Chris Coleman’s Bold 2008 ACC (and VT) Predictions

The 2008 college football season begins next Thursday night, with NC State
taking on South Carolina in Columbia. Today we’ll roll out some projected
standings for the upcoming season. Most of the country is picking Clemson to win
the conference, but will they? If not, who will challenge them?

Picking games is tough. It’s tough to factor in team unity, injuries, or
teams just overachieving or underachieving. I’ve already gone through and picked
each game for each ACC team (that article will run Monday), so it’s time to
unveil the projected conference standings. As usual, these will probably turn
out to be very inaccurate.

First, we’ll look at the Atlantic Division.

That’s a three-way tie at the top between Wake Forest, Florida State and
Clemson. The first tiebreaker is to form the teams in a mini-division. Will that
break the tie? No. Each team has a record of 1-1 when you break them down into a
three-team division.

Now we have to look at their records within the Atlantic Division. I have
Wake Forest at 5-1 against Atlantic Division teams, with the loss coming to
Clemson. Likewise, Florida State is 5-1 in the Atlantic, with one loss to Wake
Forest. However, Clemson is just 4-2 in the Atlantic, with losses to Boston
College and Florida State.

That eliminates the Tigers from the tiebreaker, and since Wake is projected
to beat Florida State head-to-head, the Demon Deacons will earn the trip to
Tampa to play for the ACC Championship.

FSU and Wake meet on September 20, the third game of the season for each
team. Many FSU players will still be suspended as a result of their academic
scandal, so I’ve got Wake winning that game.

I also feel that Boston College will field a better team than many expect
this year. Matt Ryan is gone, but Brian Toal and B.J. Raji return from injury
and suspension to bolster what could be the best front seven in the ACC. They’ll
also have a r-senior quarterback and a group of solid, inexperienced wide
receivers. They could easily be a factor in the Atlantic race.

Virginia Tech is the clear favorite in the Coastal Division, and I believe
they’ll win it.

The Coastal doesn’t look like it’s going to be nearly as strong as the Atlantic.
The Hokies will take advantage of that, and will beat North Carolina
head-to-head in September in what will be a de facto Coastal Division
championship game.

I don’t quite buy into the Carolina hype this year, though I expect them to
have a solid football team. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen so much hype over a
team that won exactly four games the previous season. They’ll become a solid
program under Davis, but I don’t think they are quite there yet.

Finally, I’ll go ahead and pick Miami to sneak into a bowl, even though I
really don’t have any confidence that they will. I think the ACC will have more
than six bowl eligible teams, so I went with the ‘Canes.

Now that we’ve seen the standings, here is how the bowls will look.

Virginia Tech is a bad matchup for Wake Forest in the ACC Championship Game, and
the Hokies will go back to the Orange Bowl for the second year in a row. This
year it would be a pleasant surprise if they won it. If they did manage, it
would make up for last season’s loss.

The Chick-fil-A Bowl will pick Florida State, since Clemson played in last
year’s bowl, and they will have played their first game of the 2008 season in
the Georgia Dome. The Tigers will then head to Jacksonville for the Gator Bowl.
Wake Forest, as a result of their low TV appeal and small fan base, will drop to
the Champs Sports Bowl.

Boston College will get the Music City Bowl, where they’ll try to keep their
impressive bowl winning streak alive. UNC will play in their bowl game in
Charlotte and have a very good fan turnout. Miami will head to San Francisco.
Because the ACC will only have seven bowl eligible teams, no one will have to go
to Boise this year. The Congressional Bowl in Washington, DC will have to find a
team from another conference as well.

I’ll return Monday with my game-by-game prediction breakdown.