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ACC Football Race: A Wide Range Of Outcomes

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The ACC football race is one of the most intriguing in the major conferences—perhaps no other league has as many varied outcomes that can realistically happen in November. This conference still has a longshot chance at getting a team in a national title game and earning an at-large spot in one of the BCS bowls. That’s one extreme. The other is that probation and a weak division could give them an incredibly weak champion to send to the Orange Bowl, where the league goes if its champ isn’t in the top two nationally. There are five teams with a realistic chance at the conference championship. Let’s break them down….

Florida State (8-1, 5-1): The Seminoles are the chalk pick to win the league and who I’ve got penciled in for the Orange Bowl in the BCS bowl projections we did here earlier this week. Florida State has overcome a lot to reach this point. They lost All-American defensive back Greg Reid in the preseason. They lost All-American defensive end Brandon Jenkins in early September. Now they’ve lost leading rusher Chris Thompson to a season-ending knee injury.

But the defense has continued to play at an extremely high level and E.J. Manuel has made the leap to being a conference championship-quality quarterback—the once-erratic passer has completed 70 percent of his throws, is averaging over 14 yards per pass and has a 16-4 TD/INT ratio. His team won its signature game over Clemson and has also beaten Coastal Division contenders Miami and Duke.

Florida State did get a break in that they did not draw North Carolina, the probation team who looks like the best in the Coastal and they lost a one-point game at N.C. State. But if November chaos happens in the BCS—and with five weeks of football to go, every college football fan that’s paid attention for at least the last ten years should know how possible that is—the ‘Noles could have a shot to move up.

They’ve got chances to impress with a Thursday night game at Virginia Tech next week, the regular season finale against Florida and presumably the ACC Championship Game. They just need Notre Dame and Oregon to lose games to USC and Kansas State to trip up somewhere, and then all bets are off when it comes to the one-loss teams.

Clemson (7-1, 4-1): The Tigers are hoping for some November chaos of their own, but because of their head-to-head loss at Florida State in September, it needs to start with hoping FSU gets upset by Virginia Tech or Maryland,  and paves Clemson’s way to the Atlantic Division title. But even if the Tigers can’t win the ACC, they can still win out and be a prime choice for an at-large bid to the BCS.

Clemson’s offense has been as explosive as advertised. While Tajh Boyd has likely been outmaneuvered by Manuel for conference MVP that’s more about the excellence of the latter than any flaw on the part of the Clemson quarterback. Boyd is completing 68 percent of his passes at better than 13 yards per attempt and has a 20-6 TD/INT ratio.

The early season suspension of receiver Sammy Watkins set him back personally, but not the team, as DeAndre Hopkins simply stepped up and is one of the nation’s most productive wideouts. Andre Ellington is a talented and explosive running back, also capable of catching passes out of the backfield if need be, though the team has not used him in that role as often as I thought they might.

The schedule won’t be easy. Clemson goes to improved Duke on Saturday, then comes home for Maryland, followed a tough home date with N.C. State. If they win those they give themselves a chance if Florida State stumbles in ACC play. And if nothing else, it sets up a Clemson-South Carolina battle in Death Valley with a possible at-large spot in the BCS (either Fiesta or Sugar) at stake.

N.C. State is also in the Atlantic Division, but because the scope of this post is focused strictly on teams with a title shot, we need to exclude them for the time being, as they’d need to beat Clemson and have Virginia Tech beat Florida State, in which case N.C. State takes the tiebreaker. It’s a longshot. But the Wolfpack are just in the wrong division and if they have a realistic shot at the Chick-Fil-A Bowl, this conference’s first post-BCS bowl prize if they beat Clemson.

Miami (4-4, 3-2): Now we move to the Atlantic Division side and things start to get ugly. Miami has been embarrassed in non-conference forays against Kansas State and Notre Dame, losing by a combined 98-20 and demonstrating what a huge gap there is in this division and the national elite. The Hurricanes have also lost more competitive games to North Carolina and Florida State, and do have a nice win over N.C. State, the one instance where a Coastal team won a significant game over an Atlantic foe.

Stephen Morris, the junior quarterback, has made nice progress this season, but he hasn’t gotten a ton of help from the running game and the rush defense has been absolutely porous. The good news for the ‘Canes? Virginia Tech isn’t running the ball well and Miami gets the Hokies at home on Thursday. If they win this game and Clemson takes care of Duke, Miami breaks out of a three-way tie in the loss column and into first place. Miami-Duke is the season finale in Durham and the Blue Devils don’t run the ball well either.

