It's only Week 3 with a limited sample size, but the ACC Championship race is already materializing for the challengers behind Miami at the top of the conference. And we're of the belief the league could put two teams in the College Football Playoff this season for the second time in three years. The CFP selection committee will shift its early-season attention to Saturday's 16th-ranked SMU at No. 23 Louisville showdown, a matchup that provides an early pathway to a league championship game appearance for the winner.
Both nationally ranked squads are dangerous offensively with play-making quarterbacks and each has a favorably slate the rest of the way -- Louisville doesn't play another opponent inside the top-25 while SMU's only such content in conference play is a battle with 25th-ranked Virginia on Oct. 17 coming off an open date. Jeff Brohm is trying to avoid going 0-3 against Rhett Lashlee and the Mustangs since SMU joined the ACC. "Got a great opponent coming in here in SMU that we have not beat since we've played them," Brohm said this week.
"So credit to them for playing good football, coaching well, putting a good plan together, executing, doing all those things. They're playing very well again right now." No disrespect to ACC teams not named Miami, SMU or Louisville, but those are the three who have looked the part through the first two weeks of the regular season. The Hurricanes will be favored in every ACC game from here out, perhaps by double digits, while SMU and Louisville each paid handsomely this offseason for portal-infused rosters to fill holes coming off successful campaigns.
We've had SMU in our CFP projections since the spring and that hasn't changed early on the season. The Mustangs won with a C effort despite several mistakes in the opener at Florida State and found an offensive rhythm in last week's first home. Get past SMU and Rhett Lashlee could be playing for his second trip in three years to the CFP if the Mustangs are able to run the table in conference play.
SMU does play Notre Dame on the road later this fall, but a loss to the Irish will not be fatal in the CFP conversation. If the Mustangs get to the ACC title game and say, lose to Miami, and 11-2 finish should be good enough to get one of those final at-large bids regardless of what happens in the Big Ten and SEC. Louisville's margin for error is a bit more thin.
The only way the Cardinals can guarantee themselves a spot in the CPF conversation in late November is by winning out, beginning Saturday as a 2.5-point favorite at home. As it stands, Miami and SMU are in the best position to make the ACC a two-bid league in the CFP later on this fall, based on current ranking, overall talent and remaining schedule. The conference did the Hurricanes a solid with three home games to end November following Miami's biggest game of the year -- at Notre Dame -- in Week 10.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
