The ACC: an abysmally average conference
The ACC, who bragged about their two playoff teams and six bowl invites, promptly went 0-6.
By: The Waco Kid
Bowl Season Grade: D-
0-6, really? Are you proud ACC? You put up worse numbers in bowl games than the Big 12 did against the Sun Belt Conference this year. The only reason you don’t get a giant F is that Clemson and Notre Dame did make it into the playoffs AND if we gave you that low of a grade we had no reasonable score to give the PAC-12 to show how truly atrocious their bowl season was. When I received the holiday gift of reviewing the ACC’s bowl performance, I believe Bossman Slim’s exact words were “wreck’em.” I don’t have to (but I will), because the teams that faced them have already done more damage than anything I could possibly write. But you know how the old saying goes, kick’em while they’re down, and that is exactly what I intend to do.
Me to the ACC.
You know who else went 0-6 in bowl games? C-USA. ACC you truly are in the company of greatness this postseason. Conferences such as the American, MAC, Mountain West, and the Sun Belt all posted higher winning percentages. I can already hear it now from the fans “oh we played better competition, my weiner hurts, blah blah blah.” #23 NC State lost to an unranked team in the SEC and Miami played a middle of the pack Big 12 team that they should beat any given day. Wake Forest pulled a 3-3 Wisconsin team, meanwhile, #13 North Carolina matched up with a Texas A&M team that the conference gave their all to crucify, saying they weren’t good enough to be a top team. Finally the doozies: Clemson lost to an opponent they were supposed to squash, and Notre Dame...well that is what you get when you hang your hat on a win over a team missing the best player in the nation and then end up playing their A-team. I hope the ACC feels as stupid as they looked backing the Irish, who will give them the boot faster than a freshman on a John Calipari basketball team. The conference was a one night stand and now they can take that walk of shame and regret ever getting into bed with the Fighting Irish.
Yeah, it looks like that.
The ACC had earned respect as a premier conference at the beginning of last week and has since become the laughing stock of the nation. This fall from grace has slapped the league office right across the face, back into reality, and they will have to walk around for the next 8 months covering that monumental handprint left on their cheek. Some teams will take it personally and get better, while others will be haunted by nightmares of “what-ifs” until the 2021 season begins.
#18 Miami kicked off the bowl season with a berth in the Cheez-it Bowl against the #21 Oklahoma State Cowboys. Now the Canes have had their ups and downs throughout the season but this seemed to be leaning in their favor during the days before the game. But if we know one thing about Big 12 teams, it is that you have to put up points against them because they will find a way into the endzone. This strategy is especially efficient against air raid teams, who hypothetically, have their four best receivers decide to not play in a game. In this game, the U could not get anything going in the first half and entered the locker room down by 11. Unfortunately for the boys from South Beach, it only got worse as they were also hit with the loss of leader and quarterback D’Eriq King. Oklahoma State gave up a few more points to the Canes in the second half but the 21 they put up in the first quarter was too much for Miami to recover from. The Cowboys handed the ACC their first loss in the bowl games, 34-31, and it would not improve. Miami is the Texas of their conference, you can always expect a winning season but expectations any higher are lofty at best. However, I would still take them over UT any day.
The Duke’s Mayo Bowl pitted Wake Forest against Wisconsin. From the outside looking in everyone’s immediate reaction would be to put money on the Badgers in this one. That reaction would turn out to be the correct one. I mean, of course, the Demon Deacons were going to lose this one, the only reason they were chosen to play is because Virginia Tech opted out of a bowl game. The biggest headline in this showdown surrounded the disappointment of fans when Paul Chryst was doused with the traditional Gatorade shower rather than that of Duke’s Mayonnaise. Oh, and when Graham Mertz dropped the trophy, and a glorious new meme was born. UW did what we expected and went with the ground and pound, which provided 5 rushing touchdowns on the day and quarterback Graham Mertz added a sixth through the air. This all would have never happened if it wasn’t for Wisconsin MVP of the day WF QB Sam Hartman. Hartman threw for over 300 yards and 3 touchdowns, actually quite impressive, but also added 4 interceptions on the day making him the most valuable player for Wisconsin. Without Hartman’s performance, the Badgers would not have scored 5 touchdowns on the ground with a leading rusher who had just 41 yards. Can’t blame Wake Forest for the ACC loss, this one is on Virginia Tech.
This is now the second-most coveted trophy in college football.
Now here is where things get a little more interesting. In what I like to call the PackSlayer Wildcat bowl, the #23 NC State Wolf Pack took on the unranked Kentucky Wildcats. For those of you salty die-hards keeping count and finding “legit arguments”, this game paired the #5 ACC team against the #9 SEC team. Easy win, right? No, not easy because you are playing a conference that beats up on each other all year and then plays bowl games and takes that mentality and aggression to outside competition that does not know how to handle it. All I hear about, nowadays, is G5 teams not getting a fair shot or two-loss conference champions getting overlooked by the playoff committee. Every year we listen to demands by the people to expand the playoffs to 8 games, which I don’t think is a bad solution at all. But here’s another idea that you geniuses cannot seem to figure out (or more likely wish to avoid), why don’t you schedule one, or heaven forbid two non-conference games against top 25 collegiate talent? You don’t think the Cincinnati’s of the world would get more respect if they had, I don’t know, any teams that finished top 25 on their schedule? And I know that opens the door for Bearcats to say “oh we beat #24 Tulsa!” To that I say, you mean the same team that lost to the 12th best squad in the SEC? Yes, Cincy played Georgia a good game in the Peach Bowl, but with your best wins being Army and SMU do you really expect to be in the top 4? If a P5 team submitted that mock resume, they would immediately receive an F. Facts. Coastal Carolina’s best win was against BYU and then they lost to Liberty in a bowl game, BYU’s best win was over Boise State and then they proceeded to lose to San Jose State! What is going on in the world where any of these teams deserve praise? This isn’t pee wee sports, no one deserves an “I showed up” trophy. Oh man could I go on about the stupidity of these scenarios, but I realize I have gone completely off topic and would like to blame that on the very qualified doctors in Northeast Waco that prescribed me Adderall out of the trailer park.
