Wow…I thought Maryland would win, but I was not expecting a 37-0 victory on the road at N.C State. The offense racked up 466 yards and Lance Ball and Keon Lattimore each had two rushing touchdowns. The Defense played what can easily be considered their best game of the year allowing only 250 total yards, only 10 of which were rushing, while shutting out the Wolfpack. It was apparent by the end of the 1st half that Maryland was going to win and go bowling following the regular season, so the second half was a little boring for most Maryland fans used to close games. Referee Ron Cherry though provided the best entertainment of the second half with his explanation of a certain penalty. All in all, the Terps played a great game and there is no shame in finishing 6-6 with all the injuries they had. They now get to rest up, get healthy, and head to a bowl…the only question is which bowl?

The ACC has 8 bowl tie-ins and 8 teams that are elidgable for the bowl season. I also do not see a team from this conference earning an at-large birth in a BCS bowl, so the conference should be able to fill all of its bowl obligations. The winner of the ACC will play in the Orange bowl. Following that, there is an order that the bowl games get to pick teams. They do not have to pick teams in the order that they finished in the conference standings, but a bowl game must select the team with the best record still available, or one more loss. For example, a 7-5 team can be picked ahead of an 8-6 team, but a 7-5 team cannot be picked ahead of a 9-3 team as the 7-5 team has more than one more loss than the 9-3 team. To close out this blog entry I will give you my ACC bowl predictions with both scenarios of Boston College winning the ACC championship and Virginia Tech winning the ACC championship. The major difference between the two is that Boston College has a reputation for not traveling fans well to bowl games, so if they do not make the orange bowl, they may drop down to a less prestigious bowl than their record indicates.

If Boston College wins the ACC / If Virginia Tech wins the ACC:

Orange Bowl: Boston College / Virginia Tech

Peach Bowl: Clemson / Clemson

Gator Bowl: Virginia Tech / Virginia

Champs Sports Bowl: Virgina / Boston College

Music City Bowl: Florida State / Florida State

Car Care Bowl: Wake Forest / Wake Forest

Emerald Bowl: TERPS / TERPS

Humanitaian Bowl: Georgia Tech / Georgia Tech

Notes: I see Clemson going to the Peach bowl ahead of Virginia Tech simply because Virginia Tech played in the Peach Bowl last year and bowls do not like to take the same team two years in a row. I also do no think the championship game will alter the bowls the bottom 4 teams will attend. I see Georgia Tech falling down to the Humanitarian bowl as their fans are very angry with the head coach and there are rumors he may get fired. This means fans are less likely to travel this year to support the team. Also, the Emerald Bowl will probably come down to GT and Maryland, and Maryland won when these two teams met earlier in the season, so I give Maryland the edge in bumping past GT and reaching the Emerald Bowl.