88 in the country in turnover margin, FSU No. 93, NC State No. 99, Maryland No. 104, Virginia No. 110. That’s almost half the league ranked among the worst in the country in turnover margin. The Hokies play Alabama. Virginia plays Oregon. BC plays at USC. FSU is at Florida, and the Seminoles turned it over five times versus the Gators in FSU's 37-26 loss last year. The Gators scored 10 points off turnovers in that game. If the ACC is going to stand a chance, it can’t give away freebies.

5. Stay out of the trainer’s room. Virginia Tech standout corner Antone Exum is still rehabbing from the torn ACL he suffered in a pickup basketball game. The bulk of Wake Forest’s offensive line was walking wounded all spring, and that group will make or break the Deacons' season. Clemson backup quarterback Chad Kelly and starting tight end Sam Cooper both tore their ACLs this spring. If the ACC is going to beat the best this fall, it needs its best players on the field. For some programs, like Boston College, the depth isn’t there to afford injuries.

AMELIA ISLAND, Fla. -- The Big Ten has mandated it would no longer play FCS competition as a way to boost its strength of scheduling.

There is no such mandate in the ACC, where league coaches and athletic directors said during spring meetings they have no issues with playing one FCS game per season. Georgia Tech athletic director Mike Bobinski said discussions about eliminating all FCS games went nowhere during the meetings.

"Geographically the Big Ten has a different set up. They have a relationship with the Mid-American Conference, which works philosophically, geographically, competitively on a lot of levels. We live in an area where there’s an awful lot of FCS football. We have some responsibility, and I think the SEC will do the same thing. I don’t think they’re going to do what the Big Ten has done, either. We feel like we have a responsibility to the sport in our region to continue to play some of those games."

Because if these games go away, many of these FCS programs will not have the money to support themselves. Payouts from these guarantee games support the entire athletic department.

"I just think it’s not something we would feel good about as a league," Bobinski said. "There’s a lot of FCS teams that are important to the sport of college football and we don’t necessarily want to cut them out."

The ACC has gotten some backlash, though, because some teams have had two FCS teams on the schedule. It happened to Florida State last year, though that was out of the Seminoles' control. When West Virginia backed out of their game last season with only months to spare, the Seminoles couldn't find an FBS team to fill the open slot.

"I don’t necessarily want to play them, either, but you go find four nonconference games, it’s a lot harder than finding three," Florida State coach Jimbo Fisher said. "I would rather play all Division I-A schools but that goes back to finding opponents that are willing to do it. You hate to get in a lot of home and homes because you do lose revenue, but at the same time you don’t want to pay an arm and a leg for what they price them out. Those situations will all determine how you schedule games. It’s harder scheduling than people think it is.

"A year ago for us we get punished but here’s the thing, whoever wrote the contract 10 years ago. We (get blamed) for getting out of it but we had nothing to do with it. There was a buyout, so West Virginia bought it out to do what’s best for them."

Clemson is in a similar situation this season, having to play two FCS teams. When the league decided to move to a nine-game league schedule, Clemson jettisoned Kent State for this season. But when Notre Dame agreed to a scheduling partnership, the league went back to eight conference games. It was too late for Clemson to get Kent State back, so it had to add a second FCS team. Georgia Tech also has two FCS teams on the schedule this year for the same reason.

Neither is ideal, and nobody supports playing two FCS games per year.

"Everybody is OK with one," Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said. "There’s a lot of positives that come from it. Duke, it’s important to them to play North Carolina (Central). I think it’s great for us to play somebody in our state, a Furman, a Citadel and really create that revenue for our state and the opportunities for those student-athletes."

Miami athletic director Blake James also said the preference is to keep FCS teams on the schedule.

"You have to always be looking at what puts your program in the best position," James said. "If there were structures put in place by the league, we’d be in line with those parameters. With that said, we’ve scheduled a number of FCS opponents going out and we have a number of commitments to those institutions and we plan on honoring those commitments moving forward."

AMELIA ISLAND, Fla. -- Though league scheduling was not a major topic on the spring meetings agenda, ACC coaches unanimously support an eight-game conference slate.

And they told the athletic directors as much.

