![]() ![]() Since 2011 - the beginning of the Atlantic’s winning streak in the championship game - the relative separation between Coastal teams has narrowed slightly, while the gap between Atlantic teams has increased. 1 And in six of the seven seasons from 2005 to 2011, ACC Atlantic teams’ win totals against conference opponents fell within a narrower range than Coastal teams’ conference win totals, 2 suggesting that, the Atlantic was more balanced than the Coastal at the time. In fact, at the beginning of the ACC’s two-division era - after the conference expanded in 2005 - Georgia Tech and Virginia Tech commanded the Coastal, accounting for all division titles from 2005 to 2012. The Coastal Division hasn’t always been defined by chaos and weakness at the top. The ACC’s Atlantic Division has owned the CoastalĪCC division champions, with title winners in bold, since the conference split into two divisions in 2005 Year In some respects, the Coastal’s poor performance has seemed like a vicious cycle. Perhaps not coincidentally, the Coastal Division champion has not won a single ACC title game since 2010, with its representative losing to Clemson in 2011, falling to Florida State during the Seminoles’ three-peat of 2012 to 2014, and then losing to Clemson again in 2015 through 2018. Meanwhile, the Coastal Division has had no back-to-back winners since 2010-11 and has seen five different champs in the past five years. Clemson has mastered its opponents in the Atlantic Division, losing just once - to Syracuse in 2017 - and maintaining its hold on the division’s spot in the ACC Championship Game since the days of Winston and Company. This season, the Tigers are well positioned for a fifth consecutive playoff appearance, as our model gives them an 84 percent chance of making the sport’s final four.Ĭlemson’s best stretch in program history, though, has obscured the mediocrity of the rest of the conference. ![]() These days, the Atlantic Coast Conference might as well be renamed the “All Clemson Conference”: Since the Tigers arrived as national title contenders in 2015, head coach Dabo Swinney has led his program to absolute domination in the conference, going 36-2 over that stretch. Despite technically owning two of the past three national championships and appearing in four of the past six title games, the conference usually boils down to one team and “everyone else.”īack in 2014, it was the Florida State Seminoles, led by Heisman winner Jameis Winston and a cast of other future NFL draftees, that laid waste to the conference en route to an appearance in the inaugural College Football Playoff, following the team’s national title in 2013 and ACC title the season prior. The lopsided score, along with Rudolph’s near-unaccompanied waltz into the end zone, is perhaps a microcosm of the modern Atlantic Coast Conference. The sophomore from Rock Hill, South Carolina, scored the first touchdown of his collegiate career, and the Tigers’ lead mushroomed to 45-7. After teammate Chad Smith ended an Eagles drive with a strip-sack of quarterback Dennis Grosel, Rudolph pounced on the loose ball, shrugged off a Boston College lineman and thundered to the purple-and-orange-clad end zone. In the midst of a blowout win over Boston College two weekends ago, Clemson defensive end Logan Rudolph saw a chance to put his mark on the game. ![]()
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