Give @MattZemek a twitter follow and check out his additional musings on college football at https://www.patreon.com/Zemek.
ACC QUESTION of the WEEK : Who are the leaders in the ACC Coach of the Year race?
Funny you should ask that question at this point in the 2018 college football season.
Coach of the Year debates in college sports — football or basketball — often follow this general path: Do you vote for the coach who has taken his program to an unexpected height, specifically at a school which has not tasted success for a long time or has not resided near the top of his conference for many years… OR do you vote for the coach of the heavyweight program in the conference?
In basketball, this means voting for the coach of an unexpectedly good Kansas State or Oklahoma State team which makes the NCAA Tournament when everyone thought “NIT” before the start of the season… or voting for Bill Self at big, bad Kansas.
In football, this debate has often emerged in the Big Ten. Urban Meyer keeps cranking out winners at Ohio State, but Coach of the Year votes have typically gone to other men who led unexpected uprisings at other programs.
In the 2018 ACC, we not only have this basic choice to consider; the choice will be featured in the spotlight of Week 11 and in the media lens afforded by College GameDay.
Boston College and Steve Addazio offer one version of a Coach of the Year choice. Clemson and Dabo Swinney offer the other. These are the two competing schools of thought, and they will be tested by the other.
I could launch into a long and extended dissertation on the ins and outs of this conversation, but really: WHY?
The winner of this game should probably deserve the award. The only scenario which might cloud the issue is if Boston College plays an incredible game and Clemson somehow still escapes. We could revisit the issue then and see if either coach did things well — or poorly — to in some way reshape the calculus.
For now, though, it’s Dabo versus Addazio, the winner gets the spoils in Chestnut Hill.
Make sure you follow the All Sports Discussion Twitter account at @AllSportsDACC and please like our Facebook Page
Leave a Reply