11 ACC schools Bowl Eligible

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I see it like this:

Dec 2, 2018, 7:19 PM

***Note: as you read this please remember, I am old enough to have seen many bowl seasons and have seen how some teams play far better than they ever did during the regular season. Depending on the coaching staff and school and what bowl often teams don't respond well to the lay off.

Memphis vs. Wake - wake could win depending on which side of this schizophrenic team shows up! Memphis is a better team and should win. I would not be shocked if Wake won though.

Boston College vs. Boise State - the physical bowl. Boise is not the same team they were years ago. I think BC takes them to school with just enough athleticism more in the secondary than BSU is use to. And a DE like none they have seen all year! BC wins!

Minnesota vs. Georgia Tech - Tech wins b/c "tiny-sort-of" is not very good. If Paw Johnson is going to be coaching his last game; the players will want to send him out the right way. The Gophers are fairly one dimensional and not explosive on offense which plays into Paw Johnson's hands!

Temple vs. Duke - Cutcliff will have the blue imps ready! Temple is run it, run it then play action off that. Cutcliff does work during bowl prep time; remember Johnny football having to pull rabbits out his back side to beat Duke that year? Duke wins!

Miami vs. Wisconsin - you have an run 1st offense versus a really good defense that has no support(Miami). The only thing is the game is in Yankee stadium and them dudes from South Florida will just want to stick by the heaters. Wisconsin wins b/c Miami is horrendous on offense.

West Virginia vs. Syracuse - this could be a very good match up. If Dungey and company show up and ball like they are capable; it will be close. If they don't bring the offense it could get ugly. I have a feeling this will be a good game. W. Virginia should win in a close one; but I wouldn't be shocked a bit if Cuse pulled it off.

SCAR vs. UVA - Bronco and the Cavs will out perform the chickens in Charlotte! I know the Cavs have not won many especially lately. But, at one point they were ranked. They play good solid defense and the QB can hurt you if given time. The chickens will be too worried about buying up all the Alabama gear they can find when they get to Charlotte. Cavs win in a close one!

Cincinnati vs. Virginia Tech - Hokies and Fuentes just "can't get right"! Cincinnati wins this one big.

Stanford vs. Pittsburgh - the physical bowl. Outside of Arcega-Whiteside Stanford can be very predictable on offense. Even when Bryce Love was healthy; the non-existing passing game made opponents stack the box and force their QB's to beat them. They couldn't. Love couldn't run. Guess what: Pitt plays that style regardless of who they are playing and have CB's who are good at man coverage. I see Pitt winning this game believe it or not b/c The Cardinals style plays into what Pitt does best. Almost custom made for it.

N.C. State vs. Texas A & M - The Wolves will get a dose of Kellen Mond and Jimbo back in Florida here. Finley is a good QB and can cause a team headaches; but I see the Aggies taking this one.

Agree or disagree? Which ones would you change? All, LOL?

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HillRockTiger

I think that it is impressive to a certain point for any conference to have 11 teams that are bowl eligible, but it's important not to attempt to formulate an opinion on the overall strength of a conference based on the number of bowl eligible teams alone without looking a bit deeper.

When the majority of the teams in a conference become bowl eligible it tells me that the conference doesn't have very many truly horrible teams, but that information alone doesn't say anything about whether those bowl eligible teams consist of a bunch of mediocre teams as opposed to a bunch of good teams.

Consider that most Power Five teams tend to schedule at least 2 home games every year against opponents that are clearly overmatched and should almost always be victories. Some teams schedule 3 or even 4 OOC games against inferior competition. The ACC is in better shape than they would otherwise be given the mandatory OOC games against Notre Dame every year, but I think it's fair to assume that most decent teams have 2 almost guaranteed wins per year.

That leaves a total of 10 competitive games per year where a team only needs to go 4-6 in order to go 6-6 and become bowl eligible. Given that of those 11 bowl eligble ACC teams all but 3 of them (us, Syracuse and NC State) are either 6 or 7 win teams. That basically means that those 8 teams aren't much better than .500 in games against decent opponents. Couple that with that fact that we are the only truly dominant ACC team this year and only NC State and Syracuse are clearly above average (IMO), it's easy to see how the ACC was able to get to 11 bowl teams this year.

Back in 2016 when the ACC had 11 bowl teams this situation was much different. In 2016 all but 3 of those bowl teams had 8+ wins. We ended up winning the national championship, FSU and VT ended up with 10 wins and Louisville was a formidable team up until the imploded in mid-November and went on to lose their final 3 games.

As a result of the possibility of considerable differences in the strength of a conference in two years with the same number of bowl eligible teams (i.e., ACC in 2016 and in 2018 when we had 11 bowl eligible teams each year), I don't think we should put too much stock in number of bowl teams as an indicator of conference strength.

There's no way to sugarcoat it; this year's ACC is the worst it's been in several years.

Re: 11 ACC schools Bowl Eligible

Tends to happen when the teams aren't very good

Re: 11 ACC schools Bowl Eligible

I see it like this:

Re: I see it like this:

@Cornstock

Re: @Cornstock

Re: @Cornstock

The List

Re: 11 ACC schools Bowl Eligible

Not much - most of the postseason revenue

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