ACC Bowl Projections: 11-teams

The Confidential has been saying for weeks now that the ACC had a great chance of getting 11 bowl-eligible teams and detailed the scenarios needed to make it happen. I’m very proud to report that the scenarios we projected occurred almost exactly to plan.

The good news is that, thanks to Syracuse’s win over Boston College to close out their regular season, the Orange are now 6-6 and are bowl eligible for the second consecutive year. Furthermore, the ACC can now boast that they have 11 teams that are eligible for post-season play. That’s a record for the Conference and matches the SEC’s best.

The bad news is that thanks to Clemson’s complete meltdown on National TV against their in-state rivals, the ACC is likely to only have 1 representative in the BCS. Granted that one representative will likely be Florida State in the National Championship Game, but losing out on a 2nd BCS team not only means lost revenue (approx. $18M) but also makes it more difficult to find bowl sites for the remaining 9 bowl eligible teams.

Worst of all, that means that there is a good chance that at least one bowl-eligible team from a Power Conference will not be invited to a bowl game this year. Currently Syracuse, Pittsburgh, and North Carolina are all on the bubble.

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Until the Conference Championship Games are played-out, and the final BCS standings are released, it is very much a crap-shoot trying to figure out who will play where.

However, the following are some Bowl Projections that may occur in order to get all 11 bowl eligible ACC teams into post season play:

Bowl Eligible:

Florida State (12-0)

Duke (10-2)

Clemson (10-2)

Miami (9-3)

Virginia Tech (8-4)

Georgia Tech (7-5)

Boston College (7-5)

Maryland (7-5)

North Carolina (6-6)

Pittsburgh (6-6)

Syracuse (6-6)

Eliminated:

Wake Forest (4-8)

North Carolina St. (3-9)

Virginia (2-10)

Bowl Projections:

BCS Title Game (Pasadena, CA) – Florida State vs. Oho State Chick-fil-A Bowl (Atlanta, GA) – Duke vs. Georgia Russell Athletic Bowl (Orlando, FL) – Miami vs. Louisville Hyundai Sun Bowl (El Paso, TX) – Clemson vs. UCLA Belk Bowl (Charlotte, NC) – Virginia Tech vs. Cincinnati Music City Bowl (Nashville, TN) – Georgia Tech vs. Vanderbilt AdvoCare V100 Bowl (Shreveport, LA) – North Carolina vs. Washington State (from SEC) Military Bowl (Annapolis, MD) – Maryland vs. Middle Tennessee Texas Bowl (Houston, TX) – Boston College (From Big XII) vs. Michigan Beef O’ Brady’s (St. Pete’s, FL) – Pittsburgh (from American) vs. North Texas Little Caesar’s Pizza Bowl (Detroit, MI) – Syracuse (from B1G) vs. Bowling Green

Pinstripe Bowl (New York, NY) – Notre Dame (from Big XII) vs. Rutgers

Russell Athletic Bowl (Orlando, FL) – Louisville (American Athletic Conf.) vs. Miami

Week 11 Projections

Week 12 Projections

Week 13 Projections

UPDATE: A full list of the projected bowl games:

