With all the bowl games complete and only the National title game left, the ACC ties the Big Ten at .556 winning percentage which tops the Big 12 (.33), the Pact12 (.429) and the SEC (.545)
| Conference | Win-Loss | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| AMERICAN (7) | 4-3 | .571 |
| ACC (9) | 5-4 | .556 |
| BIG 12 (8) | 2-6 | .333 |
| BIG TEN (9) | 5-4 | .556 |
| C-USA (6) | 3-3 | .500 |
| INDEPENDENTS (5) | 3-2 | .600 |
| MAC (6) | 4-2 | .667 |
| MOUNTAIN WEST (7) | 3-4 | .429 |
| PAC-12 (7) | 3-4 | .429 |
| SEC (11) | 6-5 | .545 |
| SUN BELT (7) | 3-4 | .429 |
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Comments
I don't want to be pedantic (well, I do but that's not the point) tied doesn't really feel like the best. And does the championship game not count cuz I'm pretty sure that if UGA wins, then I'll just say it means more.
That aside nice summary, we know bar1990 will barely be able to contain himself cuz you used a table and this is quasi- definitive proof that the much maligned ACC is not all that bad
The acc isn't great. But this is absolutely not the worst season in history for the league.
I think there are a few clear heavyweights and then everyone else. It looks like every conference is kinda mid. A couple conferences have juggernauts at the top.
Absolutely, not to mention you end up with weird matchups with teams that have never played each other and opt outs (just a note on roster not an indictment or encouragement) and games like ole miss/Texas tech where they left the punters at home
What bowl is the championship game?
The champion-ship bowl presented by NASSCO? I don't know it's a post season game. Is the measure whether it has bowl or championship in the name because I'm pretty sure every bowl game has a trophy which by extension (there's layers here) is a championship.
I'm just trying to clarify our metrics - it's up to you
Edit: the gif didn't load when I first came back and responded. - totally with you then it's all calvinball
It's is going to get wierd with the play off expansion. The first round is going to be played at the schools so we would then have a play-in game to a bowl game? Bowl selection doesn't happen for major bowls in the future? Cause right now the major bowls have an agreement on who gets to select the teams first (as they've had since the BCS). The only difference is the first bowl agrees to go 1v4 and the 2nd bowl 2v3). Then BCS inc.(who owns the championship game and the playoff) runs the championship game which can be at any venue that applies and is selected by BCS Inc. It's just an add on game after all bowl games complete and doesn't participate in the normal bowl game selection process.
So in the future would VT losing a game at home in the post season count as a bowl loss? I would think there are now two stats, bowl stats and post season stats. Also if the major bowl games are going to continue as bowl games and not just playoff locations then does that mean a team can win the orange bowl and sugar bowl in back to back weeks?
The feeling I get when I see people using tables and charts to display information:
Yeah, if UGA wins the natty, wouldn't the SEC be 7 and 5 which is a percentage of .58333?
Maybe I'm just an idiot but I think the SEC would have the best win percentage with a Georgia championship?
I said bowl games and I do not believe the national title game is a bowl game. If I defined a bowl game then the NCG wouldn't meet the criteria. So while if UGA wins the SEC will have a better post season record than the other p5 schools they will not have a better bowl record.
Ah gotcha. Somehow did not realize national championship game was not classified as a bowl game.
Pretty sure in official records it does count as a bowl game.
It's actually really weird because the NCAA states that there are "40 bowl games and a national championship game." They never state that the championship game is a bowl game because the NCAA is worthless and stays out of everything but screwing over Mizzou and VT.
Teams like Bama count the national championship game in their bowl wins but they also count a national title from a year they were ranked 22nd (sort of they were 2nd in recieving other votes category because rankings were only top 20)
It is a sanctioned football game so the wins count for coaching records but no one really cares about bowl records for anything so it's like everything else involving the national title, not very regulated.
I'm not going to add this to my wall of brag, but I'm not embarrassed for the ACC this year.
Now all we need is for VT to start moving towards the top of the ACC.
The only way is up, quite literally.
Yeah, you probably shouldn't brag about a 5-4 record that much, but the ACC held its own. Threw of the four losses were by 1 score, and one of those was using their 4th string QB). Overall the ACC did as well for itself.
If you throw out the 4 losses...we're undefeated! /s
Not all wins or losses or equal, and the ACC definitely played a lower tier of opponents (the Big 10 had 2 teams in the playoff). So while technically tied as a statistic, I don't think it's equal in reality.
Yeah, the Big 10 likes to play with themselves (hee, hee), and the media rewards them amply for doing that.
So glad Michigan lost.
The ACC had a decent year, and deserves a good golf clap.
There are only 3 bowls worthy of any record, and that's the 2 semis and the final. The rest are fun exhibitions where mayonnaise is dumped on the winning coach, or where the winning coach eats cheezits off the field.
In that case the Big Ten went 0-2 and didn't tie us as we had a draw 0-0.
Could hog-tie the metric
Need a more balanced approach to reviewing wins
Eh, it does not look good that Tennessee, without by far their two best and most important players, beat the ACC champion 31-14. Especially since this was being hailed as the "true, better version of Clemson, free of DJU, the would have been playoff team if they had simply started Klubnik all year."
Though as I said earlier, you have to look at any and all bowl games within the context surrounding each individual bowl and the teams involved. There is a reason bowl results often have a negative impact on predictive metrics accuracy. Overall records for a conference have grown increasingly meaningless. There were many years recently where the ACC played 3-4 G5 teams, and the only G5 team the SEC played in a bowl game was the best G5 team in the country (UCF 2017, 2018, Cincy 2020), which always has had an impact on these records considering the bowl tie-ins are pretty uneven/unbalanced.
But for the sake of the quality content that we know and love on TKP, let's look at each individual ACC bowl game this year:
Fenway Bowl - W Louisville 24 - Cincinatti 7 - Can't fault Louisville for taking care of business here. They basically ran the ball down their throats for almost 300 yards and put away the husk of the Cincy program in the wake of Fickell's exit to Wisconsin. They might have won this game anyway, but this was a detached performance missing key players for Cincy.
Gasparilla Bowl - W Wake Forest 27 - Mizzou 17 - Wake Forest took care of business against a mostly full strength (down their top receiver who is transferring to UGA) Mizzou team. Good sendoff for Sam Hartman before he takes his talents to Notre Dame. Wake needed this after they were exposed as one of the most fraudulently ranked teams in the country due to their schedule. They lost 4 of their last 5 regular season games, their only win coming against equally fraudulently ranked Syracuse, but one of them had to win... we'll get to them later.
Military Bowl - W Duke 30 - UCF 13 - Duke caps off lowkey one of the best seasons in the country and most impressive revivals with a big win over a Malzahn UCF side. This is good win. Duke definitely wanted to be there and capped off an impressive season in the best way.
Holiday Bowl - L Oregon 28 - UNC 27 - Both of these teams were missing a couple key guys, but it appeared both teams were pretty motivated to be there. Not a bad showing by UNC against a good Oregon team.
Pinstripe Bowl - L Minnesota 28 - Syracuse 20 - Syracuse finishes their season on a brutal slide, exposed as an exceptionally fraudulently ranked opponent heading into the Clemson game. After starting 6-0, they finished their season losing 5 straight before catching a dub against brutally awful Boston College, before resuming their losing ways against Minnesota in this bowl game. Both teams missing their starting RB's for most/all the game. Minnesota lost their starting QB in this game, but replaced him with former starting QB Tanner Morgan, which was an interesting wrinkle that I completely missed this season. I had no idea that he got hurt/sort of - kind of - maybe also just straight up lost his starting job.
Cheez-It Bowl - W FSU 35, Oklahoma 32 - In a vacuum, this game looks like a major dub for the ACC, but those favorable tie-ins rear their head in context. This was a 9-3 FSU team, who finished the season as arguably the best team in the ACC, depending on how you view the finishes of their season relative to Clemson, who are playing a 6-6 OU team. One of the worst OU seasons in my lifetime, with a chance to be the first OU team to have a losing record in 23 years. Good vibes for FSU heading into the offseason, who are likely to garner a lot of buzz as a potential ACC champion next season.
Mayo Bowl - L Maryland 16 - NC State 12 - I didn't watch a single snap of this game so I can't really say much about it other than it appears that both teams played down some guys. Obviously, NC State has had a revolving door of QB's this season after Leary's injury.
Sun Bowl - W Pittsburgh 37, UCLA 35 - Probably the most impressive win of the bowl season given Pitt was without their best offensive player, Abanikanda, and their starting QB. UCLA is a volatile, but solid team and their starting QB was playing. Looks like Charbonnet didn't play, but I also didn't watch this game. Narduzzi apparently tried to lose this one according to some comments I saw here, but they won anyway. Not much bad to say about Pitt here.
