Orange Bowl Open Thread

No question which team that is.

The only way to create the perception that the conference is a strong football conference is to win out of conference games. So, anytime a conference team plays out of conference you have to root for the conference team. The conference reputation is important if you want to play in a National Championship because you need that #1 or #2 ranking and having a lousy conference reputation makes it harder to convince the poll voters that you are a great team.

Sadly, the ACC did nothing this year to make anyone think it is a strong football conference. In fact, I’d say that this season has done a lot of damage to the conference’s football reputation. High expectations at the start of the year have crashed to a level of no expectations. If anyone says that the ACC is the weakest FBS football conference I can only reply that the conference’s record of late would not support an argument to the contrary. It’s hard to argue that the conference is strong when VT lost to James Madison and both GT and Clemson – last season’s division winners – finished with losing records this season.