ACC teams in bowl games
- Thread starter HeelFan58
- Start date
Ended up with a huge Clemson "W" over a quality OU team in the Orange Bowl at 4-5. But, even so, I believe the ACC is definitely on a rebound and next year to some extent and especially the following yr, should be banner years for ACC football, given
a. The tremendous youth pretty much throughout the conference this year, with minimal graduation losses this year to virtually every team, (UNC, Clemson, FSU and Louisville all look primed and ready to be even better next year that this) and
b. A remarkable upgrade in ACC coaching this year, with pretty obvious SERIOUS upgrades at UVA, MIAMI and UVA, with PITT's HC gettng his first full year of recruiting kids to play his type of football.
Does look like the ACC is on the rise. We'll see. Big Ten has been a mixed bag as well. Michigan looked pretty impressive but UF was way overrated. On the other hand, Iowa got blown out and Clemson looked like a far better team than Michigan State. Ohio State looked like themselves.
People need to take a more balanced look at this past year. Yes, we lost to Baylor, which was a bad matchup for us. But we didn't lose by a whole lot and made some bad turnovers in the red zone and imo, had some poor coaching decisions. Turnovers also cost us the Clemson game. Not that we are better than Clemson but we definitely could have won and were in the running.
Next season, we'll see but there were a number of teams overrated like Notre Dame, imho, compared to their rankings. The bowl match-ups were not ideal due to contracts and rankings. We should have been in the Peach Bowl. Might have won, and FSU in the Russel Athletic where they may well have matched up better than we did.
The fact is bowl games are a joke and the way they are selected are even more of a joke. One cannot take the results of bowl games seriously anymore. I would liked to have UNC win their bowl game, but I guess it is difficult to motivate players for a meaningless game.
It shouldn't be and a bowl game for a 11-2 team shouldn't be meaningless..
Nick Saban has stated that he thinks the playoff system is going to make the bowls irrelevant to some degree, and I am beginning to believe him. It almost feels like if you aren't in the playoffs, then who really cares. Based on the results of some of the blow-outs we are seeing this year in the bowl games, it does appear that some teams aren't really giving a crap.
true competitors don't need special motivation to give 100% when they step out on a field. i really don't understand this concept of a "meaningless game." were you being sarcastic?
Have to agree, but even the playoff games had a dropoff of 36% from the year before?
Don't know if an 8-team playoff this year would have created more interest or not, but Stanford and Ohio State both made a pretty big statement in their bowl game that either of those teams would have been a tough playoff opponent, this year!
Don't know what the answer is, but I believe that the playoff games need to be moved to Jan 1st when viewers have the day off...
Mix with the fact that there are Coaching changes, suspensions and injuries, and the bowl game that was perceived when the teams are invited, becomes a less attractive matchup when any of the above 3 things happen prior to the bowl matchup...
i think we were a better team at the skill positions (due in part to baylor's injury list) but that game proved the old adage: football games are won or lost in the trenches.
The remaining bowl games besides the playoff need to be revised contractually so that the bowls have more leeway to match the top teams against one another. It was silly to have such a historic, esteemed bowl as the Sugar bowl matching 2 teams not ranked in the top 10. Ole Miss was good, however. Ok State, not so much.
Based on the final pre bowl rankings, whether deserved or not, that'd likely have had FL State or us playing Ole Miss or TCU in the Sugar Bowl. The other 2 teams of the 4 playing in the Peach this year.
Based on the final pre bowl rankings, whether deserved or not, that'd likely have had FL State or us playing Ole Miss or TCU in the Sugar Bowl. The other 2 teams of the 4 playing in the Peach this year.
Yep. Which is why I wont bother going to a meaningless bowl if I cant do the same.
So this pretty much limits me to Sugar, Orange, Pinstripe, Peach and Belk. I guess Nashville has an outside shot too.
