This bowl season has had quite a lot of ups and downs, but for the ACC, it’s been mostly downs.
With Virginia Tech’s loss to Minnesota in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl, the Atlantic Coast Conference has finished 2-11 in postseason play. That’s swiftly become a hefty talking point for many, with one conclusion going as far as saying that this bowl slate is the final nail in the coffin for the conference’s era as a power league.
However, I’m here to assert that such a stance is completely unfair, with multiple aspects of the ACC’s recent displays being undersold, if not flat-out ignored. The first of said aspects should need little explanation: Just how heavy of a bowl presence the conference had.
In total, we need to remember the basic fact that 13 of the Atlantic Coast’s 17 teams made postseason appearances, with not one, but two of them making the College Football Playoff; that’s a respectable showing regardless of what the league does with it. And it’s not like all the non-CFP teams were barely bowl-eligible, as even without Clemson and SMU, the ACC had four schools finish with nine wins or more. Not great, but not terrible.
We also have to keep in mind the quality of opposition some of these guys faced. Starting with the Tigers and Mustangs, not only did they face playoff-level foes on the road, but they were names that are still in the hunt today (Texas and Penn State). Beyond them, we had Miami and Duke taking on ranked names in Iowa State and Ole Miss—while attempting to overcome absences at QB, no less.
Speaking of the Canes, they were just one of five ACC squads that lost their games by single-digit margins, so even some of the defeats dealt in smaller bowls, by smaller teams, could have turned out significantly worse.
No, I’m not exactly clicking my heels over the ACC winning such a small percentage of its bowls. But, with the narrative surrounding the league being rather unfavorable before this season even began (and how early into it we noticed that things were going to be worse than usual), we can’t pretend that this is, in any way, some unpredictable—or irreparable—offense. It was a bad year, and nothing more. You’ll live.