ACC bowl guide: Will the Tar Heels be playing football in New York?
North Carolina needed a win and some help to get out of the ACC’s second rung of bowl options. The Tar Heels got both on Saturday.
With their win over N.C. State and losses by Louisville (to Kentucky) and Pittsburgh (to Boston College), a spot in the Tier I pool came open for the Tar Heels (6-6).
UNC has a good story with the return of coach Mack Brown and the emergence of freshman quarterback Sam Howell. The Heels will be a popular choice for a Tier I game in either New York or Charlotte.
The ACC title game on Saturday in Charlotte, between Clemson and Virginia, plus the final College Football Playoff rankings will determine the final ACC bowl order.
What it looks like after the completion of the regular season:
College Football Playoff
Clemson (12-0) went into its finale at No. 3 in the CFP rankings and will likely stay there after a convincing win (38-3) over South Carolina.
The Tigers are on track to open the playoff in Atlanta in the Peach Bowl against the SEC champion, either LSU or Georgia.
Alabama’s loss to Auburn means the SEC will only get two teams in the four-team playoff if Georgia beats LSU in their conference title matchup on Saturday. The loss pushes Alabama down into the “New Year’s 6” bowl lineup and likely an SEC team (Georgia?) into the Orange Bowl.
When the SEC is the ACC’s opponent in the Orange Bowl, the ACC does not get a spot in the Citrus Bowl in Orlando.
The opponent in the Orange is the highest-ranked available team from the Big Ten, SEC or Notre Dame. The Big Ten (Rose) and SEC (Sugar) have contract bowl slots that have to be filled first.
So it’s basically the “third-best” team from those two conferences or Notre Dame. But that strictly goes by the CFP rankings. And while Notre Dame has a bowl agreement with the ACC, it cannot take the ACC’s spot in the Orange.
Based on last week’s rankings, the Big Ten (No. 10 Penn State) would have been the opponent in the Orange and the ACC would have had an extra spot in Orlando. The losses by Alabama and Minnesota (to Wisconsin) changed that equation.
Orange Bowl
A Virginia (9-3) upset in the ACC title game would put the Cavaliers (as ACC champions) in the Orange Bowl and send Clemson to the Cotton Bowl. If Clemson takes care of business in Charlotte this week, then Virginia will probably still wind up in the Orange.
The ACC has a guaranteed spot in the Orange Bowl. If the champion (likely Clemson) is in the CFP, the second-highest ranked team automatically gets the ACC’s spot in the Orange.
Virginia Tech (8-4) was the only other ACC team ranked last week (No. 24). The Hokies lost to Virginia on Friday. Not everything the CFP committee does goes by reason but it stands to reason that the Wahoos will take the Hokies’ place in new rankings.
As long as Virginia stays in the rankings after a likely loss to Clemson in the ACC title game on Saturday, the Wahoos will make their second major bowl appearance (Sugar in 1991) in school history.
The committee doesn’t typically punish championship-game losers that much. Northwestern was 8-4 and ranked No. 21 going into the Big Ten title game last year and lost 45-24 to Ohio State and dropped only one spot in the final rankings.
Orlando
The ACC has access to two bowl games in Orlando: the Citrus (Jan. 1) and the Camping World (Dec. 28).
The Citrus access is based purely on the CFP rankings. After the Week 14 results, it looks like the ACC will not have a spot in the Citrus. That could change, of course, but it would take some wackiness in the Big Ten title game (Ohio State vs. Wisconsin) — or, quite frankly, a mystery jump by Penn State (No. 10) or Minnesota (No. 8) ahead of Georgia (No. 4) or Alabama (No. 5).
Notre Dame (10-2) started the week at No. 16 and outside of an automatic “NY6” spot in the Cotton Bowl. Under Notre Dame’s deal with the ACC (it plays five ACC games per year), that drops the Fighting Irish into the ACC lineup.
If the Citrus does come open, Notre Dame will play in that game. If the Camping World is the ACC’s only slot, Notre Dame will play in that game. If both slots come open (again, unlikely at this point), Notre Dame would be the first choice and Virginia Tech likely the second.
Under the ACC’s “2-win rule” The 6-win teams are not be eligible to jump either Virginia Tech or Wake Forest (8-4) for a spot in Orlando.
Tier I
At 8-4, both Wake Forest and Virginia Tech are locked into two of the four “Tier I” games. The Hokies, with two wins over Division I-AA opponents this season, have been a confusing test case for the ACC.
If the Hokies had finished 6-6, the NCAA would have considered them 5-6 (counting only one of the I-AA wins) and they would not have been bowl eligible.
Even at 7-5, they would have been treated as a 6-5 team by the ACC and potentially blocked by the “2-win” rule. But at 8-4, an ACC official confirmed on Saturday that the conference will treat the Hokies’ record as 8-4.
There was no explanation given for the difference. It’s likely a matter of when the record is an NCAA rule (6-6/7-5) and when the record then falls under the ACC’s discretion (8-4 or better).
As a reminder, the “2-win” rule was created after Boston College was annually jumped in the late 2000s and applies to overall wins (the ACC record is not factored, neither is the head-to-head result).
The league will submit a list of eligible teams for the Tier I games to the bowl directors of the four games: Belk, Pinstripe, Music City and Sun. Since there are only two 8-win teams, all of the bowl-eligible teams are in the pool.
There is no order to the selections, rather geography is a primary factor as is avoiding return trips and repeats of regular-season matchups. The Music City is the fourth game this year (and not the Gator) since it was required to take three ACC teams over a six-year contract.
The Belk Bowl (Charlotte, Dec. 31) will likely take Virginia Tech and pair them with Kentucky (7-5) from the SEC. If the Hokies wind up in Orlando, the Tar Heels would finish the season against an SEC team in the same stadium where they opened the season with a win over an SEC team.
The Music City Bowl (Nashville, Dec. 30) also has an SEC opponent. It would avoid a regular-season rematch and likely take Louisville (7-5) to face Tennessee (7-5).
UNC (6-6), for its first bowl trip since 2016, will likely be the choice of the Pinstripe (New York, Dec. 27) against a Big Ten opponent.
That leaves the Sun (El Paso, Dec. 31) as the fallback for the Deacs, who had a clear shot at the Orange in the beginning of November but stumbled with injuries and three losses in their final four games. The Pac-12 is the opponent in the Sun.
Tier II
The Military Bowl (Annapolis, Md., Dec. 27) was hoping to get UNC. They’ll have their choice of Pitt (7-5), Florida State (6-6), Miami (6-6) or Boston College (6-6). They will likely take the Panthers to face an American Athletic opponent.
The Independence Bowl (Shreveport, La., Dec. 26) gets the second choice in the tier and will probably take either FSU or Miami. The other Florida team will probably wind up in the Gasparilla Bowl (Tampa, Fla., Dec. 23).
The only caveat to the Gasparilla is the ACC gives the schools the option to not play before Christmas since it typically coincides with end-of-semester exams. The Birmingham Bowl (Jan. 2) is the alternative to Tampa.
The Quick Lane Bowl (Detroit, Dec. 26) will likely be the landing spot for Boston College, who became bowl-eligible with Saturday’s road win over Pitt.
This story was originally published December 1, 2019 at 10:54 AM.