The ACC scaled back from a nine-game league slate to an eight-game league slate last October after Notre Dame entered into a football scheduling partnership with the schools as part of their membership in all other sports. Notre Dame essentially takes up one nonconference spot every three years. For those teams with long-standing rivalry games like Florida State, Clemson and Georgia Tech, playing nine league games, plus Notre Dame, plus a rivalry game is untenable.

"When you’re a school like us, when you’re playing Notre Dame, South Carolina plus nine conference games, it limits you in what you can do in our out of conference scheduling," Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said. "We like the flexibility that comes with being able to do a Clemson-Georgia. We’re all comfortable with eight."

And if the SEC goes to nine league games? Would the philosophy change then?

"They don’t have Notre Dame," he said. "If they had a lock-in with Michigan for five games then it might be a little different. Everybody has to pave their own way. That’s the consensus of the ACC coaches. A lot of us already have really quality nonconference opponents, plus you’re adding Notre Dame in there. If we were playing Notre Dame this year and you’ve got eight conference games, Notre Dame, Georgia and South Carolina, nobody in the SEC is playing a schedule like that."

Given the strength of schedule that is going to be a component in the College Football Playoff, the Big Ten decided to move to nine league games. But there is a delicate balancing act that schools must follow.

"You can overschedule, too," Wake Forest coach Jim Grobe said. "If your schedule’s too tough it may give you two or three losses. You may be a heck of a team but you’re not getting in at the end if you have 2 or 3 losses. There’s a balance. You want to have strength of schedule, but you don’t want your schedule so strong that throughout the course of 12 games you’re not going to win but eight or 9."

Though Georgia Tech athletic director Mike Bobinski is not in favor of a nine-game league schedule, he wants to hear more about the possibilities. And not every single AD is in favor of eight league games. Virginia Tech athletic director Jim Weaver, for one, remains in favor of a nine-game league schedule.

Athletic directors are the ones with a final say, not the coaches. But it doesn't seem like there will be any movement for now.

"I wouldn't necessarily be in favor of the nine-game model although I’d like to hear more conversation about it, and there are several of us in that room with the same dynamic as us," he said. "We haven’t gotten together as a group and talked through that yet."

AMELIA ISLAND, Fla. -- ACC coaches are in favor of having the coaches' poll be a part of the criteria used by the selection committee to determine the four teams in the College Football Playoff.

Duke coach David Cutcliffe, serving as league coaches' chair, told ESPN.com on Wednesday during the league's spring meetings that his group also is in favor of having every single coach have a vote in the poll and complete transparency in the voting. They also favor doing away with a preseason poll, and releasing their first poll at some point during the season -- much in the way the BCS standings are released.

League coaches also favor the model used by the NCAA basketball selection committee, with either current athletic directors or conference representatives serving on the committee, as opposed to retired coaches.

"For the most part, we wanted to see conference representation and institutional representation rotated to some degree but the biggest item for us is the criteria of selecting those four teams. We want our coaches’ poll to matter," Cutcliffe said. "In another sense, all the coaches have a vote on the committee, and we think that’s good for the game, for the coaches to be good stewards of who’s in that national championship picture.

"All of us having a vote, the vote becoming transparent and the vote being conscientiously done. We think we’re qualified. We’re not watching every game on the East Coast, on the West Coast, but no one else is, either. We see a lot of film of a lot of people. We know who’s good, and who’s best -- maybe moreso than anybody else is looking at the game."

The one key piece to the College Football Playoff puzzle that remains unresolved is how the selection committee will look, and how they will go about selecting the four teams to make the playoff. Conference commissioners left meetings last month without any clear consensus, though it appears unlikely the committee will feature a representative from all 10 FBS leagues.

Cutliffe said there was no consensus from the coaches on who should serve on the committee, only that they favored having various leagues represented.

The coaches' poll is currently used in the BCS formula, but those with a vote have come under some heavy criticism in the past for their final votes. Some have shown bias in favoring their own conference in their final rankings. Others have pointed out that some coaches do not even do their own voting.

The BCS standings are being eliminated this year.

