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It’s appropriate that the ACC had a team playing in the Military Bowl, a game whose title sponsor is GoBowling.com.
Because like the pins at the end of a lane, the conference continues to get bowled over by its opponents during a postseason rapidly deteriorating from bad to worse.
ACC teams had 4 more chances to stop the bleeding and get into the win column on Saturday.
All 4 failed.
North Carolina barely put up a fight in losing to UConn in the Fenway Bowl. Boston College’s late comeback fell short against Nebraska in the Pinstripe Bowl while Miami and NC State couldn’t hold onto fourth-quarter leads in falling to Iowa State in the Pop-Tarts Bowl and East Carolina in the Military Bowl, respectively.
There were extenuating circumstances that helped contribute to 3 of the 4 losses. Just as similar factors worked against Cal, Pittsburgh, and Georgia Tech in earlier defeats. But opt-outs, injuries, and questionable calls don’t change the fact that the ACC is now an embarrassing 1-9 this postseason, with only Syracuse’s win against a depleted Washington State team on Friday saving the league from a goose egg.
There are still 3 more games left to play – Louisville against Washington in the Sun Bowl on Tuesday, Duke vs. Ole Miss in the Gator Bowl on Jan. 2, and Virginia Tech against Minnesota in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl on Jan. 3. But the damage to the ACC’s already sagging reputation has already been done.
Here’s a look at some of the lowlights from the latest round of disappointing performances:
Cam Ward was great … until Miami needed him most
You can’t blame star players for opting out of non-Playoff bowl games to protect themselves from injury and preserve their NFL Draft status.
It happens all the time these days.
But if you’re going to opt out, opt out.
Don’t go halfway. Like Cam Ward did Saturday.
The Heisman Trophy finalist started Miami’s Pop Tarts Bowl game against Iowa State and was at his gunslinging best. He passed his way into the NCAA record book and his team into the lead by completing 12 of his 19 first-half attempts for 190 yards and 3 touchdowns.
Then he shut it down, letting his teammates down in the process.
Instead of ending his college career in a blaze of glory and becoming only the fourth quarterback in ACC history to throw for 40 touchdowns in a season – along with a bite from the giant animated toaster pastry as the MVP on the winning team – Ward watched the second half from the sideline as his offense stagnated in a 42-41 defeat behind replacement Emory Williams.
The redshirt freshman, who saw action in only 1 other game this season, completed only 5-of-14 passes for 26 yards. Although he did lead his team to a touchdown on the opening drive of the second half, a possession fueled primarily by the running of Damien Martinez and Mark Fletcher Jr, the Hurricanes managed only a field goal the rest of the way.
And that left the door open for a late comeback.
Even after the Cyclones took their 1-point lead with 56 seconds remaining, there was still plenty of time for a game-winning answer. It would have been the perfect opportunity for Ward to come trotting back onto the field to engineer 1 dramatic final drive. But it didn’t happen. The soon-to-be first-round NFL Draft pick chose to remain a spectator while Williams threw a game-ending interception as time expired.
Ward’s first touchdown pass of the night, a 4-yard strike to Jacolby George, was the 156th of his college career, breaking Case Keenum’s Division I record. Going for the record and playing only half the game was apparently worth the risk, more than giving his team its best chance at winning.
A Beantown stinker for the Tar Heels
No wonder Bill Belichick decided not to go to Boston for the Fenway Bowl.
I wouldn’t want to have witnessed that either.
UNC’s 27-14 loss to UConn was ugly, And at times, embarrassing.
Don’t let the final 13-point margin fool you. The game was nowhere near that close. The Tar Heels – or at least what was left of them – managed only 1 first down in the entire first half and didn’t reach 100 yards of total offense until early in the fourth quarter.
One of their 2 touchdowns came on a 95-yard kickoff return. The other came long after the issue was decided with running back Caleb Hood leading the drive by taking direct snaps out of the Wildcat formation.
Interim coach Freddie Kitchens was left with a skeleton crew because of opt-outs to numerous starters on both sides of the ball, including the ACC’s leading rusher Omarion Hampton. Things only got worse when the team’s only other viable offensive threat, quarterback Jacolby Criswell, went out with an injury early in the game.
That left freshman Michael Merdinger, who has entered the transfer portal and plans to leave the program, as the only other available quarterback. When he struggled, Kitchens turned to Hood – a former high school quarterback – out of desperation.
In retrospect, UNC probably should have just said no to the bowl bid after Mack Brown was fired. With so much attention being focused on preparing for the future and the transformation to Belichick’s pro-style vision, those left behind apparently forgot to prepare for the present.
Too little, too late for BC in NYC
Teams from Boston have a historically bad history at Yankee Stadium. But there weren’t any curses working against Bill O’Brien’s Boston College Eagles in their 20-15 loss Saturday. Their woes against Nebraska in the Pinstripe Bowl were mostly self-inflicted.
BC drove into Cornhusker territory on 5 of their first 7 drives. But thanks to a pair of turnovers and 2 failed fourth-down conversions inside the 10-yard-line, the only points it was able to muster through the first 3 periods came on a blocked extra point run back for a defensive 2-point conversion.
“I thought we were productive, but we couldn’t score,” O’Brien said after the game. “That’s a problem because you have to score to win.”
The Eagles finally got their act together by getting into the end zone twice in a 2-minute span late in the fourth quarter, the second of which came after a blocked punt. Their comeback bid was halted, however, by a controversial roughing the passer call that gave Nebraska a first down and allowed it to run out the clock.
It was the second time in as many days that an ACC team found itself on the wrong end of a questionable official’s call. A day earlier at the Birmingham Bowl, the momentum of Georgia Tech’s game against Vanderbilt shifted dramatically because of a fair catch interference call that was rescinded and an iffy third-down pass interference call.
But in BC’s case, the Eagles would never have been in a position for a call to seal their fate had they taken advantage of their opportunities earlier in the game.
A brutal way to end a brutally disappointing season
NC State was picked to finish fourth in the ACC this season, so it was already a disappointment just to be playing in-state rival East Carolina in the Military Bowl. But at least the Wolfpack had a chance to salvage a winning record and head into the offseason on a positive note.
And for a few hopeful moments, it appeared as though that might happen.
Quarterback CJ Bailey and running back Hollywood Smothers, 2 of the team’s most important building blocks for 2025, led a fourth-quarter comeback that gave State its first lead of the game heading into the final 2-minute timeout. But as has happened so many times in big spots, a small mistake turned into a big problem when a missed tackle near the line of scrimmage sprang the Pirates’ Rahjai Harris for a game-winning 86-yard run.
There’s a reason why coach Dave Doeren wasn’t happy about the matchup when it was set on Selection Sunday. And why he tried to get the ACC to adjust its bowl assignments to avoid it. And it spilled over in the final seconds in Annapolis.
As if the 26-21 loss that sealed State’s first losing season since 2019 wasn’t bad enough, things got even worse when defensive back Tamarcus Cooley sparked a benches-clearing brawl as ECU was running out the clock to end the game. The scuffle, which left an official with a cut on his face, will make the rematch between the teams in the 2025 season opener even more intense and emotional.
Award-winning columnist Brett Friedlander has covered the ACC and college basketball since the 1980s.
