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After one game, the ACC has literally turned upside down.
When Florida State lost on a field goal to Georgia Tech in Dublin to open the college football season, the balance of power in a conference fighting for its own future went topsy turvy.
And until the Seminoles face Boston College on Monday night, they will remain the first ACC team in history to be in 17th – and last – place.
Think about that.
In the formative days of the Atlantic Coast Conference, you could be last by being in eighth place. For a few years after South Carolina left the league, last place was 7th place. As the ACC gradually expanded, last-place teams could be all the way down to 14th place. But with the end of two football divisions, the admission of Cal, Stanford and SMU means last place is 17th place.
And that it happened to Florida State was truly ironic, because Seminole Nation is still smarting from going undefeated and winning the ACC championship and being left out of the CFP, which accelerated the legal battle against the ACC and an attempt, with Clemson, to flee for the SEC or Big Ten or any league that might pay them more than the financially lagging good ol’ ACC.
It also means it is a wide-open race to finish first or second and qualify for the conference title game in Charlotte on December 7, Pearl Harbor Day.
And with Clemson under so much stress that coach Dabo Swinney is not taking live calls to his coach’s show due to the infamous heckler last season, the Tigers have lost the tag of dynasty after a 9-4 record and now open the new campaign Saturday against No. 1 Georgia and go to frustrated FSU on October 5.
It’s way too early to begin theorizing about who will make it to Charlotte, but what Georgia Tech showed was that a team picked as low as 10th in preseason polls can turn out to be much better than that.
Certainly, Louisville and Miami and Virginia Tech and N.C. State and possibly Carolina might have a say in the matter. Or even first-place Georgia Tech.
Louisville and Miami play on October 19 and the next week Miami goes to Tallahassee.
Virginia Tech’s toughest games, on paper, look like at Miami and at home against Clemson six weeks later. State plays at Clemson and UNC.
The Tar Heels’ only games against the reshuffled top tier of the ACC are at home vs. Georgia Tech on October 12, at Florida State on November 2 and the regular-season finale in Chapel Hill against the Wolfpack, trying to break a three-game losing streak to the arch football rival.
It may well go down to that last weekend to find out the best teams in the 2024 ACC standings.
Featured image via Associated Press/Peter Morrison
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
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