David M. Hale 10y

ACC bowl projections: Preseason

If predicting the order of finish in each division is tough duty this time of year, figuring out the bowl scenarios is an even crazier endeavor. Still, we'll take a crack at it each week of the season, beginning with our preseason projections.

A few quick caveats:

  • If the Orange Bowl selects a Big Ten team this year, a spot would open up in the Capital One Bowl for the ACC. We're not banking on that just yet.

  • Either the TaxSlayer Bowl or Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl gets an ACC team, but not both. For the purposes of our preseason projections, we're slotting a team into the TaxSlayer Bowl, but that could change down the road.

  • For bowl selection purposes, Notre Dame is treated as an ACC team, meaning the Fighting Irish will grab one of the conference's tie-ins unless it is invited to the College Football Playoff.

  • The Birmingham Bowl serves as a backup for the ACC should enough teams become eligible. We're not projecting that yet either.

  • After the playoff committee makes its selections and the Orange Bowl makes its pick, the Russell Athletic gets the next choice of teams. After that, the next group of four work together to decide on selections with geography and a fan base's likelihood to travel to the game playing a role. We attempted to account for that below.

With all that said, here's our best guess at what awaits the ACC in December and January.

College Football Playoff: Florida State Seminoles

Orange Bowl (Miami): Clemson Tigers

Russell Athletic Bowl (Orlando, Florida): Virginia Tech

TaxSlayer Bowl (Jacksonville, Florida): Miami

Belk Bowl (Charlotte, North Carolina): North Carolina

Hyundai Sun Bowl (El Paso, Texas): Louisville

New Era Pinstripe Bowl (Bronx, New York): Notre Dame

Military Bowl presented By Northrop Grumman (Annapolis, Maryland): Pitt

Duck Commander Independence Bowl (Shreveport, Louisiana): Duke

Quick Lane Bowl (Detroit): Syracuse

BITCOIN St. Petersburg Bowl: Georgia Tech

^ Back to Top ^