Back in July at the ACC\u2019s preseason media event in Charlotte, commissioner Jim Phillips proclaimed that his conference has \u201cthe most exciting collection of teams in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then last week, Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi doubled down on the statement by calling the ACC \u201cthe best conference out there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Give credit to both for their commitment to the narrative. Even if no one outside the league, least of all the members of the College Football Playoff Committee, is buying into it. While the ACC does have 4 teams in this week\u2019s Playoff rankings, only 1 is currently high enough to earn a spot in the expanded 12-team postseason field.<\/p>\n
That team, No. 9 Miami, is among the 6 conference members enjoying open dates this week.<\/p>\n
While we wait for No. 14 SMU and the rest of that \u201cexciting collection of teams\u201d to take the field for their Week 12 matchups, here are 5 questions to ponder before kickoff:<\/p>\n
There are 6 ACC teams with 5 wins — 1 victory from bowl eligibility. Four play Saturday. Of that group, North Carolina is in the best position to earn its postseason ticket against in-state rival Wake Forest. The Tar Heels have won the past 4 meetings in Chapel Hill, scoring 49 or more points each time. And they\u2019re coming off their 2 best efforts of the season prior to last week\u2019s open date.<\/p>\n
Cal also has some momentum after finally earning its first ACC victory last week at Wake Forest. But the Bears face a more challenging test in Syracuse, whose quarterback Kyle McCord leads the nation in passing yards per game at 350.3. Boston College, which is at league-leading SMU, and Virginia, which travels to South Bend to take on No. 8 Notre Dame, might have to wait at least another week to get to the 6-win mark.<\/p>\n
If Northern Illinois can go into the House that Rockne built and take down the Irish, then anything is possible. Right? The Cavaliers can do (almost) everyone in college football a favor by knocking Notre Dame out of a Playoff position. They\u2019ve already shown an ability to beat a ranked team on the road by taking down then-No. 18 Pittsburgh last week. And they’ll have at least some element of familiarity with former former Irish wide receiver\/running back Chris Tyree in their lineup. In order to have any shot at all, Tony Elliott\u2019s team will need to duplicate the defensive effort that held the Panthers to under 300 total yards and forced a pair of turnovers while getting a clean performance from talented, but erratic quarterback Anthony Colandrea.<\/p>\n
Castellanos is a dual-threat quarterback who was the catalyst for Boston College\u2019s winning season in 2023. He finished 3rd in the ACC in rushing with 1,113 yards and 13 touchdowns on the ground and 15 scores through the air. But with the arrival of new coach Bill O\u2019Brien and the switch to a pro-style offense, Castellano\u2019s production has dropped off considerably. He\u2019s run for only 192 yards this season. Last week against Syracuse, he completed only 2-of-7 passes for 14 yards and an interception before leaving with an apparent injury. His replacement, FIU transfer Grayson James, came in and rallied the Eagles to a victory. It\u2019s a performance that earned James the start for this week\u2019s game at SMU. And Castellanos a ticket out of town. Shortly after his benching, it was announced that the junior had stepped away from the program and will enter the transfer portal.<\/p>\n
The Cardinals are ranked 19th in this week\u2019s Playoff poll. But because they already have 3 losses and won\u2019t be playing in the conference championship game, they\u2019re effectively eliminated from getting into the top 12. But that doesn\u2019t mean they can\u2019t play a role in determining which teams do make it into the newly expanded postseason bracket, since all 3 of those losses are to teams ranked above them: Miami, SMU and Notre Dame. Winning out against Stanford, Pitt and Kentucky and jumping a few spots higher in the final poll would improve the strength of schedule for both ACC frontrunners while strengthening the league\u2019s longshot chances of getting a 2nd bid. It could be helpful to the Irish should they stumble down the stretch and suffer a 2nd loss.<\/p>\n
The realistic answer is probably no. If the Mustangs haven\u2019t already done enough to catch the committee\u2019s attention by putting together a resume that includes an 8-1 record with the only loss coming to No. 6 BYU and an offense and defense both ranked No. 2 in the ACC, then they never will. No matter what they do. They\u2019re woefully undervalued at No. 14, especially after dropping a spot in the rankings despite not playing last week. The good news for Rhett Lashlee and his league-leading team is that they control their own fate in the Playoff race. All they have to do to take the committee out of the equation is keep winning, starting with Saturday\u2019s home game against Boston College.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Even though No. 9 Miami is among the 6 ACC teams with the week off, there’s still plenty at stake during Week 12 on Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":378960,"featured_media":434440,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","tags":[],"class_list":["post-435411","article","type-article","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","article_types-scheduled","series_tags-brett-friedlander","teams-college-football"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saturdaydownsouth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/435411"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saturdaydownsouth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saturdaydownsouth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saturdaydownsouth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/378960"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saturdaydownsouth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=435411"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saturdaydownsouth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saturdaydownsouth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saturdaydownsouth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}