The only way to describe Week 11 of the college football season for the ACC is a complete nightmare. Tuesday night began with no teams from the conference being part of the Top 12 teams in the inaugural Playoff Ranking Show on ESPN, and it went down from there. After the games this weekend, any chance of the ACC getting multiple teams into the playoff is gone.
We saw the top-ranked team going into the week lose at home to Wake Forest and did not even score a touchdown. It may have been different had Chandler Morris played the entire game, but unfortunately, that was not meant to be. Another team that looked strong going into the week was Louisville, and they could not even defend homefield against Cal.
Now there are no undefeated teams in ACC Conference Play, and one of the top teams in line, SMU, lost games to both Baylor and TCU. Clearly, the Mustangs may not be as good this year as last year, but having only one loss in conference has them very much alive for Charlotte, as well as another chance of making the playoffs. Losing to two Big 12 teams out of playoff contention, as well as that weird loss to Wake Forest, really hurts the conference's image.
Speaking of the Deamon Deacons, I do not think the conference commissioner will be sending them a holiday card with big wins over the Cavaliers and the Ponies.
To add insult to injury, Duke is still very much alive in the conference battle but lost at home to UConn and has four losses on the season. While Duke has just 1 loss in league play, having losses to Tulane and UConn could hurt the ACC if the Blue Devils win the league.
For college football fans the ACC will be fun until the end because at this point who knows what is going to happen. As soon as you think things are starting to shape up everything gets turned on its head. Week 12 has some interesting games but from a conference strength standpoint to outsiders the best thing that could happen would be if Pitt somehow were able to knock off Notre Dame.
The Panthers are very much alive in the ACC race with only one loss in conference, and a win here would do wonders not only for their image and the conference but also eliminate the Irish from playoff contention. For the sake of the conference, they need something good to come out of Week 12 to counter what was the worst possible week that is behind the eight ball already.