"Part of our concern was when you start naming individual coaches, it’s so hard to not have bias by coaches that have coached in certain leagues so the way we looked at it is if we allowed all the coaches to vote in the coaches poll and the coaches poll was looked at as a major contributing factor to the selection process, then all college coaches would have some input into the selection process," Wake Forest coach Jim Grobe said. "We’re just throwing things out right now because I don’t think anybody has a firm grasp of things.

"Will you have some bias from each coach? Absolutely you will, but through the country if it got balanced out, you’d probably still have a pretty legitimate idea of at least who the coaches thought the top four teams were."

Coaches agree bias cannot be completely eliminated in this process. That is why they are hopeful football adopts the basketball committee model. Ten members serve on the NCAA Division I basketball committee, and the group is balanced geographically. Georgia Tech athletic director Mike Bobinski served as committee chair for the last two tournaments.

"There is a model because basketball’s had a committee for a long time," North Carolina coach Larry Fedora said. "You’re going to have some of that. There’s nobody going to be out there that’s an expert on football that doesn’t have some affiliation somewhere in the past with a league or a team or anything so I don’t think you can do away with that."

Ingrained biases or perceptions do not concern at least one league coach.

"With the schedule that Clemson plays every year, if we take care of our business, all that stuff takes care of itself," Tigers coach Dabo Swinney said. "All I can tell you is Clemson worries about Clemson. We go and handle our business on the field, if we’re a one-loss team or no-loss team, Clemson with the brand we have, we’re right there."

Mel Kiper Jr. has officially moved on to 2014.

Kiper recently released his first Big Board of 2014, and Florida State and Clemson are the ACC's top reps. It's Insider content, but here's a sneak peek:

• No. 15, FSU DT Timmy Jernigan
• No. 16 Clemson WR Sammy Watkins
• No. 10 FSU OT Cameron Erving
• No. 21 Clemson QB Tajh Boyd

Kiper has notes on each player, and he also included another 25 players he considered for the first Big Board. FSU LB Christian Jones and Georgia Tech LB Jeremiah Attaochu were the only other ACC players considered. Kiper's list differs slightly from Todd McShay's initial list of 32.

The time came for Sammy Watkins to address the summer campers gathered around, little kids who undoubtedly looked up to the star from Clemson.

He stood up in front of the group. He looked in front of him. Thousands of kids looked back.

Watkins started to get a little nervous. He had just gotten into off-the-field trouble, and coach Dabo Swinney wanted him to address these young kids with first-hand advice about the importance of staying on the right path.

"I didn’t know how the kids were going to react," Watkins recalled in a recent interview on campus. "I came out and spoke from the heart, just told them what was real and what had happened and it helped me get over that. That was a hump I was worried about -- the young kids and my fans. After I did that, I put it behind me. I don’t dwell on that stuff. I think it’s going to help me this season become a better person, a better player. I think it got me stronger with the team, just stepping up to the fact that I did mess up but I’m not going to let that affect me on the field. I think it helped me."

The theme this spring has been the maturation of Watkins, who wants to return to his fantastic freshman form. Though he says he put his off-field-troubles behind him, last season was one full of distractions. His arrest on misdemeanor drug possession one year ago led to a two-game suspension. When he returned, he figured he would just be the Sammy of old. He was not. Then he had to deal with a serious kidney issue that forced him to miss another game. He ended the season falling well short of the fantastic freshman the country got to see in 2011.

"I expected to make way more plays than I did last year," Watkins said. "I feel I didn’t because I didn’t do it on the practice field. I wasn’t pushing myself to get tired, I wasn’t really feeling the grind. I was just laid back.

"Just from all the success I had my freshman year, it’s a natural reaction to think that this game is easy and I can do the same thing the next year. Teams really scouted me more my sophomore year with different coverages, putting their hands on me, being physical. Those are things I’m prepared for this year."

He also is prepared to put in the time and hard work to get himself better.

"I don’t think I had a bad year, but I didn’t meet my expectations. I didn’t prepare myself right, and I just think I approached this spring differently."

His teammates have noticed.

"He's been working really hard," quarterback Tajh Boyd said. "He comes with a workman attitude, he loves competing. He leads all those receivers by his actions."

Those actions, at least this spring, have been exemplary enough for his coaches to heap praise on the way he has matured and turned a corner as well.

