Taking stock of the ACC after Bowl season

The ACC could have used a credible bowl season. Sure with all the opt-outs, transfers, and COVID results you can argue that you can’t make sweeping generalizations about a conference good or bad, but results are results.

And they weren’t so strong for the ACC again. ACC Teams went 2-4 when at the very least they should have gone .500.

Clemson and Wake Forest, you rose to the occasion beating Iowa State and Rutgers. Clemson finished the year 10-3 and Wake Forest went 11-2.

NC State, Miami, Virginia, and Boston College missed their chance at their games and in the case of NC State, it was particularly brutal. UCLA canceled their game 5 hours before kickoff.

Let’s get to the losses though…

Virginia Tech got plastered by Maryland, and as my podcast partner said @Hokiesmash_ASD, it just shows how big the rebuild will be in Blacksburg. Yes, Virginia Tech was depleted, but that was ugly.

Louisville losing to Air Force sent Scott Satterfield straight to the hot seat. Surpassed by NC State and Wake Forest in the Atlantic Division, and by Kentucky in his own state, yea Satterfield is in trouble.

Pittsburgh was your ACC champion and played a top 15 Michigan State down to the wire without Kenny Pickett. Pitt was still a good football team. You really can’t knock them too much.

North Carolina, you can get on. It was embarrassing especially on the defensive side of the ball against a pedestrian South Carolina team. A pre-season top 10 team and the season ended at 6-7. Yes, you can question Mack Brown intently.

So taking stock of the ACC there is some good news though.

Clemson, Wake Forest, Pittsburgh, and NC State will give the ACC 4 teams in the top 20 for the first time since 2016. I would expect these same schools will start the 2022 season in the top 25 as well.

New coaching hires at Miami, Virginia Tech, Duke, and Virginia bring hope for better days ahead for those schools.

Only really Georgia Tech and Louisville have coaches majorly on the hot seat and largely disillusioned fanbases. You could argue Syracuse’s Dino Babers probably shouldn’t get real comfortable either, and Mike Norvell at FSU needs a quick start too.

The majority of ACC fans go into 2022 with hope, and that’s something.

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