ACC Projection

By Tim Cottrell
Sports Writer/Designer
Published: August 27, 2008

The ACC was probably the toughest conference to pick, other than maybe the middle of the Pac-10.

Clemson is good, but they’re bound to lose a game. I went with the Nov. 8 trip to Florida State on that one.

I see Maryland picking up an upset or two, and North Carolina doing a little better than I initially predicted.

Here’s how I see things finishing out (for conferences with title games I’m including the title game in the team’s record):

Atlantic Division:
Clemson       8-1   12-1
Maryland       6-2     9-3 (non-conference loss to California)
Wake Forest   6-2   10-2
Florida State   5-3     8-4 (non-conference loss to Florida)
N.C. State     2-6     3-9 (non-conference losses to South Carolina, East Carolina and South Florida)
Boston College 1-7   5-7

Coastal Division:
Virginia Tech   8-0     10-2 (non-conference losses to East Carolina - but only because it’s the first game of the season at a neutral site and I see them being caught off guard - and Nebraska)
North Carolina 6-2     9-3 (non-conference loss to Rutgers)
Miami         4-4     6-6 (non-conference losses to Florida and Texas A&M)
Georgia Tech 2-6     4-8 (non-conference losses to Mississippi State and Georgia)
Duke         1-7     2-10 (non-conference losses to Northwestern, Navy and Vanderbilt)
Virginia       0-8     1-11 (non-conference losses to USC, Connecticut and East Carolina)

Clemson knocks off Virginia Tech in the title game and gets an Orange Bowl berth. At least that’s how it would happen in a sane world, but that’s not what we’ve gotten in Clemson, S.C.