"I am being watched," Watkins said. "I’m not invisible. Everybody around here expects big things from me on and off the field. I do impact people’s lives, fans, little kids. This is a nice town has a lot of nice fans, people who look up to us football players, so I learned to be cautious of every move because everybody is watching you."

There's not one ACC team listed in the top 10 of Mark Schlabach's latest Top 25.

That's OK, though, because the ACC will face five of the teams in his top 10, including No. 2 Alabama, No. 3 Oregon, No. 7 Georgia, No. 8 South Carolina and No. 10 Notre Dame.

The fact that No. 12 Clemson will play two of those programs -- Georgia and South Carolina -- will give the Tigers ample opportunity to move up in the rankings. A win over Georgia in the season opener, and Clemson is more than a top-10 team -- it's a national title contender.

At No. 14, Florida State is the only other ACC team ranked by Schlabach, and that's a good spot for the Noles, considering they technically still don't know who their starting quarterback is going to be this fall. Yes, FSU has reloaded the talent, but with six new assistants on staff, there are bound to be some bumps in the road.

Two 2013 ranking predictions for you:

1. Clemson will spend more than one week in the top 10 this fall. Remind me to remind Schlabach of this after the Tigers beat Georgia.

2. Miami will be the next team in. The Canes don't even have to leave the state until Oct. 17 at North Carolina. They've got a good shot to start out at least 4-1, and should be in the top 25 before the ACC race heats up.

When the ACC signed a grant of rights earlier this week, the league signaled it is a strong, unified group and plans to be for quite some time moving forward.

This was not lost on its football coaches, who have had to deal with repeated questions about realignment and shifting landscapes over the last year.

"What's happened here in the last couple weeks, the ACC is solid," Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer said on the ACC coaches' spring conference call Thursday. "Always thought it was. But I think what everyone has agreed to here in the last week or so, I think it's full speed ahead now. We've got a great league."

The next step now is to become a great football league. And how does the ACC begin to do that?

"We got some big ball games coming up this fall. We need to win our share of those big ball games," Beamer said. "But I do think the league's getting better. I think we have an opportunity to win some of those ball games. So that's to me what's important right now."

His team is in one of those big ball games he references, opening the season against Alabama. Among the other huge showdowns early in the year: Clemson plays Georgia; South Carolina plays North Carolina; Virginia plays Oregon and Miami plays Florida. The ACC ended the bowl season on a high note, with big wins for Clemson over LSU and Georgia Tech over USC.

No doubt the league has to keep that momentum going, now that it seems they are all building together.

Back in December, the ACC Council of Presidents released a statement, hoping to try to put an end to rampant speculation that the league was on the verge of falling apart.

The statement began, "We, the undersigned presidents of the Atlantic Coast Conference, wish to express our commitment to preserve and protect the future of our outstanding league. ... "

Most fans and pundits chuckled. Not many believed that collection of words. Folks had heard pledges of undying loyalty and commitment before, from coaches, administrators and leagues before college athletics went haywire with expansion, changing the landscape forever.

Well, maybe folks should have believed the presidents four months ago.

The ACC Council of Presidents announced Monday that each of its current and future 15 members has signed a grant of media rights, effective immediately, essentially squashing expansion. The grant of rights would run through the 2026-27 season and guarantees if a school leaves for another league in the 14-year window, that school’s media rights -- including revenue -- for all home games would remain with the ACC and not its new conference.

Add that on top of a $50 million exit fee, and, well, it is just about guaranteed that nobody is going anywhere.

Not anytime soon.

The ACC becomes the fourth league with a grant of rights, joining the Big Ten, Pac-12 and Big 12. The SEC is the only conference among the Power Five leagues that does not have a grant of rights. So, essentially, if the Big Ten or Big 12 wants to go expanding again, it is going to have to find somebody other than Florida State, Clemson, Virginia Tech, North Carolina and Georgia Tech to start bugging.

One league source told ESPN's Brett McMurphy: "It was pretty cut-and-dry to unify this league. The ACC has been a really good league and now it can become really special."

The ACC has been a league under siege for nearly a year. Let's go back to last May, when Florida State coach Jimbo Fisher had to try to defuse a major storm over comments he made saying the Seminoles should look at all their options for league membership. Those were coupled with comments from board of trustees chairman Andy Haggard, who told Warchant.com his school should talk with the Big 12.

