I’m not totally sure of how to say this, but everything is bad for the ACC right now. The gulf between Clemson and everyone else just continues to grow as the season goes on.
The Atlantic Coast Conference had a pretty rough weekend. Week 3 of the 2019 college football season could have gone better for the once-proud conference. Instead, some of the conference’s best teams (besides Clemson) were beaten badly. Oh, and Georgia Tech lost to The Citadel, which is an FCS team and was previously winless after losing to Towson and Elon.
Virginia Tech struggled to take care of Furman, NC State was beaten up by West Virginia, and Virginia needed a huge comeback and barely beat Florida State, which is a problem for Virginia and maybe the ACC in terms of optics. It isn’t even a good thing for Florida State because the Seminoles blew another lead and lost another winnable game.
Now there are FSU fans selling lemonade to try and raise money to buyout Willie Taggart’s contract, Georgia Tech lost to the Bulldogs (but not the Georgia Bulldogs), and the sky is falling in the ACC right now.
Except for Clemson. The Tigers are fine and will probably compete for another national title this season. That hasn’t changed.
Georgia Tech is not good. We knew that the Yellow Jackets would struggle this season, but losing to a previously winless FCS team wasn’t on the agenda for Geoff Collins and Georgia Tech. Nevertheless, Georgia Tech did just that when they lost to The Citadel. That sort of loss cements Georgia Tech’s standings here at the bottom of the ACC’s power rankings.
Things are rough for Florida State football fans right now. The Seminoles have a ton of potential on offense thanks to the controversial hire of Kendal Briles, but FSU is completely incapable of closing out games right now. The Noles blew a solid lead against Boise State and then lost again when Virginia scored 21 points in the 4th quarter on Saturday. Now a four-year-old fan is selling lemonade to try and buy out Willie Taggart’s contract. Things could be better in Tallahassee.
Slowly but surely, Scott Satterfield and the Louisville Cardinals are moving up in the world. Louisville’s win over Western Kentucky isn’t all that impressive in the grand scheme of things, but Satterfield is working on building a program. And to do that, winning any and every possible game is important. Louisville did just that and did so with relative ease.
In what was maybe the dumbest game of the season up to this point, the Pittsburgh Panthers fell to the Penn State Nittany Lions 17-10. Penn State might be a pretty good team, so I’m not penalizing Pitt for a close loss here. I’m penalizing Pitt for how the Panthers lost. Pitt’s quarterback threw for 372 yards, but the Panthers only scored 10 points. The Panthers were down seven late in the 4th quarter, at the one-yard line, and they couldn’t score any points. Pat Narduzzi’s team chose to kick a field goal and it bounced off of the uprights. Good job, Pitt.
Boston College gave college football fans everywhere something to talk about on Friday night. The Eagles, in a magnificently horrible display, lost to Kansas at home, giving the Jayhawks their first road win over a Power 5 opponent in over a decade. The Eagles were slowly and steadily moving up in the ACC. This past weekend, they fell to one of the worst programs in all of college football and lost by 24 points. Good job, Boston College, you made history.
Syracuse was stomped on by Clemson. There’s not much else to add here. The Orange looked bad while the Tigers looked very, very good. And Clemson is very, very good. That’s just the nature of that team and there’s no real shame in losing to the Tigers. Syracuse was simply unable to mimic the magic they’ve had over the past couple of seasons against Clemson and couldn’t even keep this game close.
Virginia Tech had a pretty hard time taking down the Furman Paladins. Furman isn’t even a great FCS team and the Hokies still found a way to make this game more difficult than it should have been. Virginia Tech won, despite being down 14-3 at the half, but the Hokies will have to play better against conference foes.
Like many of its ACC colleagues, North Carolina State s a roller coaster this season. One week the Wolfpack is trending up, looking like one of the best teams in the conference. The next they’re plummeting down to earth at an alarming rate because a rebuilding West Virginia team dragged them up and down the field. But, at least “Wolfpack” sounds like it could be a pretty exciting roller coaster.
The North Carolina Tar Heels are no longer undefeated, and that’s kind of heartbreaking. Mack Brown’s team went up against Wake Forest and slowed the Demon Deacons’ explosive offense, but that wasn’t enough. With this conference being up in the air and all over the place, North Carolina will have plenty of opportunities up ahead to bounce back from this loss.
This conference is the embodiment of chaos this season. That helps teams like North Carolina and Miami who are in the midst of rebuilding and are trying to gain some relevance. Under normal circumstances, a 63-0 win over a team like Bethune-Cookman wouldn’t move Miami up all that much. But these aren’t normal circumstances and the ACC is far from being a normal conference this season.
Congrats, Duke. You moved up in the ACC power rankings. You also seemed to be capable of fielding a competent football this past weekend, which is better than many of the other teams in this conference at the moment. Beating up on Middle Tennessee State isn’t all that noteworthy, but you got a win, and that matters.
Virginia might be a good team, by chaotic and crazy ACC standards, that is. But, the Cavaliers needed a comeback (a pretty impressive one) to defeat a hapless Florida State. Virginia got the win, but the Cavaliers will need to win these sorts of games by larger and wider margins if they really want to be taken seriously in a conference that is having a down year.
Wake Forest’s offense makes the Demon Deacons a blast to watch most weeks. However, North Carolina found a way to nullify that offense in the second half of their matchup on Friday night. That put Wake Forest in a dangerous position. The Demon Deacons aren’t going to win many games in which they were outscored 18-3 in the second half. They did this past week, but Dave Clawson’s offense could use some work when it faces tougher foes.
The Clemson Tigers aren’t going anywhere this week. They’re still, by far, the best team that the ACC has to offer. The Tigers proved that their offense is still one of the best in the country as it easily scored points by the dozens on Syracuse. Although the Orange have given the Tigers a tough challenge in recent seasons, Clemson processed Syracuse with ease on Saturday.