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Column: Which Power 5 conference has most to prove/lose in November?
By Chris Wright
Published:
Now or never, right?
That’s November in college football. Big games. Bigger stakes. Everything to gain. Even more to lose.
That’s what Year 1 of the College Football Playoffs taught us: How you finish is more important than how you started.
Dabo Swinney admitted as much Tuesday night, minutes after his Clemson Tigers were voted No. 1 in this season’s first College Football Playoff rankings.
He remembers last year. He remembers Ohio State.
The Buckeyes entered November stuck in the mid-teens in the College Football Playoff rankings, critics still buzzing about their mind-boggling home loss to Virginia Tech in Week 2.
Everything began to change when the Buckeyes blitzed No. 8 Michigan State on Nov. 8, hanging 49 on the Spartans in East Lansing to jump into the CFP Top 10. The Buckeyes followed with another road win against another ranked team seven days later to climb to No. 6 and sealed their Final Four selection with a 59-0 wipeout of No. 13 Wisconsin in early December.
Ohio State then punctuated its still somewhat controversial inclusion by thumping No. 1 Alabama and No. 2 Oregon to win the national championship.
In doing so, the Buckeyes not only dented the SEC’s aura of invincibility but also gave strong evidence that Urban Meyer’s Big Ten is not Brady Hoke’s.
They changed the Big Ten’s perception.
Why does that matter? The Buckeyes — or another Big Ten champion — likely could lose once this season and get the benefit of the doubt when the Final Four is selected.
That’s obviously the case for the SEC — heck, Alabama already has one loss and still debuted at No. 4 in the 2015 College Football Playoff rankings, ahead of several unbeaten teams.
Given the backlash after curiously dropping TCU from No. 3 to out of the playoffs after it closed the regular season with a 52-point victory, expect the selection committee to favor the Big 12 in any close call this year.
The ACC? It has no such luxury. It has one shot to make the Final Four, which means it has everything to lose in November.
It has Clemson. Every other Power 5 has multiple possibilities. The ACC has Clemson. And Clemson has to finish undefeated to make the playoffs. Barring multiple losses from other contenders, there’s no other path.
The Tigers can blame their predicament on the team they host Saturday: FSU.
The Seminoles lived all last season on the accomplishments of the 2013 national championship team. Yes, Jameis Winston was back, but he didn’t return to Tallahassee in Heisman Trophy form.
Some normally astute ACC observers wondered whether the 2014 team was better than the 2013 team that went undefeated and scored points at a basketball pace.
In reality, there was no comparison.
The 2014 Noles consistently squeaked past opponents. They needed a gift call to wipe out what would have been a game-winning touchdown by Notre Dame.
They won seven games by six points or fewer.
The were unbeaten, but not unbeatable, which Oregon clearly showed in a 59-20 thumping that was as much an attack on the ACC as FSU’s defense.
That perception — the ACC is weak — is now Clemson’s biggest opponent.
The perception is real. FSU, at No. 16, was the only other ACC team ranked in the playoff poll. The Big Ten had three of the first 9. The SEC had three in the top 10. The Big 12 had four in the top 15. The Pac-12 had two of the first 12.
The AAC had more teams in the Top 25 than the ACC.
John Swofford wishes that were a typo, but the fact is his league has only one A-level team, and a lot of Cs.
North Carolina, which leads the Coastal Division, lost to South Carolina, for Spurrier’s sake. Pittsburgh and Duke lost to a different Big Ten team. Miami and Louisville lost to different AAC teams, very good AAC teams, but mid-majors nonetheless.
Even Florida State lost to Georgia Tech, which seemingly can’t beat anybody else.
The ACC is a mess. That’s the perception. Tuesday’s first playoff poll confirmed it. And there’s only one solution: Clemson has to clean house the rest of the way to have any hope of being selected to the Final Four.
Managing Editor
A 30-time APSE award-winning editor with previous stints at the Miami Herald, The Indianapolis Star and News & Observer, Executive Editor Chris Wright oversees editorial operations for Saturday Down South.