Duke (6-3, 3-2): The Blue Devils are the one Coastal contender to beat fellow division traveler North Carolina, the team that can’t win it. Duke also led Virginia Tech 20-0 early in their game a couple weeks ago. That’s the good news. The bad news? When it gets ugly, it spirals out of control. Losses to Stanford and Florida State were by a combined 98-20. And that Tech game? The Hokies dropped the last 41 points on the Blue Devils to win going away.

Duke can still throw the ball very well, with senior quarterback Sean Renfree at the helm and his three-receiver set as good as any in the conference. It feels like Connor Vernon’s been putting up big numbers at Duke longer than Mason Plumlee on the basketball team. Jamison Crowder and Desmond Scott keep secondaries honest and could be #1 targets at a lot of schools.

The question is going to be whether the Blue Devils can force every opponents like Georgia Tech and Miami into their style of play, or if they’ll be capable of winning a game where they have to run. In the upset of North Carolina, Josh Snead had a surprisingly good day running the ball. The Dookies need to see more of that if they’re going to be competitive against Clemson and then in the final two games. Please note that so long as they just beat Georgia Tech and Miami, they would only need one Virginia Tech defeat to win the division.

Virginia Tech (4-4, 2-2): Frank Beamer’s team hasn’t been able to run the ball consistently this year. Given they replaced nine defensive starters that can’t be a huge surprise. But they haven’t been able to stop anyone. With a renowned coordinator in Bud Foster and a veteran group back, this was supposed to be the unit that carried the team. Instead it’s let them down in non-conference losses to Pitt and Cincinnati, and then ACC defeats against Clemson and North Carolina where they gave up 86 points.

Logan Thomas is a good sophomore quarterback, but too much pressure has been placed on him. Nonetheless, the Hokies control their destiny. The problem is that destiny requires them to beat Miami on the road, Florida State at home, then take care of business on the road against Boston College and at home against Virginia. When you’re playing as inconsistently as Beamer’s team is, even “take care of business” games are anything but casual.

As mentioned a few times in this article, North Carolina is on probation and ineligible, which is unfortunate, because they are probably the best team in the Coastal. They’ve won two of three against the main division rivals, losing only to Duke. They’ve beaten N.C. State on the other side of the division.

The Tar Heels at 6-3 close with games against Georgia Tech, Maryland and Virginia and sweeping those games would have clinched a division crown. They’d have been a credible 9-3 team to play for the league title on December 1. As it is, we’ll have to see if they can call up Penn State or Ohio State and schedule a Probation Bowl.

November promises to be an exciting time in the ACC. We could have Florida State playing for the national title and Clemson in a major bowl. Or we could just have one team in a big bowl and that be Duke in the Orange. Or it could settle somewhere in between. Whichever way it falls, this conference is worth paying attention to down the stretch.

College Football Week 6 Recap: The Shakeup Of The ACC

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The ACC was rattled to its foundations in college football Week 6, and it wasn’t just the seismic upset that N.C. State hung on Florida State. The league’s powers-that-be had a rough Saturday and an up-and-comer in Durham might end up being the beneficiary.

Virginia Tech has been obviously vulnerable this year, losing non-conference games to Pitt & Cincinnati, but with no ACC losses on their resume there was a hope they could get it turned around coming into conference play. Those hopes went by the board in a 48-34 loss to North Carolina, where the Tar Heels pummeled the Hokies on the ground. As a team, Carolina went off for over 300 yards rushing, 262 of them belong to Giovanni Bernard, who put himself in the discussion for conference Player of the Year.

So if it’s not Virginia Tech coming out of the Coastal, then who? UNC is on probation. Georgia Tech lost its third conference game when their defense was overrun by Clemson in the final ten minutes on Saturday. Furthermore, two of the Yellow Jackets’ losses are to Virginia Tech & Miami, so they’d lose a tiebreaker. Speaking of Miami, they might be 3-0 and a good pick to win the division, but they were embarrassed by Notre Dame, a result will touch on further down.

Why not Duke? The Blue Devils came out against Virginia with quarterback Sean Renfree unable to play with an injured elbow, but David Cutliffe’s team didn’t miss a beat, as backup Anthony Boone went 18/31 for 212 yards, four touchdowns and no interceptions. The defense made life miserable for Virginia, getting a pair of picks themselves, and a 17-14 deficit was turned around into a decisive 42-17 win. Duke fans will be happy with getting to a bowl game, but they can be forgiven if they start asking “Why not us?”, when it comes to making it to the ACC Championship Game.

