Bowl Watch: The Deaconing

WE GOIN BOWLIN!!!!

So what happens now? Here’s what we know:

• CaliDeac I believed I am owed a free car wash coupon? Instead of the coupon I encourage you taking that 7.50 and going to donorschoose.com find a classroom near you and donate that amount. I’ll happily donate to it as well.

Editor’s Note: Blogger So Dear will match the first $100 of donations made. Just send me proof that you did it to my e-mail (Riley Johnston - email located on the masthead)

• Wake has a better record in the Belk Bowl (the best bowl) than league leader Clemson (shoutout to Wyman Faison for catching that one)
• Clemson is going to the ACC championship game to play Pitt
• NC State and Syracuse can’t fall out of Tier 1
• Wake can’t jump up to a Tier 1 bowl

That’s really about it. The ACC has done a great job of throwing up on themselves this year so there really isn’t separation between pretty much anyone besides Clemson and everyone else. Joe Giglio does a very, very good job of laying out the ACC in #YP format

As you can see: there’s a lot of blanks.

No one knows.

With Wake’s 6-6 record they don’t have a case to jump anyone. They don’t have the luxury of a game within proximity with a great home base as they did with the Military Bowl 2 years ago, as bowls usually don’t go to back to teams that recently.

So, I included these tweets for two reasons.

1. A decent amount of positioning is still in play with the ACC championship game and the VT game. If VT becomes eligible then all bets are off. If they hold the L, then things get a bit more clear. Marshall is 37th in S&P+, while Virginia Tech is 81st, so the spread should be fairly close since it’s at Lane Stadium.
2. The exam schedule for Wake doesn’t really fit with Tampa. The Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl (probably the best name for a bowl I’ve ever heard) wants the teams to arrive on December 16th, while Wake’s last day of exams is the 15th. That seems beyond suboptimal to tell a team that the day after exams and no practice they head out the next day and then have only 4 days to prepare for a game and ask a bunch of students in the band, cheer and dance team to have such a quick turnaround after exams for the pregame festivities.

So where does that leave actual realistic options for Wake? Well outside of shipping them off to Tampa, 4 bowls remain in the realm of possibility:

• Quick Lane Bowl in Detroit on December 26th
• Zaxby’s Heart of Dallas Bowl in Dallas on December 26th
• Walk-On Independence Bowl in Shreveport, Louisiana on December 27th
• Birmingham Bowl in Birmingham, Alabama on December 22nd

I think Birmingham is much more serviceable and accommodating to a team, students etc even if it’s only 2 days later.

As mentioned earlier VT is a key factor in this, but I think a big factor in this as well is: what do you do with Pitt? Coastal Division champions, 7 wins, but is having a brutal last couple of games against Miami and then against Clemson in the ACC Championship Game.

If you send them to the Sun Bowl, what do you do with Boston College? Send to Dallas or Shreveport? If you send BC to the Sun Bowl, do you relegate a division champion to Shreveport or Detroit?

If Virginia Tech wins, to me, the most likely scenario would be we get knocked out of the ACC tier of bowls, which puts us either in taking one of the affiliations in Tampa or Birmingham. If VT loses, we more than likely end up in Detroit or Shreveport. But as I said earlier with the muddled field of ACC teams, who the hell knows.

Of course here at Blogger So Dear we will keep you updated with information as up to date as we get it.

As always,

Go Deacs.