Five ACC teams are ranked in the Top 25, but only one guaranteed a spot in the CFP

Can you name the ACC team that will represent the conference this season in the college football playoff?

Notice we asked about only one league team, because at this point into November, with the conferences unaligned on how to share the wealth, and a lot of mediocrity in the results on the field, it seems like something unusual is going to have to happen to make that multiple ACC representatives in the CFP.

Nobody has been able to distance themselves in a league fighting to gain some sort of relevant national football foothold, but instead has seen unranked teams knocking off ranked teams left and right this season, causing chaos in the weekly standings and consternation in the league's offices in Uptown Charlotte.

Who is the best ACC team in early November?

The standings say Georgia Tech among the five teams that have one ACC defeat, because at 8-1 overall the Yellow Jackets are the only conference team with one loss, coming in their last game November 1 at N.C. State. Tech finishes at BC, hosts Pitt and then is home to Georgia.

If the Yellow Jackets beat Georgia and win the ACC Championship Game to finish 12-1, it is clear they are a playoff team. Lose to the Bulldogs and it might be hello Pop Tarts Bowl.

Until last Saturday night the best team might have been Virginia (20th), but the Cavaliers found out what Syracuse found out in September, sometimes it takes time to sort things out when your starting quarterback goes down. UVA starter Chandler Morris exited in the first half against Wake Forest and it changed the team's mojo, with three uncharacteristic turnovers proving its undoing. Virginia has just two games left at Duke and hosting Va. Tech.

Right behind Virginia was a Louisville (19th) team that could have staked its claim to a first-place tie, but the Cardinals feel at home to California, yet moved ahead of UVA in the poll by one spot, and have gams remaining against Clemson, at SMU and host Kentucky.

Syracuse nemesis Pitt (23rd) has a shot to stake claim to playing in the ACC title game, finishing with Notre Dame at home, at Georgia Tech and hosting Miami.

Syracuse just saw a Miami team that figures to be just behind Georgia Tech among ACC teams in the CFP rankings to be released Tuesday night, but the Hurricanes are already saddled with two losses and finish with N.C. State at home, at Virginia Tech, and the Pitt game on the road.

The best story of a first-year coach of an ACC school in North Carolina is not what you think

There is a Syracuse connection to both conference first season head coaches Bill Belichick and Wake Forest's Jake Dickert, who in our estimation, despite a blow out loss at Florida State, is a frontrunner (with Virginia's Tony Elliot) for ACC Coach of the Year.

The Orange were the opponent as Belichick won his first ACC game on October 31 in the Dome, and Dickert was going to be the Washington State head coach in last season's Holiday Bowl, that is until his players and coaches started bolting Pullman Wash. and he followed suit a few weeks before the game versus SU in San Diego to head to Wake Forest.

After Wake missed postseason in 2023 and '24, Dickert has the Demon Deacons bowl eligible in his first season in Winston Salem, something that no coach has done in program history, and with a remaining schedule hosting Belichick's Tar Heels, Delaware, and at Duke, a good shot to finish 9-3.

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