Now, back to Florida State. The Seminoles led N.C. State 16-0 at half, playing at home and only needed to close out the win for the Atlantic Division to all but be theirs, with the rest of the season about playing for a national championship. Instead, a high-efficiency offense run by Wolfpack quarterback Mike Glennon was able to chip away at the lead and eventually pull out a 17-16 win when Glennon flipped a two-yard TD pass with 16 seconds left.

The Atlantic’s now up for grabs. N.C. State has a shot and Clemson is back in the discussion, as the Tajh Boyd-to-DeAndre Hopkins combo helped the Tigers score 17 points in the final ten minutes, and turn a 31-30 deficit to Georgia Tech into a 47-31 win.

We might still get the long-awaited Florida State-Miami battle in the ACC Championship Game, but right now Duke-N.C. State is still on the board as a possibility.

Around the rest of the power conferences…

SEC: South Carolina pounded Georgia on the ground, with Connor Shaw needing to complete only six passes in the 35-7 smackdown in Columbia. Marcus Lattimore rushed for 109 yards and the Gamecocks doubled the Dawgs in rush-yard production.

It was a trend throughout the conference, as teams won games the old-fashioned way. Florida got a big game from Mike Gillislee, while denying LSU any movement on the ground. And even Arkansas got in the act, outrushing Auburn 130-40 in a win that likely means John L. Smith just dragged Gene Chizik down with him on the list of embattled coaches.

Pac-12: Sloppiness reigned supreme out west. UCLA turned it over six times and was hammered in a winnable spot against Cal. Oregon State played its worst game of the year, but coming against Washington State, they were able to survive 19-6. Washington couldn’t afford mistakes at Oregon and instead turned it over five times.

While Stanford’s 54-48 overtime win over Arizona was exciting, the failure of the Cardinal to contain the spread offense of the Wildcats speaks poorly to their ability to match up at Oregon next month. Finally, USC took a quarter to get in gear on Thursday night before beating Utah.

Big 12: Texas did about as good a job against Geno Smith as could be expected on Saturday night in Austin. West Virginia’s Heisman front-running quarterback was 25/35 for 268 yards. But the Longhorns broke down against the run with Andrew Buie rushing for 207 yards, so UT wastes a nice outing from David Ash along with the pass defense.

Another team with reason to be pleased with the secondary is Oklahoma, who picked off prolific Texas Tech quarterback Seth Doege three times in a decisive win. And I suppose Kansas State should be happy with the fact that a fairly pedestrian game from them still ended up in a 56-16 win over Kansas. The Wildcats didn’t stop the run very well, and relied on five UK turnovers to win. But when you’re not playing your best and winning by 40, I’d say that’s reason to feel good.

Big Ten:  The season continues to shape up as Jim Delaney’s nightmare scenario, with Ohio State and Penn State playing the best football in the league while on probation. Ohio State’s crazy 63-38 win over Nebraska came about because Braxton Miller outplayed Taylor Martinez in the battle of versatile quarterbacks, giving the Buckeye offense an extra dimension on a night when both teams ran the conventional running game well. And Penn State’s Matt McGloin rallied his team from 28-17 down against Northwestern and the Lions won 39-28.

It’s shaping up to be an ugly conference championship game, with Purdue turning it over four times and letting Denard Robinson run wild in a blowout loss at home to Michigan, and Wisconsin outlasting Illinois in a game neither team wanted to win. With Purdue, Wisconsin and Illinois the candidates for the Leaders Division title, the probations are going to kill the Big Ten Championship Game.

Big East: If you’re ready to conclude the conference race is about Rutgers, Cincinnati and Louisville, this Saturday provided no reason to change our mind. Even though the Scarlet Knights weren’t sharp offensively and penalty problems, they still ran the ball, played defense and beat UConn 19-3. Cincy beat up on non-conference Miami-Ohio 52-14. Keep in mind that Miami (OH) is a competitive MAC team, a league that’s already given the Big Ten fits.

Louisville was off, but potential challengers like South Florida lost, and Pitt-Syracuse played a colossal bore on Friday night in the Carrier Dome, a game that provided little reason to turn away from the baseball controversy over the infield fly rule that was brewing that night.

Before we wrap things up with our check-in on the mid-majors, let’s revisit the smackdown Notre Dame laid on Miami. If you’d have told me that Stephen Morris wouldn’t make any mistakes in the passing game, I’d have figured the Hurricanes would have had a good chance to win. The ‘Cane quarterback was a little inefficient, but at 18/35 for 201 yards and no interceptions, he played well enough to at least keep his team in the game. That is, if not for the fact the Irish absolutely annihilated Miami in both trenches.

