Bowl Picture: ACC Aftermath 12/8

Bowl Picture: The Aftermath
One of the over looked things that the committee did yesterday was to swap the order of Michigan State and Mississippi State. That caused the Orange Bowl to take the Bulldogs and not the Spartans. That screwed up a lot of the things I tried to tell you yesterday. The Citrus berth went away and the ACC was actually a bid short.

Rewind the Bowl Picture back a few days and…

Most of what happened was in line with predictions I made in earlier projections. Duke ended up in the Sun Bowl, Clemson in the Russell Athletic, and Boston College went to the Pinstripe but the Music City winning Notre Dame was a little surprising.

That also resulted in the strangest matchup of the Bowl season, the Belk Bowl. The Charlotte bowl managed to matchup Louisville with Georgia, which should be a good game. I don’t fault the Belk Bowl on taking Georgia when the opportunity presented itself. I do wonder why the bowl ignored the cash grab of NC State to get Louisville.

The Cardinals are the better team and would have to be taken before the Wolfpack, so it is possible that the Belk’s hand was forced either by the picking rules or some arrangement with the Music City. It will be a good game between Cardinals and Bulldogs, I just didn’t see it coming.

Pitt On the Short End

All these things conspired that there was one more ACC team than there were berths. North Carolina got to go north to Detroit for the Quick Line, and Miami ended up in the Independence facing South Carolina. NC State will be chilling by the beach at the Bitcoin.

Pittsburgh did not receive an ACC bid, but they did find a bowl home. With Army not eligible for a bowl bid, Pittsburgh got the replacement bid to face the Houston Cougars. There are plenty of good matchups out there as Michael Owens noted earlier.

Home/North Carolina Sports