Orange Bowl - L Tennessee 31, Clemson 14 - Not a good look for the conference to have the conference champion lose by 17 to a version of Tennessee not featuring the two players who completely defined their season in Hendon Hooker and Jalin Hyatt. This was supposed to be the continuation of the coming out party of Cade Klubnik, among all the talk that they would have been a playoff team for sure if they had simply played Cade earlier (who imo he wasn't ready day 1, but they had delusions of Trevor Lawrence in their heads).
IMO Clemson's run as ACC top dog is probably over. They have fallen off greatly. Also not a good look for the conference is the championship game being completely irrelevant for the playoff and both participants (Clemson and UNC) having been blown out by partial member ND and coming off losses to their in state rivals. Every other P5 championship game this year had playoff implications.
It's going to be really interesting to see what Dabo does... He's very invested in the 'Clemson family', and it's starting to turn incestuous and nepotistic (here's a great twitter thread on this). Dabo's two best hires (Venables and Morris) were outside the family. It will be interesting to see if he's willing to adapt and change the way he hires and recruits (like Nick Saban) or if he's going to be stubborn.
He's still recruiting enough dudes to stay on top of the ACC, but maybe not recreate what he had from 15-18. He's bringing in a bunch of highly rated DL this cycle, another highly rated QB (though I am quite dubious that a QB prospect so highly rated from Alabama, would work out for Alabama's coaches and not even get an offer, is really deserving to be that highly rated). Maybe Klubnik turns out to be that dude, but they don't have the weapons outside, and the scheme is stale now.
I do wonder if FSU will actually elevate enough under Norvell to overtake them. FSU can recruit at a top 5 level, they have proven that, but can Norvell recruit at a top 5 level? That's the question.
The other question (re; dabo) is will he embrace NIL (the one that plays players money) and will he start using the transfer portal. If not, I don't think he'll be able to keep recruiting at the level he is.
My personal sources say they are doing just fine on NIL, but the transfer portal is definitely a real question.
You kind of hit the nail on the head there. He's still recruiting well on paper, but now his coaches are a copy of a copy of a once great coordinator's system. I wonder if he will be able to adequately develop and coach those guys without better hires.
Yes, but is his wife making out with every player as they get off the team bus, like Dan Mullen's?
Nah- they still recruit better than anyone in the league and if Dabo needs a couple of 4-5 mil coordinators, they will get them for him.
Thanks for summarizing. The quality of the wins weren't great... L-ville's win was good, so was Duke's and Pitt's. FSU's win over Oklahoma looks good from a name recognition standpoint until you realize OU was 6-6 heading into the game. And, Wake beat a miserable Mizzou team. Had UNC managed to beat Oregon I would be taking a little bit more pride in the conference. The UT outcome probably should have been expected - you dont throw a freshman QB into a game like that expect things to go smooth. I know UT's defense had been borderline atrocious at the end, but give a team nearly a month to prep and you see what happens.
MD and NCST playing the code to my heart, real ones know
Record in bowl games isn't really a useful stat for anything other than message board bragging. With player opt outs, uneven bowl matchups, coaching changes, etc, bowls truly are once again just exhibitions (as they were originally intended to be). Bowl game statistics were not included in players' career totals until 2002 - I would not be opposed to returning to that norm.
I do think that the number of teams (or, more accurately, percentage of teams) qualifying for a bowl is something a conference can be proud of.
I obviously agree completely here. I do think we got some cool matchups this year that had a lot of intrigue. Bama having no opt-outs for their bowl game and facing a Big12 champion K-State (also no opt-outs), who were obviously very excited to play against Alabama, was a rare return to the quality and commitment level to the old BCS bowl games in the pre-playoff era. While I have no issue with opt-outs, it was cool to watch Bryce Young and Will Anderson suit up with their teammates and finish what they started when nobody would have blamed them for sitting out. Tulane-USC had a similar feeling, though USC wasn't completely full strength, it was awesome to watch Tulane cap such an amazing season with a huge Cotton bowl win against a USC team that still had Heisman winner Caleb Williams playing hard. Tennessee-Clemson, while missing Tennessee's two most important players, was a cool chance to test the Clemson fan narrative that DJU was truly the root of all their offense's problems and if they had simply played Klubnik all year they would be a playoff team, and for Tennessee to score their biggest postseason win in like 20 years. Tennessee clearly came to play with what they had, and it was an enjoyable game to watch.
Agreed (shocker). I feel like this bowl season was really top heavy. The most interesting 25-30% of the games were really good. The rest were... not...
