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Last night we put to bed another month in the year 2009.  I can’t believe how quickly time flies now.  I thought it was summer last week and now we are off into November.  Why I’d even bet if you looked hard enough you could probably find a radio station that has already converted to all Christmas Music somewhere.  The year is on it’s last legs.  But before we rip open our 2010 calendars, lets take a look at November in the ACC.  There are actually a lot of teams that are fighting for the two spots in Tampa Bay (and as odd as it sounds, techincally we are still one of them).

Today I am going to look at the Atlantic Division, and hopefully follow up with a Coastal Division breakdown later in the week.  I’ll take a look at each team in the Division, their current record, who they finish up against.  I’ll also give my take on how they will finish, but I must say 2009 is not a good year to be predicting who beats who in the ACC.

Atlantic Division

Boston College- The team picked last in the Division is currently in the lead.  I don’t think you can ever write off the Eagles.  BC is sitting at 3-2 which is good enough for the lead, but hardly a record that is going to have any BC alum booking flights to Tampa, at least not yet.  BC is tied with Clemson, and Clemson actually beat BC, so I’d have to ask theacc.com where they get off putting the Eagles at the top, but that’s for another day.  BC finishes against UVA, UNC, and Maryland (que Soap Opera Organ Music).  Could they run the table?  I say yes, will they, well I don’t know.  But you have to say they are in a good spot.

Clemson- Next up are the Tigers, who as I mentioned above should techincally be in first.  Clemson is 3-2 and just has to be sick in their stomach everytime they think of their trip to College Park.  Without that head scratcher, this team would be 4-1 and in fine control with a win over the team in sole possesion of 2nd.  But you can’t go back.  Clemson is still looking like a strong Candidate to represent the Atlantic Division, they do finish against FSU, but if they can beat a mediocre FSU team, they will then finish against NC State, and UVA.  Both of which I believe they can handle.  If someone pointed a gun to my head and made me pick (and please don’t, I freighten easily) the Tigers would be my choice for the Conference Championship game.

Florida State- The Seminoles just can’t seem to get it together.  I just watched them scrap by a very poor NC State team with a half empty Doak Campbell (very funny…I had a brain fart and couldnt’ remember the name of their stadium so I googled it real quick, and someone did a photoshop of Doak Campbell on top of Alcatrez Island!).  But all that being said, the Noles are 2-3 and very much alive.  They do have a few more hurdles to jump however.  They face Clemson, Wake, and Maryland.  I’m guessing they need to go 3-0 in those three to have a real shot, but stranger things have happened.  My gut feeling is saying FSU out.

Wake Forest- Another team that looks like world beaters one day, and a Monty Phython film the next.  Unfortunately the day we stopped by Winston-Salem, they were the former.  Wake is in FSU’s shoes (that were probably stolen by the way).  They sit at 2-3.  They also have a tough two game stretch playing Georgia Tech (The Jackets have 5 wins, no one else has more than 3) and FSU.  The FSU game for all purposes will be an elimination game.  Then after that Wake will finish against Duke.  Only Duke and GT still only have 1 loss, but if Wake plays their best, Duke won’t be able to stop them.  Wake though is going to need some help getting to Tampa, and I’m not talking about “Travel Agent” kind of help.

Maryland- Can you believe we still have a shot?  Now granted my math could be wrong, but assuming (and this is a BIG assumption) that Clemson or BC are the only other 5 win teams, we would have beaten them both (BC because we would have run the table to get to 5-3)!  However, in order to do that we need to knock off NC State, then Virginia Tech, then FSU, and then BC.  I haven’t seen a line yet, but I’m guessing we are the underdog going into Raliegh, and NC State has yet to win a Conference game.  And that sentence right there sums up our odds.   For all intensive purposes, we are dead in the water. 

NC State- But at least we aren’t the Wolfpack (HHHoooowwwwwwlllll).  NC state, thanks for coming out.  You aren’t technically eliminated (they can still finish 4-4 and no one has a 4th win  yet).  But any 5-3 team will make your shot at the title impossible.  The good news for the Wolfpack is…..well when Maryland has a better shot than you in 2009, there isn’t any good news.  But you can still catch the Terps in the battle for last place, and the pivotal battle in that war will occur in Carter Finley.  So cheer up!  Oh yeah, NC State finishes against Md, Clemson, VT, and UNC.  Okay, maybe they are mathmatically eliminated.

So there you have it.  I’m giving the inside track to Clemson.  I can’t say I’m in love with that pick and I’m almost certain Novemeber will be just as crazy as October, which makes predicting anything in the ACC almost impossible, but I think Clemson has the best road.  I guess we’ll see in a few weeks. 

Extra Droppings:

A reminder to please check out Chris and I on Raycomsports.com.  If you leave a comment on either of our posts you are eligible to win a $250 or $100 dollar giftcard.  And any post you leave increases the popularity of our posts and really helps us out, so even if you don’t win, you would still be doing us a solid.  Also all people who post are eligible to win a $38 T-shirt from any ACC school of your choice.  So far everyone I know who has posted for us, has eventually won one.  Just saying.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 1st, 2009 at 12:42 pm and is filed under Maryland Terps Football. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.