Speculation has continued to follow Florida State and the Big 12. Clemson, too.

When Maryland left for the Big Ten last year, some speculated the Terps' departure was only the beginning. Then, when the SEC and Big 12 agreed to form a bowl partnership beginning in 2014, some suggested this signaled a death knell for the ACC. Add in growing speculation that the Big Ten had its eyes on several ACC schools as it considered an even greater East Coast push, and you see why many were not so high on the idea that the league would survive.

All the while, commissioner John Swofford sat back, watched, and never once showed any outward sign of concern. You can see why now:

• He got league schools to agree to ratchet up the exit fee some $30 million to $50 million back in September, even as Florida State voted no on the increase.
• He got a long-term agreement with the Orange Bowl, placing the ACC champion annually in the game against either an SEC or Big Ten team, or Notre Dame.
• He added Notre Dame in all sports but football, though he did manage to wrangle a five-game football scheduling partnership between Notre Dame and the league.
• He swapped Maryland for rising Louisville, a program that just had its football team in a BCS game, its men's hoops team win a national championship and it's women's hoops team play in the national title game.
• And now, the grant of rights, a document that should halt expansion for now.

Every time his league has been threatened, Swofford has come up with an answer. Monday, however, brought the greatest answer of all.

Perhaps now, the ACC and its fans can rest easy. And Swofford can finally get the credit he deserves for batting away one threat after another, and keeping the ACC well positioned into the future.

How many times have you heard fans and coaches shaking their fists at the scheduling gods whenever a new conference slate is announced?

Well, my friends, Friday's Notre Dame-ACC scheduling announcement should not be one of those times. Both the Irish and the league should be applauded for the way they handled an often maddening process to provide a win for all parties involved.

The schedules for 2014, 2015 and 2016 are perfectly balanced. Each season features one major high-profile game with national implications. Simply put, it was a wise move to have the Irish play Florida State in 2014, Clemson in 2015 and Miami Hurricanes in 2016.

Both the Seminoles and Tigers have elevated themselves back into the national spotlight and appear to be annual Top 25 programs again. Both the Irish-Noles and Irish-Canes rivalries are classics with huge national interest (even if the Miami game last season was decidedly one-sided).

In addition to those games, Louisville snagged a huge spot in Year One of the three-year rotation -- potentially adding two more Top 25 teams onto the Irish schedule from the ACC. Not a bad way for the Cardinals to start off their first year in a new league, especially with the subpar nonconference slate they have for 2013.

As for some of the games that had already been on the Irish schedule, Notre Dame was able to keep its two-game series with Syracuse intact. The Orange are actually the only one of the 14 ACC teams that will play Notre Dame twice in this three-year cycle. But, as expected, Pitt and BC will lose games previously set.

Pitt -- the ACC team that has played the Irish the most with 68 previous appearances -- remains on the schedule for 2015. That means its games against Notre Dame for 2014 and 2016 are off. Pitt will play Delaware, FIU, Akron and Iowa in nonconference in 2014.

Boston College remains on the schedule for 2015 as well. That means its game against Notre Dame scheduled for 2016 is off as well.

Folks in Pittsburgh and Boston have had time to come to terms with these expected changes as part of the ACC-Notre Dame partnership. Looking at the bigger picture, the ACC stands to benefit from what should be an overall stronger nonconference schedule -- especially since that is going to play such a large factor in the future playoff. Should Notre Dame continue what it started last season, the ACC benefits even more.

As for the Irish, their future ACC schedules are not totally daunting. On paper, 2014 looks to be the most difficult with Florida State, Louisville and North Carolina all on the slate. But the Louisville and UNC games are in South Bend. Even in 2016, both Miami and Virginia Tech play at Notre Dame.

Of course, predicting the ease or difficulty of future schedules is an exercise in the unknown, since teams change so much year-to-year. But at least today, the schedule split looks exactly right.

The question many are wondering this offseason is whether Clemson can take the next step and be a factor in the national championship race.

ESPN Insider Travis Haney weighs in with his thoughts on that topic in a new piece, noting two key areas the Tigers must address to get there. He writes:

For one, the Tigers' yards-per-rush number -- 4.2, 69th in FBS -- was low. And that was with veteran back Andre Ellington and quarterback Tajh Boyd developing a run element to his game. ...

