Wanted to build off my post from earlier in the day about what I think happened with the Tier 2 bowls today. Based on my speculation.
First of all, Joe Giglio has remained adamant that as of this morning Wake was locked in to play on Tampa. So what happened?
After Virginia Tech beat Marshall, VT became the 11th bowl eligible team. With only Clemson making the CFP or New Year’s Six bowl games, this became an unusual situation with the ACC needing to go very deep into their bowl affiliation to fill 10 spots. The good news is that the SEC would not fill their spot in the Birmingham Bowl, and that bowl had a conditional agreement that the ACC could use the spot if their primary conferences did not fill their spots. So the Birmingham Bowl opening meant that the ACC had enough slots.
At some point today it likely became evident that the last 4 teams to be selected would be Georgia Tech, Wake Forest, Duke and Boston College. The last 4 bowls to choose teams would be (in order of selection) the Independence, Quick Lane, Gasparilla and Birmingham Bowls.
Here is where it gets interesting, the ACC gives some degree of veto power to schools in two scenarios: 1) the school has played in a bowl in the last two years and/or 2) the bowl is pre-Christmas and a school is concerned about proximity to exams. The latter scenario is taken seriously enough that the ACC reportedly entered into a conditional agreement with the First Responder Bowl in Dallas to send a team to that bowl if every one of the Tier 2 bowl team objected to participating in the Gasparilla Bowl because of exam concerns. As of this morning, that wasn’t viewed as necessary because Wake had made it known that they would go to the Gasparilla and would play shortly after exams. So the Gasparilla wanted Wake and Wake wanted the Gasparilla.
Here is what I think happened. I think Duke and Boston College both took hard stands with the ACC that they were unwilling to go to three of the 4 remaining bowls (the Quick Lane, Gasparilla and Birmingham Bowls). Giglio reported earlier in the week that Duke did not want to play in a pre-Christmas game or the Quick Lane Bowl (which they played in last year). It’s very plausible that Boston College had similar objections. BC’s academic calendar lists final exams through December 20 (later than almost all other schools) and had also played in the Quick Lane in the last two years.
If Duke and BC lobbied hard enough against 3 of the 4 remaining bowls the ACC would have been left in a tough position. The only way to accommodate those two schools would be to exercise their contractual provision to swap the Gasparilla (out from under Wake) for the First Responder (which is a post-Christmas game). Then Duke could be slotted in the Independence (12/27) and Boston College could be slotted in the First Responder (12/26). Since Wake Forest had already agreed to play pre-Christmas, possibly with the idea that such an agreement would mean only the Gasparilla, was the natural team to stick in the Birmingham Bowl (which had just been added to the bowl lineup).
The whole reason I feel confident in my speculation is that there has to be a story being the highly unexpected decision by the ACC to swap the Gasparilla for the First Responder. It even appears to go against the ACC’s agreement with the Gasparilla.
If I’m right about all of this, then Wake was either unfortunate, outplayed or a little of both.
