Joe Giglio was nice enough to answer a question from me on social media. If I understood his response correctly, his understanding is that the ACC will fill the spot in the First Responder Bowl (Dallas) before Birmingham. I hope that is right because that would both simplify things and provide a clear path for all 11 ACC teams to play in a bowl.
Based on his article that he published today, here’s more on how Joe sees the bowl lineup in the scenario where VT beats Marshall.
First, he sees Syracuse, NCSU, Miami, UVA and VT filling the Camping World, Pinstripe, Belk, TaxSlayer (or Music City) and Military Bowls.
That would leave the following teams:
Pitt (7-5)
Georgia Tech (7-5)
Boston College (7-5)
Duke (7-5)
Wake Forest (6-6)
Those 5 remaining teams would go to the following 5 bowls:
The Sun Bowl in El Paso would choose first. By rule they cannot choose Wake. None of the teams listed above has played in the Sun Bowl in the past 3 seasons.
The Quick Lane Bowl (Detroit) and Independence Bowl (Shreveport) would choose next. Either could choose Wake, but obviously they would have to choose the Deacs over a 7-5 team. The Quick Lane Bowl would likely avoid both Duke and Boston College since they played in that bowl in the last two years, but either Pitt or Georgia Tech (or both) would be available.
The Gasparilla (Tampa) and First Responder (Dallas) would split up the two remaining teams.