It's time to think out of the box and play the bowl games- not playoff games- the other bowl games- at the beginning of the season. Yes. Take care of the fans for once. People book hotels, planes, etc and most of the good players opt out now. Have the conferences come together and agree to matchups in the bowl games the first week of the season. It's doable and a win/win. Citrus Bowl is week one pitting the a B1G vs. SEC team... say PSU and LSU. Done- all the best players play, game is sold out, nobody is in the portal, the coach is still there. The risk that one of the teams sucks is there- but that's no different than now. That purdue team yesterday or VT from last years pinstripe bowl - sucked anyway, and they were in bowls. It's doable if you think about it. And no, playing in a week 1 bowl does not disqualify you from the playoffs of course.
so you're expanding the "College Kickoff" games?
The main problem is there aren't enough neutral site venues. Also, bowl season is during college break, so you can do midweek games as well.
The idea is really intriguing. I definitely don't hate it. Seeding would be extremely difficult.
Right now if USC played Hawaii, lost the pac 12 champ game for their only loss they would start a 12 team playoff with 14 games played. Add the 1st round, quarter finals and semi finals as wins they could play 18 games in a season. The playoffs already is expanding the season, expand it the other way and play more games in week 0. Or have a week -1 and play more games. While yes most athletes take summer school, you can tell me that adding another week in January for the championship games doesn't interfere with school.
Simply dump the 13th game Hawaii allowance for 1, and this scenario affects a small number of teams. Like I said- it's doable if you think outside the box a little bit. Bowl games now are 1/3 full for the most part and you are seeing coachless teams playing a bunch of walk ons. If you care at ALL about the fans and quality of the games, something must be done.
yeah the Hawaii example was just to show number of games and actually schedule doesn't matter. So who cares the season is lengthening already. It was more for everyone complaining that 12 regular season games were to much. I wasn't precise in my rambling.
truth be told, i haven't really thought or looked at the expanded playoff scenario in relation to DC's suggestion. Just intrigued at the logistics
With vacant NFL stadiums on Friday and Saturdays, neutral venues won't be an issue. Remember "weather" shouldn't be a concern that time of year - you could play bowls in Cleveland, Buffalo, Green Bay, Washington, Baltimore in September on a Friday or Saturday- no issues.
This is what the kickoff classics have done, except they are scheduled years in advance, and do not recognize the previous season's record.
You wouldn't need to do it years in advance though. Just have a dedicated space in everyone's schedule and you can assign opponents as you wish before the season. Kinda like the ACC-Big10 challenge. We know we're going to play in it, but we don't know who we'll be playing.
Obviously the logistics are a lot trickier for football, but it should be doable.
How do you choose which teams go to the bowls? Preseason rankings? And now half of FBS has a hole in their schedule?
Qualified based on last years record. So a 6-6 team or better last year gets to participate.
If we're brainstorming how to change the bowl system...
Being able to make a few bucks off your jersey in a bookstore or your face on a video game went to straight 7 figures pay for play faster than Usain Bolt in his prime. It's a joke
I mean, I don't think the point was to limit players to jersey sales and video games. It was to enable players to be influencers and entrepreneurs.
Regardless, if a bowl sponsor wants to pay the starting qb 7-figures to star in a commercial and post things on their Instagram, I'm 100% here for it.
It's an unregulated free market. Of course some aspects of it are out of control.
This has already been done. A friend of mine works for a PR firm that represents Myrtle Beach and they worked up a NIL for Marshall and UCONN this year. It was for both teams. Not individual players. I don't know the details but I know that they did it. She texted me asking what I knew about NIL.
Bowl games don't count against red shirt (new rule that went in to effect this season)
FYI I believe this season was a one-off; a waiver for the 2022 season.
Didn't know it might be one time. I personally think red shifting should be done away with and let everyone play 5 years.
Edit: stupid autocorrect, though shirting isn't really a word so ... stupid autocorrect
So...nothing receding? /s
it stands to reason that red-shifting goes away if you implement changes moving forward
Can we be quick enough in an ever expanding universe of NIL?
Can we compete with Bama, OSU, Clemson, Oklahoma, Georgia, Michigan and USC in flat player salary? no. and that's what NIL has quickly become- flat paying players for play.
I think they were making light up there. Our reference frame will of course change how we perceive it all anyway.
Sigh. DC, you're so quick to bitch and moan that you can't
stop and smell the rosesappreciate a good physics joke when you read one.Which are, IM(ns)HO, the best kind of jokes.
And THESE type replies are why I love TKP!
