Fortune Teller: ACC Champions and Bowl Predictions

Part of BCI's season preview week.

First we gave you the Atlantic Division picture, then the Coastal. Last up, who will win the ACC Championship Game and where will teams go bowling this season? Our ACC Championship Game and bowl picks (and right in time before the season kicks off!) below for your approval.


Brian's ACC Championship Game and Bowl Predictions

ACC Championship - Miami Fla. > Clemson, for their first ever ACC Championship

Orange - Miami (Fla.)
Peach - Clemson
Gator - Florida State
Champs - Virginia Tech
Music City - Georgia Tech
Meineke Car Care - North Carolina
Emerald - Boston College
EagleBank - NC State
GMAC - Wake Forest

Miami (Fla.) faces Ohio State - a BCS at-large - in the Orange Bowl.

Even though the Peach Bowl has passed on the ACC Championship Game runner-up every year since the conference started playing championship games, that rule won’t to Clemson. Atlanta is more than happy to take the Tigers in a year where the SEC will send two teams to BCS games and the Peach will have to settle for a middle of the pack program like Tennessee or Ole Miss. Also, the fact that the 2007 game between Clemson and Auburn pulled in the highest rating in the bowl’s history won’t be lost on the Atlanta Sports Council.

The Gator scoops up Florida State and the Hokies are sent to Orlando. Georgia Tech dusts off the Wrambling Wreck and makes the short four hour drive up to Nashville, and the Meineke Car Care Bowl is happy to take the local team in UNC for the second consecutive season.

Boston College is sent west to face a big draw Pac-10 team (a UCLA or Oregon State,) while Tom O’Brien and the Wolfpack set out to prove that they are the best team in the state of North Carolina (woo!) for the second straight season* as they face East Carolina in the EagleBank Bowl.

Finally, Wake Forest heads to the Mobile to face a directional Michigan team in the GMAC Bowl.


* NC State will have knocked off Gardner-Webb, Duke, Wake Forest and North Carolina, but will lose to ECU in Washington.


Jeff’s Coastal Division predictions

ACC Championship - Virginia Tech > Clemson

Orange - Virginia Tech (again)
Peach - Clemson
Gator - Florida State
Champs - Georgia Tech
Music City - Miami (Fla.)
Meineke Car Care - Boston College
Emerald - North Carolina
EagleBank - NC State
GMAC - Wake Forest

Virginia Tech will play Oklahoma State in the Orange Bowl which will be a true "Orange Bowl" when the Oklahoma State Cowboys wear their orange uniforms and Virginia Tech fans wear their orange.

This rest shapes out fairly simply because Clemson will have been 10-2 entering the ACC Championship Game and travels well such that the Peach Bowl will take them. After that, it's basically a matter of the next best teams going to each bowl after that since the two best traveling fan bases - Virginia Tech and Clemson - will have already been gobbled up.

Boston College should have a good game against Rutgers or West Virginia in Charlotte. Not a matchup that will produce a sellout but should get a good number of BC fans traveling to Charlotte.


Your thoughts/predictions?