Who says the chalk always wins on championship weekend?
The first weekend of December treated us college football fans to a slate of upsets: Washington over red-hot Oregon in the Pac-12, Alabama over No. 1 Georgia in the SEC and, depending on what sportsbook you looked at, hobbled Florida State over Louisville in the ACC.
It leads to a dicey Sunday of decisions for the College Football Playoff committee that will have ripple effects throughout the bowl selection process.
How does this affect the Hokies? Quite a bit, actually.
The availability of one or two top-tier ACC bowl slots will depend on how the College Football Playoff committee ranks its four-team bracket. How?
Start with Florida State, the unbeaten ACC champion. While an undefeated Power 5 champ has never been left out of the four-team field in the 10-year history of the College Football Playoff, the committee has also never faced a situation quite like this.
Its stated mission is to pick the four “best” teams for the playoff, though in actuality it’s leaned more toward most deserving over the years. This season could challenge that precedent.
The Seminoles ran the table but lost star quarterback Jordan Travis to injury late in the year. Despite grinding out wins the last two weeks against Florida and, in the ACC title game, Louisville, the Noles could test the theory of “best” vs. “deserving.”
Is a flawed, short-handed, unbeaten Power 5 champion the pick over Alabama, a 12-1 champion of what’s been the best conference for two decades and is fresh off a league title game victory over two-time defending national champion and previously No. 1 Georgia? And for as good as the Crimson Tide’s final statement was, consider that 12-1 Texas beat Bama by 10 on its home field early in the year. All three of FSU, Alabama and Texas have cases for the final two spots in the field after Michigan and Washington.
The committee’s never truly had this difficult of a decision before. Even in the inaugural year in 2014-15, when there were essentially two 11-1 Big 12 champions in Baylor and TCU, Ohio State made the point moot with a 59-0 thrashing of Wisconsin in the Big Ten title game despite starting third-string quarterback Cardale Jones. (I forget, did the Buckeyes lose a game that year?)
If the committee puts Florida State in the four-team field, it opens up the Orange Bowl for a replacement team from the ACC, likely still Louisville, which could drop some in the rankings from 14th after Saturday’s loss but probably not enough to dip below NC State, which was ranked 19th last week. (The committee has historically not dinged title-game losers too much for coming up short in an extra game while others sit idle.)
If the committee keeps the Seminoles out of the playoff, FSU would play in the Orange Bowl as the ACC champion and Louisville would be out of the New Year’s Six mix, back in a pool of ACC teams selected further down the bowl pecking order.
The other key development from Saturday is that the ReliaQuest Bowl in Tampa will probably not come open for an ACC team. Georgia will likely be the highest-ranked non-champion from the SEC or Big Ten, and as such would receive an at-large bid to the Orange Bowl to face an ACC opponent. If that highest-ranked team was from the Big Ten, the ACC would have gotten access to the ReliaQuest Bowl to play an SEC team.
That door’s probably closed, which again pushes the other ACC teams down the selection ladder.
Virginia Tech, at 6-6, entered Saturday straddling the ACC’s Tier 1 and 2 bowls, the split of which is as follows (the bowls don’t pick in this order, necessarily, but the warmer-weather locations at the top seem to have priority):
Tier 1
• ReliaQuest (Tampa) vs. SEC — If Big Ten team is chosen as ACC’s Orange Bowl opponent
• Holiday (San Diego) vs. Pac-12
• Pop-Tarts (Orlando) vs. Big 12
• Gator (Jacksonville) vs. SEC
• Pinstripe (New York) vs. Big Ten
• Duke’s Mayo (Charlotte) vs. SEC
• Sun (El Paso) vs. Pac-12
Tier 2
• Military (Annapolis) vs. AAC
• Fenway (Boston) vs. AAC
• Birmingham (Birmingham) vs. SEC
• Gasparilla (St. Petersburg) vs. ESPN-chosen team
Before this weekend, 9-3 NC State, 9-3 Notre Dame, 8-4 Clemson, 8-4 North Carolina, 7-5 Miami and 7-5 Duke were all considerations along with the 6-6 Hokies for those seven bowls in Tier 1. Now, 10-3 Louisville could drop down to be in that mix, with one fewer bowl available in that tier as well.
Prior to Saturday’s results, the Duke’s Mayo Bowl in Charlotte was reasonably in play for the Hokies.
Now? There might be too many viable teams to fill out that top tier, dropping Tech to the second group, where the Military Bowl in Annapolis would love to grab the Hokies and their vast, nearby base of D.C. alumni.
To that point, CBS, The Athletic, Brett McMurphy and one of two ESPN projections updated after Saturday's game have the Hokies going to the Military Bowl. (ESPN's other pick is for Tech to play in the Duke's Mayo Bowl.)
The committee has to seed the playoff first. After that, it’ll be an afternoon full of jockeying and horse-trading for bowls and ACC teams before everyone knows their destination.
So settle in.