ACC Football: Week 14 power rankings
By Jason Parker
Now that the race for the ACC title has some new players fighting for lead positions, here are our Power Rankings after Week 13 of the 2016 season.
After 13 weeks of close games, blowout wins and upsets that teams still can’t believe actually happened, the 2016 ACC regular season has come to an end. For the second straight season, the Clemson Tigers will be playing for the conference crown, this time against the Virginia Tech Hokies.
While those two teams will be hitting the field one more time before bowl season, the conference will be sending 11 teams to the postseason after two more teams got their sixth win this past weekend. Will that help change things in our weekly power rankings?
Here’s a look at our those rankings following Week 13’s action.
Well, it’s officially over. The underachieving Cavaliers from Charlottesville can finally, mercifully say that the 2016 season is over. What better way for it to end than losing by 42 points to their hated rival from across the state.
It’s not even so much they lost the game to the Coastal Division champs. It’s the fact that, like most games this season, the Wahoos seemed to not even really try all that much. It was 52-3 after three quarters this weekend, making you wonder why they didn’t just call it quits like they did the rest of the year.
In the interest of full disclosure, I had to look twice when I saw this score pop on the screen over the weekend. I legit thought that it was an early season basketball game that took place. You would think that a team who scores 61 points surely is going to win.
Then again, this is an Orange team that hasn’t been known for playing defense all season. After needing to win out in order to become bowl eligible, the men from Western New York give up 121 points in their final two games and get to watch the postseason.
It isn’t even so much that the Deacons are just a .500 team at this point since they will still be going to a bowl game. It’s the fact that, aside from Virginia, no team had a more abysmal second half to the season than this team.
From 5-1 to 6-6 overall, Wake blew a fourth quarter lead to a Boston College team that needed to win to become bowl eligible. A season that had promise of maybe getting to eight or nine wins is now one where you need a bowl win just to avoid a losing season. That, my friends, is why you play a full schedule.
I actually watched almost all of this game over the weekend (wife is a Miami grad), so I can honestly give an assessment of what took place: like most of the season, Duke went out and played a great first half before quitting.
It’s not like they still gave it an effort at the end — they flat out quit. Three seasons ago, this was a team playing for the conference crown and the last two seasons saw them go to bowl games. This year’s Duke team should be embarrassed for how they played and need to look in the mirror before 2017.
Speaking of embarrassments, the way that North Carolina went out and played for the first three quarters this past weekend was something that people in baby blue can’t defend. When you still have a shot at the division crown for a second straight year, you don’t play your worst game of the season.
For the first 45 minutes, a mixture of mistakes and playing down to the level of their competition means that not only will UNC not get a second chance at the conference title and beating Clemson, but they likely just went down a few spots in the bowl seeds from the ACC.