Notre Dame had close to 400 yards rushing and was well over 300 early in the fourth quarter. George Atkinson Jr. and Cierre Wood both went over the century mark. On the other side, Miami did nothing on the ground. This game, along with the results from the SEC showed us that the game may have evolved into more a quarterback-friendly and speed-oriented place, but there’s still victories to be had by outhitting someone at the line of scrimmage. Notre Dame won 41-3, and is only team outside the SEC-Pac-12-Big 12 troika that needs to be accounted for in the national championship race.

The Best Of The Rest: The search for a possible challenger to Boise State in the Mountain West has to come to Fresno State. The Bulldogs played a good game, albeit against a below average Colorado State team, but are consistently getting good offensive balance with Derek Carr’s passing game and Robbie Rouse running the ball. Boise is still the favorite and they smoked Southern Miss 40-14, but the run defense did not look good, something that could trip them up one more time before the season is over.

Tulsa is now 3-0 in Conference USA, having pulled a rabbit out of its hat against Marshall. The Thundering Herd got over 570 yards of total offense, with Rakeem Cato having another huge day. But Tulsa scored on defense, scored on special teams and ran the ball well enough with Trey Watts and Andre Singleton to steal a 45-38 win.

We’ll wrap it up with UL-Monroe. College football fans learned about Kolton Browning’s passing proficiency in the upset at Arkansas and near-miss at auburn. The Warhawks won a key conference game against Middle Tennessee by going on the ground with Jyruss Edwards and Centarius Donald leading an attack that produced over 200 yards.

The Impact Of The Brandon Jenkins Injury For Florida State

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No college football conference in the country had the kind of impactful first week the ACC did. TheSportsNotebook looked at the implications of Virginia Tech’s win over Georgia Tech on Monday night as part of the Week 1 recap. But the ACC also had the most consequential injury—Florida State defensive end Brandon Jenkins is lost for the year. Florida State was a trendy pick to win the ACC (including here) and to compete for the national championship (not including here). Can they fulfill those goals without Jenkins?

I didn’t believe they were national title material to begin with, but I would imagine even those that did would have to concede the answer is no. As far as the ACC title, we can’t rule the Seminoles out, but it’s tough to consider them the favorite anymore.

Jenkins was more than just a good defensive player. He was an elite pass-rushing end, one of the best in the country, playing on a team in a 4-3 scheme that relies on pressure from the defensive ends. He was on a team whose offense has some question marks, meaning the defense can’t be merely pretty good. The Seminole defense has to be great. How do you do that without Jenkins?

Let’s acknowledge that the cupboard is hardly bare on the defensive side of the ball. Bjoern Werner at the other defensive end spot is a very good pass-rusher in his own right, and Xavier Rhodes is a lockdown corner. The ‘Noles still have only one underclassmen in a starting role on defense, so this was hardly a rebuilding unit. Florida State is still going to play good defense, get sacks and get turnovers.

But the edge Florida State had on Atlantic Division rival Clemson is that the Seminoles were great on defense. Clemson may have had players returning, but they were the same players who had 70 points hung on them in the Orange Bowl. Thus, FSU fans could hope to counter Clemson’s skill position package of quarterback Tajh Boyd, running back Andre Ellington and receivers DeAndre Hopkins and Sammy Watkins, with superior defense. Florida State will still have a better defense, but their defensive edge is no longer as substantial as Clemson’s offensive edge.

And Clemson’s defense might be making some solid strides. Another part of the Week 1 ACC landscape is the Tigers’ played very well in taking out an SEC foe, beating Auburn 26-19 on a neutral field in Atlanta. This alone merited a second look at the Tigers from those of us who picked FSU, and the injury to Jenkins seals Dabo Swinney’s team as the favorites to repeat in the ACC.

I had picked both Florida State and Clemson to make major bowl games anyway, but the loss of Jenkins means it’s time to do more than just switch places between conference champ and BCS at-large. Florida State is not a major bowl-caliber team at any level, including as a league runner-up. I don’t believe anyone else in the ACC is either, and that can open the door for non-BCS conference teams , headlined by BYU and Notre Dame, whom we discussed in the Week 1 recap.

The Brandon Jenkins injury was about as significant a development as there was in Week 1 and its ramifications go beyond the ACC.