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Friedlander: Depth is nice, but it’s more important for the ACC to have Miami and Clemson dominate
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Cal endeared itself to its new conference cousins by taking down an SEC opponent on Saturday. New coaches continue to energize Boston College and Syracuse. And Virginia finally appears to have turned the corner and is heading in the right direction.
The ACC has as much quality depth as it’s had in ages, which is nice.
But to anyone other than those in Berkeley, Chestnut Hill, Charlottesville, Upstate New York and the league office in Charlotte, the improvement to the middle of the conference standings is little more than a tree falling in a remote forest.
It might make noise when it hits the ground. But it will go unnoticed if there’s nobody around to hear it.
That’s why the best thing to happen to the ACC in Week 2 of the college football season was Clemson looking like Clemson again.
Yes I know it was Appalachian State, a team Clemson should never have trouble beating anywhere – especially Death Valley in a home opener – regardless of the Mountaineers’ history of monumental upsets.
But it’s not the result or the opponent that mattered here. The aesthetics of the performance are much more important.
The ACC has had a tough time of it already this season with no one ranked higher than 10th in the preseason polls. Then that team, defending champion Florida State, immediately lost its first 2 games to perceived conference tomato cans punching above their weight class.
Clemson’s 34-3 humiliation at the hands of No. 1 Georgia only made things worse.
With 2 of its 3 brand name programs stumbling out of the gate, the ACC desperately needed Clemson to provide a sweetener to cleanse the palate from its opening week debacle. And redirect the narrative surrounding Dabo Swinney and the direction of his program.
The Tigers delivered in a big way by hitting App State with the highest-scoring first quarter in school history en route to a 66-20 victory that put them back onto the national radar.
But that’s only the start.
For the ACC to maintain any semblance of respect outside its own sphere of influence, Clemson must keep winning and rising in the polls. The Tigers, who fell to No. 25 last week, moved up to No. 22. The same goes for No. 10 Miami, which also did what it needed to do on Saturday by putting up an equally big number in a win against overmatched Florida A&M.
Although no one officially connected to the league will admit it, the best-case scenario for the ACC, given the way this season has begun, is for the Hurricanes and Tigers to both run the table in conference play and meet for the title in Charlotte on Dec. 7 as top-10 teams.
That’s not meant as a slight against anyone else. It’s simply a reality based on more than just perception.
Because if anyone other than those 2 teams ends up winning the championship, especially if they have 2 or more losses, there’s a real possibility that the ACC could get shut out of the College Football Playoff for the 2nd straight year.
And this time it won’t have ESPN, the SEC or anyone else to blame for it.
Here’s why.
You know those automatic bids to the newly-expanded Playoff everyone is always talking about? They’re not as “automatic” as everyone thinks. They’re also not the exclusive domain of the 4 remaining power conferences.
Rather, they’ll go to the 5 highest-ranked conference champions. Which means that an ACC champion could get left out of the bracket if it is ranked, say, in the mid-teens, and 2 Group of 5 winners finish higher in the polls.
That’s not as far-fetched as it seems, considering that other than Miami at No. 10, the highest-rated ACC team this week is Louisville at No. 19. Clemson, at No. 22, and BC 2 spots below that are the only other conference teams in this week’s Top 25.
While Louisville has the potential to be a factor in the ACC race based on last year’s success, its schedule – which includes games against Miami and Clemson in addition to trips to Notre Dame and Kentucky – isn’t as favorable as the one it took advantage of in 2023.
That brings us back to the Tigers and Hurricanes.
Both have the national cache to be in or around the top 10 of the Playoff committee’s rankings once they come out, especially once the SEC’s Legion of Doom starts cannibalizing one another. They feature marquee coaches in Swinney and Mario Cristobal and a potential Heisman Trophy finalist in Miami quarterback Cam Ward.
And if the early season television ratings are an accurate indication, they’re also still capable of attracting a large number of eyeballs to a large number of screens.
Beyond favorable court rulings in Florida and South Carolina, the best thing that can happen to the ACC and its fight for relevance between now and December is for its brand-name teams to continue winning and remain in the national spotlight.
Anything else would be a tree falling in a deserted forest with no one around to hear it.
Award-winning columnist Brett Friedlander has covered the ACC and college basketball since the 1980s.
