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It’s truly baffling. Even the biggest ACC loyalist (Danny Kanell) couldn’t fathom just how brutal the first half of the 2020s has been to the conference.
We’re halfway through the 2020s, and an ACC team has yet to win a New Year’s 6/Playoff bowl game.
Not even a random Orange Bowl has gone to an ACC team. None of them. That’s almost impossible.
Read it and weep:
- 2020 Orange Bowl: L, Texas A&M 41, UNC 27
- 2020 Rose Bowl (CFP semifinal): L, Alabama 31, Notre Dame 14 (Irish were ACC members during COVID year)
- 2020 Sugar Bowl (CFP semifinal): L, Ohio State 49, Clemson 28
- 2021 Peach Bowl: L, Michigan State 31, Pitt 21
- 2022 Orange Bowl: L, Tennessee 31, Clemson 14
- 2023 Orange Bowl: L, Georgia 63, Florida State 3
- 2024 CFP First Round: L, Penn State 38, SMU 10
- 2024 CFP First Round: L, Texas 38, Clemson 24
That’s an 0-8 mark in those games, all of which were double-digit losses. The average margin of defeat in those contests was 22.7 points. Even if you take out the 63-3 Georgia result, ACC teams have lost by an average of 17.3 points in New Year’s 6/Playoff games during the 2020s.
(For what it’s worth, 13-0 Florida State got robbed of a Playoff bid in 2023 and Seminole fans forever have a legitimate gripe. But do any of us believe that a Jordan Travis-less FSU squad would’ve won a semifinal game and changed that stat? Let me say it in Spanish — “no.”)
Mind you, that’s for a conference with 5 national title appearances, 3 national titles and 11 New Year’s 6/BCS/Playoff victories in the 2010s. Not even ACC commissioner Jim Phillips can deny that the ACC has fallen off a cliff in the 2020s.
If the ACC just thought it was a random blip, it wouldn’t have changed its revenue distribution model to reward the elite teams. Well, the origins of that were the Grant of Rights deal that locked ACC teams into a TV deal that would get left in the dust by the Big Ten and SEC. It turns out, a long-term TV contract might’ve stunted some growth and at least been partially responsible for the ACC struggles in the 2020s.
But ultimately, that can’t be the only reason why the ACC has been a non-contender during the 2020s. There are still games to be played, rosters to be developed and coaches to be hired/fired. Six different teams were responsible for those ACC losses in New Year’s 6/Playoff bowls in the 2020s, though it’s been Clemson’s decline that’s been most synonymous with that drought.
It’s fair to wonder if Clemson is the ACC’s best/only hope to end the drought. After all, the Tigers have the coach who owns half the rings won by active FBS head coaches, and perhaps of more significance, they rank No. 1 in FBS in percentage of returning production. Clemson ranks No. 7 in the FanDuel preseason national title odds at 14-to-1, but that’s not the most relevant question for this.
Can Clemson win a Playoff game and end the drought?
At this point, Clemson or an ACC champ earning a first-round bye should almost count as an end to this drought. Last year, the ACC failed to produce 1 of the 4 highest-ranked conference champs and it watched its 2 representatives travel for Round 1 road games while Mountain West champ Boise State earned the bye. Nobody would’ve predicted that the highest-ranked Group of 5 conference champ would get 1 of those 4 byes instead of an ACC, Big 12, Big Ten or SEC football champ, but hey, welcome to the 2020s version of the ACC, wherein stuff like that just sort of happens.
If it happens again, it’d be a minor miracle. The 12-team Playoff could be changing up the seeding format as soon as this year if all parties can unanimously agree to abandon the reward for the 4 highest-ranked conference champs earning first-round byes.
Weirdly, that potential change could be to the ACC’s detriment. After all, producing a true top-4 team isn’t something the ACC has done in the last 4 years. The last time an ACC team finished in the top 4 of the AP Poll was when Clemson and Notre Dame (a 1-year member of the ACC during the COVID season) finished No. 2 and No. 4, respectively, in 2020. Ironically, the first year of the 2020s began with the ACC producing half the Playoff field … only to watch both Clemson and Notre Dame get blown out in their semifinal matchups.
To say that the 2020s have been unkind to the ACC would be an understatement. Granted, at least it didn’t watch its entire conference become a casualty of the TV rights boom era like the Pac-12, and I suppose the settlement with FSU and Clemson prevented the conference from suddenly losing its 2 biggest powers like what happened to the Big 12 with Oklahoma and Texas getting poached by the SEC. The ACC gets credit for being a school poacher instead of a school poachee.
But with the conference’s tweaked exit fee dropping $18 million per year and leveling off at $75 million per school beginning in 2030-31, there’ll be ample pressure on ACC powers to end the drought and experience meaningful postseason success by the end of the decade. Time will tell if that’s truly in the cards.
For now, though, that drought is a depressing cloud that looms over the 2020s version of the ACC.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