Secondly, coordinator Brent Venables' defense needs to continue its upward trend. Through the first six games in 2012, the Tigers were 112th out of 120 FBS teams in yards per play allowed (6.56). In the final seven games, however, the Tigers were 22nd in the country (4.91), demonstrating marked improvement under the first-year coordinator.

Haney spent time in Clemson visiting with Dabo Swinney, Chad Morris and Brent Venables for the story and has plenty of good notes in there. It is an Insider piece and you can check it out here .

The first round of the NFL draft is just a week away, so it is time to provide you an update with the latest predictions, mock drafts and rankings from ESPN experts.

First, let us start with Mel Kiper Jr., who plays general manager for every single team and predicts the first three rounds of the draft . It is Insider content, but here is a look at where he has placed players from ACC schools. Oh, and be sure to read his ground rules to have a better understanding of his thought process.

First round

• North Carolina offensive guard Jonathan Cooper (10), Tennessee
• North Carolina defensive tackle Sylvester Williams (18), Dallas
• Offensive tackle Menelik Watson (27), Houston
• Florida State cornerback Xavier Rhodes (28), Denver

Second round

• Florida State defensive end Bjoern Werner (36), Detroit
• Syracuse offensive tackle Justin Pugh (39), New York Jets
• Florida State Defensive end Cornellius Carradine (42), Miami
• Syracuse safety Shamarko Thomas (46), St. Louis
• Clemson receiver DeAndre Hopkins (55), Green Bay

Third round

• Florida State quarterback EJ Manuel (68), Cleveland
• Syracuse quarterback Ryan Nassib (71), Buffalo
• NC State cornerback David Amerson (77), Miami
• Florida State fullback Lonnie Pryor (95), Houston
• NC State quarterback Mike Glennon (96), Kansas City

As Kiper Jr. states, that piece is not a mock draft. It's his preference for each team at that spot. His mock draft features Cooper, Williams and Rhodes. Disagree with his first-round picks? Well you can make your own mock draft . Two thumbs up on that tool.

Kiper also has updated his Big Board , ranking the Top 25 prospects. Only Cooper and Williams make that list.

Meanwhile, ESPN draft expert Todd McShay has revealed the Scouts Inc. tier rankings , which list prospects by their ratings. There are seven tiers and 109 players rated, with 17 from ACC schools (counting incoming members Pittsburgh and Syracuse).

McShay also has named his All-Satellite team , comprised of the best prospects when playing in space. North Carolina running back Giovani Bernard checks in at No. 5. McShay writes, "He has super-quick feet, good initial burst and outstanding lateral agility. Bernard can stop and start on a dime, strings together multiple moves and is a slippery runner between the tackles."

Want more? Kiper also has updated his top 5 prospects by position .

CLEMSON, S.C. -- Clemson running back Roderick McDowell has a favorite word.

Blessing.

It is a blessing he is even able to play football, after being born with clubfoot, a congenital birth defect that impacts the way people walk and run.

It is a blessing he is still at Clemson, after he thought about quitting.

It is a blessing he is now getting an opportunity to start for the Tigers, poised to replace Andre Ellington as the next 1,000-yard rusher at the school.

Have there been frustrations? Yes. Rocky patches? Absolutely. Down moments? Without a doubt. But McDowell says he always kept his faith that everything would work out for him.

"My coaches always tell me a hungry dog fights and me having that fight in me, that’s what keeps me going," McDowell said. "I had plenty of opportunities to leave but I decided to stay. And look where I am now. God blessed me with the opportunity to be in a position where I can be a top running back at a top program. Having Tajh Boyd and Sammy Watkins and a great offensive line and stuff like that to keep me motivated and keep me pushing -- what more can I ask for?"

McDowell underwent numerous operations on his right foot and leg as a child to correct the birth defect. His right foot is smaller than his left, but that has never kept him from participating in sports. Though he was always small for his age, he was faster than every kid on the playground or the baseball field.

In seventh grade, he started playing football. Not surprisingly, he was faster than everybody on that field, too. McDowell quickly became one of the top prospects in the state and settled on Clemson, a choice that left others scratching their heads.

