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NCAAF Betting - A Down Year For ACC

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It’s a case of subtraction by addition.

The Atlantic Coast Conference is one of the strongest college sports conferences in the entire NCAA. Its specialty is basketball, but the ACC’s football profile got a serious boost in 2004-05 with the arrival of Boston College, Virginia Tech and the University of Miami from the Big East. Those three programs have been among the best in football in recent years. But what have they done for the ACC lately?

The Hurricanes watched their season fizzle out after an embarrassing mid-October brawl against Florida International, going 6-6 SU and 3-7-1 ATS, missing out on a winning record for the first time in a decade. That cost former national championship coach Larry Coker his job, and sees Miami play Nevada at the MPC Computers Bowl, the least important of the eight bowl games the ACC gets to participate in. It’s difficult to see the ‘Canes giving this one much effort. They’re listed as 3.5-point faves with a total of 42.5.

 

Boston College and Virginia Tech fared much better, but both teams endured rough patches during the year and missed out on a BCS bowl berth. The Eagles are in a particularly disheartening situation; after starting the season at 7-1 SU (5-2-1 ATS), Boston College lost at Wake Forest and Miami to drop out of the ACC title hunt and finish the year on a 1-3 ATS skid. That was enough for the Eagles to slip all the way down the invitation list to the Meineke Car Care Bowl, No. 6 in the pecking order of ACC bowls. Worse, coach Tom O'Brien bailed last week to take the head job at North Carolina State. B.C. will try to regroup for its Dec. 30 date with Navy, where the Eagles are 7-point favorites, and the total is 47.

As for the Hokies, they blew a tire in Week 5, losing to visiting Georgia Tech and again at Boston College two weeks later (a game that featured its own share of embarrassing conduct by Virginia Tech players) as part of an 0-3 ATS skid. However, of the three Big East migrants, Virginia Tech goes into the bowl season in the best shape. The Hokies won their last six games at a sizzling 5-1 ATS to land a spot in the Chick-fil-A Bowl – formerly the Peach Bowl, and the best of the non-BCS bowl berths for the ACC. This is also a Hokies team that will be largely intact next season and has plenty of upside. They’ll face the Georgia Bulldogs at the sold-out Georgia Dome as 3-point faves with a total of 38.
 
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