How many teams could Trevor Lawrence lead to the College Football Playoff?
By John Buhler
ACC/Notre Dame (2)
You could argue the ACC was at its nadir as a college football conference a season ago. Though traditional ACC powers like the Florida State Seminoles and Miami Hurricanes may return to greatness one day, there are only two programs in the ACC who can reach the College Football Playoff with Lawrence as their starting quarterback: Clemson and Notre Dame. That’s it.
Clemson Tigers
It already happened…twice.
Notre Dame Fighting Irish
Notre Dame will play half of its 12-game regular season against ACC opponents. The Irish will go up against Wake Forest, Pittsburgh, Duke, Clemson, Georgia Tech and Louisville. Notre Dame will be favored over all those teams except for Clemson this year. By adding Lawrence from Clemson, Notre Dame would be favored in all 12 of their games, including vs. Wisconsin and USC.
For the Irish to make the College Football Playoff for the second time in three years as a national independent, Notre Dame would have to go a perfect 12-0 to get in as maybe the No. 3 overall seed in the tournament. Notre Dame would have three likely top-25 wins over Wisconsin, Clemson with true freshman D.J. Uiagalelei at starting quarterback and maybe USC. They’d get in.
First team out: The one ACC team who could argue for inclusion might be Mack Brown‘s North Carolina Tar Heels. We know he can coach and he’s recruiting at an elite level for the traditional basketball power. However, Brown wouldn’t have enough built up enough depth for North Carolina to go 11- 1 to win the ACC out of the Coastal and maybe get the No. 4 seed in the tournament.