ACC: State of the Conference

Four teams are still in contention for a playoff bid, and 12 have a shot at bowl eligibility

Despite its 1-3 record, Virginia Tech is the sixth most improved team in the ACC according to SP+.

That’s the good news.

The bad news is that the preseason SP+ rankings had Tech fourth most improved in the conference, reaching the 49th percentile of FBS.

Currently, the Hokies are in the 41st percentile.

There is still some preseason noise in the SP+ numbers, but at this point, they paint a pretty clear picture of an improved ACC overall.

Only five ACC teams currently have a lower SP+ ranking than they ended with last year. And two of those, Clemson and Virginia, are only three spots off their 2022 pace.

A lot of the talk this week centers on the the Hokies possibly going 1-11 this year. Where are the wins going to come, from they ask?

In conference, the Hokies will play seven out of the eight teams with the lowest SP+ Ranking YOY deltas. Put simply, the Hokies schedule is full of schools that have made the smallest gains (or actually declined) in SP+ since last year.

Bowl eligibility, requiring five wins out of eight conference games, will be a steep uphill climb, but the path remains:

• Pitt

• NC State

• Wake Forest

• Virginia

• Boston College

Lose one of those games and Tech would need to beat Louisville or Syracuse. Lose two, and the Hokies would have to beat both the Cardinals and the Orange.

For the purposes of evaluating the league, I have split the teams into four tiers:

1. Teams ranked 1-25 in SP+

2. Teams ranked 26-50 in SP+

3. Teams ranked 51-75 in SP+

4. Teams ranked 76+ in SP+

There are 14 teams in the ACC, and 5 of them are in Tier 1. The Hokies play just one of those Tier 1 teams.

Meanwhile, they play two teams each from Tiers 3 and 4 as well as Wake Forest, which barely made the cut-off for Tier 2.

As bad as things have gone of late for the Hokies, and as good as other conference members fared in non-conference games, one cannot count the Hokies out yet.

Tier 4: three teams with a combined 2-10 record

The three Tier 4 teams are on the outside looking in with regard to bowl eligibility. For context, in recent years (2020 excluded due to Covid) the lowest ranked Power 5 team to win six games had the following ranks:

• 2022 - 62nd (Syracuse)

• 2021 - 75th (Boston College)

• 2019 - 92nd (Boston College)

• 2018 - 74th (Georgia Tech)

• 2017 - 69th (Virginia)

Notice that each year it was an ACC team just squeaking in. The average SP+ rank for those five years was 74.4. As bad as Tech has looked at times this year, they are not that far off the pace.

Conversely, the highest ranked teams that failed to win six regular season games were:

• 2022 - 53rd (Iowa St.)

• 2021 - 35th (Nebraska)

• 2019 - 42nd (TCU)

• 2018 - 33rd (Ole Miss)

• 2017 - 32nd (Indiana)

The average rank here is 39. Conclusion: it pays to be an average team in the ACC.

However, the odds remain against any of the Tier 4 teams making a bowl game this year.