Yesterday the 2024 College Football season kicked off and there were three ACC teams in action. Florida State took on Georiga Tech in Dublin, Ireland, and SMU traveled to Nevada. Unfortunately for the conference, those games went close to as badly as possible. (Sorry to fizz staffer Tyler Aiken) Starting off with that FSU-GT game, the ACC needs a top tier team for the conference to be respected again. Even if the Seminoles win out, their season will still be plagued by a bad loss to the Yellow Jackets and that will be a bad look for the conference. Especially after last year, where some would say Florida State got screwed out of a playoff bid, the Seminoles couldn’t afford to lose week zero.
The other case to make of why Tech winning was bad for the ‘Cuse is that it gives GT a lot more confidence going into SU’s matchup in week two. Georgia Tech plays Georgia State next week so they should easily be 2-0 and potentially even receiving votes depending on how the voters think of the win over Florida State. While that would make a potential loss look not as bad, and a win even better, considering it’ll be Fran Brown’s first ACC game as a head coach maybe an easier opponent would be preferred.
In the other game, SMU barely escaped a trip to one of the worst teams in the Mountain West, Nevada. The Wolf Pack were picked to finish last in the MWC by far this season. Southern Methodist was picked to finish seventh in the ACC. That means that the Mustangs should have blown out the squad that was picked to finish last in a worse conference. SMU found a way to come out on top so the ACC avoided total disaster to start the season, but the conference needs to look better in week one. If Syracuse or any ACC team wants to even have a thought of making the playoff as an at large, then they need the conference to look good.