"When I first got here, everybody was like, 'Why do you want to come here? They have C.J. Spiller, they have Jamie Harper, they have Andre Ellington,'" McDowell said. "In my mind, I was like if you want to be the best you have to surround yourself with the best so that’s what I did. I got a chance to compete, and now I got a chance to be that top running back and carry on the legacy of being a 1,000-yard rusher."

There is no question running back is a position in the spotlight with Ellington gone. Offensive coordinator Chad Morris does not expect to rely exclusively on McDowell the way he did on Ellington the past several seasons. Instead, the Tigers are going to go with a running-back-by-committee approach, relying on McDowell, D.J. Howard, Zac Brooks and perhaps some incoming freshmen.

The goal is to average more than 225 yards rushing on the ground per game.

"All those guys are going to have to pull their weight," Morris said.

McDowell is fine with that.

"Even though I’m a senior I’m not entitled to anything," McDowell said. "My mindset is I need D.J. and D.J. needs me. Me and D.J. go out there and compete our butts off. This offense is not based off a one-back system. Andre was successful because he had me and D.J. pushing him. There’s always a rotation so that’s how I feel about the competition this spring."

And how does he describe the waiting game he has played the past four years?

"A blessing," McDowell said. "People are thinking me waiting was a bad thing but look at me now. I’ve experienced a lot but I’m in a position that I can show people I’m still here. Roderick McDowell is going to carry the load. I’m going to make sure you all know who I am. So it’s been a blessing for me."

CLEMSON, S.C. -- There have been some mighty great accomplishments at Clemson the last two years, accomplishments that have placed the Tigers into early preseason national championship talk.

But there is one gaping hole, one accomplishment that has been missing four straight years. You do not need vandals spray painting Tiger paws up in Columbia to know what it is. South Carolina has had the Tigers' number of late. And the folks in Clemson know that has got to change.

"Not beating those guys since I’ve been here, it’s rough," quarterback Tajh Boyd said. "We have to get a win. That’s a while away but again that’s on our mind as well. If we win that game last year, I don’t know where we end up at. Could have been the Sugar Bowl. So after that game, it was a rough loss being that we had the team to win. We just didn’t perform to our level of capabilities. We didn’t come out ready to play. They went out and performed better than us, but I don’t think we played near where we’re capable of."

The turning point in that game happened in the fourth quarter, with Clemson driving for the go-ahead score. Boyd threw an interception and the Gamecocks ended up winning in Death Valley, 27-17. Offensive coordinator Chad Morris believes Boyd would have been a Heisman finalist had he thrown a touchdown pass instead of an interception to lead Clemson to the win.

"Woulda, shoulda couldas," coach Dabo Swinney said. "When the game is over, you've got to live with the results. We know the reality of where we are as a program and we know the reality of that game."

The reality: Getting a win in that game is a driving force, not just for players who have never beaten the Gamecocks, but for Swinney, too. Clemson leads the all-time series, but South Carolina has tied a school record with its four-game winning streak over Clemson.

"There's only two things you can ding us on the last four years. We have not won the national championship and we have not beaten South Carolina," Swinney said. "You have to give South Carolina a little credit. Never ever have they been top 10 in the history of their school. Coach [Steve] Spurrier and his staff have been as good as anybody. It's not like we've gotten beat by a bad football team. This is a team that's been better than us on that day. There’s nothing I can do about it. We have to live with it unfortunately, and trust me I live with it every day. Every day you wake up and put this hat on your head, you gotta deal with the result of that game.

"I grew up in that type of situation and it's no different here. It’s a huge game and it's one of those things we haven't done in four years. I probably don't have the job if we don't beat them when I was interim. That's a major goal. Because if you beat South Carolina, you just beat a top-10 team. This is not an unranked six-, seven-win team. This is a team that's beaten Alabama and everybody across the board, and I give them all the credit. My focus is Clemson, and my focus is getting this team competitive enough to where we've got a chance to win them all. Not just one game. We want to win them all. Nobody is going to be satisfied here until that happens."

Clemson receivers coach Jeff Scott sat in a meeting Monday afternoon, doing post-spring evaluations when player development assistant Dustin Fry came into the room and showed him the startling news.

Explosions at the finish line of the Boston Marathon.

Scott raced out of the room and started dialing his phone, then sending texts. His brother, John, works as a surgical resident at a hospital in Boston. His sister-in-law, Kirstin, ran in the race.

No response from Kirstin.

Text back from John. He was in the emergency room at Faulkner Hospital, working on victims of the attack. For a brief time, John Scott had no idea whether his wife was safe. The last time he had heard from her, she told him she had completed her race and was heading back to the finish line to greet friends.

Kirstin was closing in on Boylston Street, site of the finish line, when she heard the first explosion. She wrote in an email to family and friends:

"The force of the blasts was confusing, disorienting, and everyone was running as smoke started to fill the street. The Lenox and Boston Public Library blocked my full view of Boylston St. - I could see some runners directly ahead but it was instantaneously a rushing crowd...all I could process was that something terrible had happened to the right and then left of where I was based on the sound/impact of the explosions.

"My immediate priority was to search for and connect with a friend who was standing near the finish line; I was beyond relieved to find them safe and remain eternally grateful for their solidarity today. By that point - we were one street parallel to the physical injuries and thus not nearby the blast sites. We did our best, however, to offer hugs, our phones and some sort of sensible plan to people who were in shock, crying, and fearful of the 3rd + explosions that, thankfully, never came. I wish I could have done more to help..."

All this, unbeknownst to John Scott.

In an email to his brother, John wrote:

"I was doing an emergency appendectomy. In the middle of the case, I was paged by the Emergency Department to tell me a bomb went off at the marathon finish line and that we were expecting to take on a lot of injured patients. My heart sank to my gut. I wanted to know that Kir was okay. But I had a patient on the table in front of me who needed me to focus on THEM so that they’d make it through the operation safely. Thankfully Kir texted me about 15 minutes later and the nurse read it aloud. It was the longest 15 minutes of my entire life."

John Scott ended up operating on several victims who came in with thigh and arm wounds, burns and severe fractures. He had to pull bits of clothing and ball bearings out of the wounds he treated. Scott had performed this type of surgery before -- he is in his third year of residency and was the senior most surgical resident on duty at the time of the explosion.

But never before did he have to mobilize in such a short period of time, to assess the emergency room and make split-second decisions on who was in most immediate need of surgery. Thankfully, every victim that was admitted into Faulkner Hospital was stabilized and surgeries completed before the day's end. And the Scotts -- along with their friends in the race -- were safe.

Proud of my brother John who is a surgeon in Boston. He was on call today and was able to help treat trauma patients from today's tragedy.

— Coach Jeff Scott (@coach_jeffscott) April 16, 2013

"It definitely hit close to home," Jeff Scott said in an interview with ESPN.com. "Everybody thinks that Saturdays in the fall are life and death but they're really not. Everybody's passionate about college football and their team, but when you have a brother that's in the medical field and you get to hear what he does on a daily basis, you realize what we're doing is just entertainment and what those doctors and emergency personnel are doing is truly life and death."

Indeed, what Kirstin and John came away with after Monday's horror was a deeper appreciation for the good in this world.

John wrote in his email to Jeff:

"People talk about scenes of chaos, but once the patients arrived to the ER, the nursing, medical, and surgical staff moved quickly and efficiently. This is why we train for years and years. To be ready, to be able, and to rely on each other to try and provide some comfort amid the suffering.

In the face of some nameless coward filled with hate and a desire to harm so many, what I’ll always remember the most is the way that everyone jumped into action, tireless and selflessly, doing anything and everything to help a stranger in need."

Kirstin vowed to run in Boston again, telling friends and family in her email.

"I know there is something stronger, better and actually lasting in this place," she wrote. "I witnessed it today in you - my friends - and many strangers, and it inspired me. One of the marathon mottos is "All In For Boston" - an ubiquitous phrase plastered along the 26.2 mile course; it reminds me to dig deep, especially for this race. Given today's tragedy, I am determined to think of creative ways to offer encouragement and real support to those who are shaken, and to make our response - including next year's Boston Marathon - a bold and forceful statement to all those who would wish others harm: their evil cannot conquer the Good. Let's do this."