Yes they do. You can play 4 games as a true frosh and keep your redshirt. If the bowl game is one of them, so be it. It's that simple. Appear in more than 4 games and you burn the redshirt.
Except in 2022 where you could play 4 games + a bowl game (potentially 2 if TCU or UGA)
But don't you (the general you, that is) go to watch games for the name on the front of the jersey, not the name on the back?
Until they stop being required to be students of the school- which is coming.
I don't doubt it. I really see college football going towards a semi-pro, NFL feeder league with only loose affiliations with schools. This is going to kill college football, but CFB will still survive with the NFL's support, as they need that feeder league to survive. NFL doesn't need CFB to be the huge spectacle that it is, it just needs CFB to exist.
I think the NFL would like CFB to remain the big spectacle it is, though. I, for one, don't give two shits about any pro teams, really. Growing up in VA to a family that's "not from 'round here" can do that to you. The only reason I really follow any pro team(s) or care to watch any games outside of the superbowl is because of players who played at my college. If that spectacle dies, and I don't have a college team with players to follow, I stop watching NFL altogether.
I'm not convinced this would kill (what we current know as) college football. Obviously, it wouldn't be the same, but I think there could be a successful minor league circuit with teams in Blacksburg, Tuscaloosa, Auburn, Iowa City, etc. There are plenty of people in Europe who are die hard fans of (what are effectively) minor league soccer teams in rural areas. That said, I think this is the only way for College Football to survive long term.
Also, this is anecdotal, but I listened to a recent Mark Cuban interview where he says that younger fans tend to be a fan of players moreso than teams (eg; people are fans of Luca, not the Mavs), and how that's changed the way he runs Mavricks. This is obviously more common in the NBA (where players aren't wearing face gear, and a single player can drastically change a team's outcome), but I think it's coming for other sports too (at a slower place). This also impact college football a lot.
UNC already pilot tested that, wasn't ready (yet)
Heck, we were 6-4 if you lump Notre Dame in with us. They picked from our bowl selection.
Ehh... I feel like the quality of matchups we get in the bowls is very subpar for where it feels like we should be. Like when we lost in the ACC title game in 2016 only to get matched up with a 7-5 Arkansas team. Feels like our conference is perennially stuck playing the table scraps from others after the big bowls are sorted, of which we really aren't a part of anymore.
I do feel like you're right, but at the same time that year the orange bowl went highest ranked, not Clemson (I.e. FSU) leaving a handful not glamorous bowls -which is what they all are really below the ole bcs ones for everyone else to fight over
That's how the Big East and ACC have always been. ND takes the good bowls and leaves the rest. Any year that the ACC is not in the 4 game playoff and ND is good the rest of the ACC is shafted. Only 2011 and 2014 saw multiple ACC teams in BCS, since the new years 6 the ACC has never had multiple teams make the bowls without a semifinalist ( meaning the 2nd ACC team was a replacement team). 2020 was odd with 3 ACC teams in the NY6 but ND was a temp team and ACC had two teams in the playoffs so the 3rd was a replacement team. The Big Ten has had 3 teams with zero in the playoffs, The Pac12 has had two teams without any in the playoffs. The SEC has never not been in the playoffs.
If we want good ACC bowls then we have to make the playoffs and have ND suck.
If we want a better bowl than them we need to beat them when we play them. As a conference, 38-9 in the BCS era.
BCS era bowl scheduling had nothing to do with winning bowls. Now the NY6 has more leeway, but you typically have to be a top 12 team to get those and more often a top 11 team for the G5 winner. The only way to go not being a top team is to have and ACC team make the semifinal. VT has a terrible record against top 5 teams but if we're 11-2 and ranked 6th then were going to a NY6 bowl and might play #5.
After New Year 6 the ACC has contracts with different bowl games. If you don't like those games the the ACC needs to convince other bowl games that taking ACC teams are more profitable than their current contract. No o e cares about record in bowl games they care about money to be made. The big bowl games have boards that all make millions of dollars to the the CEO, CFO, or whatever of the bowl game. You got to make those people their money. That means ticket sales, TV deals, etc all that the ACC sucks at.
I was referring to Notre Dame being in the ACC bowl pool and getting a better bowl than most ACC teams. If a team want to bet the better bowl vs ND, we have to beat them in the regular season. If ND were to go 1-2 instead of 3-0 or 2-1 with a loss to the champion vs the ACC, they would fall to a lower bowl in the pecking order because of the worse record and maybe a head to head loss. They will always have some preference for who they are and who they bring, but their record is still the first factor.