In 2023, we won’t have ACC Coastal chaos. We will just have the top two teams — probably in the Atlantic — playing in the ACC Championship Game. While a lot of national college football writers might have a romantic attachment to the ACC WHEEL… OF… DESTINYYYYYY!, the reality about Coastal chaos and seven teams all being 4-4 in the ACC is that it sucks. Having a 7-5 or 8-4 team in the ACC Championship Game is and has been a black eye for the conference. It also wastes the value of the ACC Championship Game as a prime piece of television inventory and real estate on Conference Championship Saturday in early December, the day before the College Football Playoff announcement.
The folks at North Carolina State and Wake Forest would love to have the 2023 division-less format this year. Alas, they won’t get it … but at least this absurd idea that if you’re in a division, you get one half of the ACC Championship Game stage, will no longer be with us beyond this season.
Just look at the ACC Coastal. North Carolina might actually be the best team by default. No matter what, a not-that-great team — far worse than Wake Forest or N.C. State — will get a spot opposite Clemson in an ACC landscape which feels very familiar to all of us.
Pitt lost at home to Georgia Tech. (I told you not to buy Kedon Slovis stock. I saw enough of him at USC.)
Virginia looks bad. Virginia Tech looks bad. Miami looks awful.
Duke, UNC, and Georgia Tech might actually be the three best teams. Can you possibly believe it? Coastal chaos, one more time.
It’s not just the ACC, though, which shows why we need to get rid of divisions. Have you bothered to look at the Big Ten West? My goodness, that’s a train wreck, too. Minnesota, Purdue, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, Northwestern, Nebraska. Illinois is clearly playing the best out of all those teams. The Illini are FAVORED AGAINST IOWA this upcoming weekend. What in blazes is going on? The point, though, is that Michigan and Ohio State are cruising toward 10- or 11-win seasons heading into their end-of-season rivalry showdown, yet the loser of that game won’t play in the Big Ten Championship Game. A division winner from the West will.
That’s bunk.
Thankfully, the ACC abolished divisions. If anything, it wasn’t soon enough for Wake and N.C. State, but at least next year we’ll be free of this mess.
Author @MattZemek, Editor at @TrojansWire .
