Brian: Five weeks of college football are in the books, and the ACC already has six teams with 2 losses -- Boston College (2-2), Clemson (2-2), Virginia Tech (3-2), Georgia Tech (3-2), North Carolina (2-2) and Virginia (2-2). (Wake already has three losses and Duke has four). My guess is going into the season, only one of those six programs was really expected to have two losses by the first week of October, and that was Virginia. The rest of the ACC programs with two losses had much higher expectations going into the season.
Knowing what we know now -- with five weeks of the college football season complete -- who's the best 2-loss ACC team? What team is the weakest of the six? Your thoughts?
Jeff: Plenty of people, aside from us, had Boston College starting out 2-2. They just expected Virginia Tech not to lose to James Madison before beating us and BC to be a little more competitive in both games. Similarly, Clemson was a preseason underdog in both of the games it has lost so far this season. North Carolina was also expected to lose to LSU and then in the Georgia Tech vs. North Carolina game, one of them had to lose.
So is it really shocking that there is such a log jam in the ACC? Not really. At least I don't think so. Miami and Florida State only have one loss each but they looked very unimpressive in their one loss. As usual, the ACC is completely up for grabs. During the preseason, the list of potential division winners included North Carolina, Miami, Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech from the Coastal Division and Florida State, Clemson and BC from the Atlantic.
The only changes there is you can throw out North Carolina most likely even though they are favored to beat Clemson this weekend. Add N.C. State to the mix in the Atlantic Division, although they haven't exactly played a difficult schedule thus far. I'm sure many people aside from myself are counting out the Eagles too. But honestly, I'm more optimistic this season at this time than I was last year. In BC's two losses, we looked much better than we did against Clemson and Virginia Tech last year. If one quarterback can start and play the whole game Saturday and then from here on out, we still have legitimate potential since we haven't played an Atlantic Division game yet and Montel Harris had so much success within the division last season.
Getting back to your question, Virignia Tech is clearly the best two loss team. One loss came to a top 5 team and they have the only win in the group over a then top 25 team when they beat N.C. State on Saturday. The worst, without question is Virginia who got slaughtered by Florida State at home on Saturday. The 'Hoos hanging with USC earlier this season looks less impressive now that USC has dropped out of the polls. Clemson is the team that we know the least about. They've beaten two not-very-good teams and lost two close games to teams that may be really good or might only be kind of average once more of the season plays out.
I think the Coastal Division looks something like this which is very similar to preseason media predictions:
1. Miami
2. Virginia Tech
3. Georgia Tech
4. North Carolina
5t. Virginia -- will not finish bowl eligible
5t. Duke -- will not finish bowl eligible
I'll tell you how I think the Atlantic Division will play out after this weekend when we see what Clemson, Florida State, Wake Forest and Boston College do. All are underdogs.