“Yes, Doc. I’ll take all you’ve got.”
Like I was saying before I was interrupted by my own tangent, this should have been a sure thing for NC State, but it seems those types of wins are always the hardest to come by. The Pack had too many turnovers and were unable to stop a Kentucky rushing attack that ran rampant, to the tune of almost 300 yards, over a mediocre defense. Was this a surprise? Absolutely, but when you have to play Alabama, Florida, and Georgia within a month the big bad wolf coming to blow your house down tends to look more like a puppy than a creature looking to wreak havoc on your neighborhood. At the end of the day, neither team’s quarterbacks were impressive, but the Wildcat’s ground game proved enough to seal the victory, 23-21. The top performance award given in this game will undoubtedly be the Oscar that Brandin Echols receives for best male actor after being knocked down by NC State’s Devin Carter. Bravo kind sir, that deserves a standing ovation.
North Carolina and Mack Brown are a class act in the ACC and will be competitors for years to come. These guys flat out ball. They are not the biggest, fastest, nor strongest but they enter every competition with a winning mentality and hit their opponents square in the mouth any time they get a chance. With top recruiting classes in the near future, not only will the Tar Heels bring the mentality and heart but they will also increase talent and physicality within the program. Brown was idolized by many in the state of Texas during the early 2000s and will be the same for the state of North Carolina during the 2020s. Here’s a bold, shoot-from-the-hip prediction: I believe he will be the next head coach to win a Natty for the ACC. Smoke that.
That being said, none of these accolades were in the cards for 2020. We have to touch on his Orange Bowl loss to Texas A&M. This featured another SEC team, written off as overrated by the Atlantic Coast Conference, facing up and comer UNC. As much as the conference would have liked to wish a win into existence, it just was not going to happen. The Aggies played their worst 3 quarters of football all season and still found themselves down by only 7. This was not good news to a North Carolina team that played one of their best games through 3 quarters. The levies were bound to break and the Maroon Goons broke them down in the fourth quarter and let Devon Achane wash away any deficit A&M faced. FRESHMAN Achane rushed for 140-yards and two touchdowns, much of which came in the last quarter. The Aggies flooded Hard Rock Stadium in the final minutes and drowned out the noise of skeptics. While Macky Mack respected the Maroon and White, the conference did not and now conference officials can eat their words and run back to the east coast with their tail between their legs. Enjoy the moonshine, my dog peed in it.
I’m not sorry.
Now to my favorite part, those stupid little leprechauns that thought they may have a fighting chance at a National Championship. That mindset was as real as the mascot Notre Dame parades around on game day. The Irish got in by default, that default being the ineptitude of a committee unable to distinguish what fraud looks like. These dirty little green trolls convinced everyone they had a good program, regardless of barely beating a Trevor Lawrence-less team by only 7. In overtime. I never fell for it but I imagine the feeling being comparative to my Pre-K teacher telling us to make leprechaun traps and then cutting holes in them during nap time and telling us the mythical creatures escaped. I was duped and so were football fans this year. We all knew going into this game it was not going to be pretty. Notre Dame was playing Alabama after getting blown out by a less impressive Clemson. It was not a matter of who would win but if they could cover the spread in this game. They did because of the absurd line but that is no victory. Mac Jones and Devonta Smith, accounting for three touchdowns and 130 yards just between the two of them, pretty much wrecked the Blue and Gold defense, and then Najee Harris, rushing for 125, was there to add to the embarrassment. The Tide rolled, hard, and left ND in the dust for a 31-14 victory. Country artist Trey Lewis perfectly described the Irish football team’s Rose Bowl experience in his chart-topping single. If you know you know. The Catholics were sent to church by the Crimson Tide and made it to mass on time the next morning to ask for forgiveness after that performance.
The most disappointing loss in the ACC had to come from Clemson. This was Trevor Lawrence’s last year, he was supposed to lead them to the promised land again before becoming the number 1 overall pick in the NFL draft. Now neither of these goals might come to fruition. This was a game Dabo was supposed to easily win, but somehow gave away. The Tigers looked awful on defense and the offense could not seem to get it going against an Ohio State team that had faced no competition anywhere close to the same level. Credit this to OSU’s defensive film study because there was nothing else that could have stopped the #2 team in the nation. Justin Fields was out of this world with his 6 touchdowns, the majority of which came after a hit that I can only assume resulted in some kind of break. Novacaine is a hell of a drug. The running odds are 2/1 that Fields has broken ribs but Ryan Day found some witch doctor to clear him for the National Championship. The Buckeyes routed the Tigers 49-28 which makes the game against Bama that much more interesting. I don't know what Clemson was doing out there but it sure was not playing football.
You played irrelevant teams, teams you should have beat, and teams you publicly condemned and then lost to all of them. Your conference choked big time and cannot be redeemed or justified in any possible way this year. Play better teams so you can actually determine if you belong or not, but until then, enjoy your curved score of a D- thanks to the PAC-12.