It feels like yesterday we were waiting for college football to start, and yet the reality is that the season is halfway done. As the year began how many thought that the Atlantic Coast Conference would have two teams in the Top 5, or three in the Top 10? Less than two months ago who would have imagined that this week the most talked about match up would be #5 FSU at #Clemson, with College Game Day being televised from South Carolina to give it the most coverage possible.
While there is still way too many games to be played to figure out which of the ten teams will be playing in the best bowl games, the ACC should be worried about something else when it comes to this football campaign. The conference has a total of eight bowl tie ins, but they could have more than eight programs eligible this season.
“In a press release, the conference confirmed it will have eight tie-ins for this year’s bowl season as well as one conditional contract. The eight bowls are the Military, Russell Athletic, Belk, Music City, AdvoCare V100, Sun, Chick-fil-A and Orange.”
As we spoke about just, now both Clemson (6-0) and Florida State (6-0) are a locks, along with Miami (5-0), Virginia Tech (6-1) and Maryland (5-1). With Duke having four wins and a total of six teams with three wins, five of them still having six games to play, Pittsburgh having one more, this could lead up to an overabundance of squads compared to the bowls available.
Having said all of that, and maybe being a bit bias, even with North Carolina having just one win on the season, but with Boston College, N.C. State, Virginia, Old Dominion and Duke on the schedule, it’s not a far a stretch to believe that the Tar Heels could finish at 6 and 6 on the year.
After having skimmed over all the schedules of the ACC teams I believe that the conference will only have three programs that will not be bowl eligible… Syracuse, Virginia and Wake Forest.
Three teams will have double digit wins, a pair of programs winning eleven games, Clemson and Miami, another winning ten, Florida State. Virginia Tech being right behind the top programs, getting to nine victories on the season. Maryland ending the season with a total of eight wins in all.
The rest of the programs could all be good enough to make it to the post season by reaching six/seven wins. And this will be when the dilemma will commence, as it will up to whomever to see who will go and who will not, and that is going to be interested to see how those teams will be picked, especially when I think five or six squads will be at .500 when the season is over.
Once you are done thinking which teams might make it into a bowl game and which won’t, here is another question to ponder about… could the Atlantic Coast Conference have a chance, with Clemson and Miami, to put a pair of squads into the BCS? If that was to be the case, even with all the conference realignment that has happened, you have to admit that the ACC is in a good place right now.
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