You’re familiar with the Venn diagram.
Two circles share a piece of territory in the middle, but partly exist outside each other.
This is the ACC Coastal Division, one weekend into the month of October.
The division is once again chaotic; that’s nothing new. Unpredictability has been the ACC Coastal’s middle name ever since the heart of the Virginia Tech dynasty expired after the 2008 season. However, the 2015 Coastal is already more than chaotic; it’s upside-down to a certain extent, and could be a lot weirder if this past Saturday offered any indication of which team is going to take control.
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Let’s start with the basic point about the ACC Coastal being upside-down: Georgia Tech, a team which was — depending on your point of view — either the best choice in the division or the worst choice except for all the alternatives, has crashed and burned, its season in utter ruins. The Yellow Jackets have enjoyed a lot of success against North Carolina over the years, and when they took a 21-0 lead over the Tar Heels at home in Atlanta on Saturday, they had to feel that run was going to continue.
Final score: North Carolina 38, Georgia Tech 31.
The Yellow Jackets had multiple chances to pound the ball into the end zone for a touchdown and a 35-24 lead in the fourth quarter. They failed on those chances. North Carolina maximized that moment of both resilience and opportunity. The Tar Heels ran away with the game after that point in time.
Georgia Tech has to go to Clemson next week. An 0-3 start in the ACC and a four-game losing streak are more likely than not (barring a Deshaun Watson injury in the Clemson-Notre Dame game, which — at press time — is just starting). It’s one thing to not be quite good enough to win a division the year after a breakthrough season. It’s quite another matter to sink like a rock, to the very bottom of the division… alongside Virginia.
Plenty of people predicted that Georgia Tech wouldn’t be good enough to win the Coastal this season, with the turnover on the roster at most of the (non-quarterback) skill positions. Pretty much no one saw THIS coming.
That’s the sure and certain part of the upside-down Coastal, not just the chaotic Coastal. The Venn diagram accounted for crazy action and relative balance in the league. It did not account for the upside-down nature of Georgia Tech. That is exclusive to the circle marked “upside-down” in the Venn structure.
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Here’s the upside-down dimension of the ACC Coastal which hasn’t yet become a reality… but easily could after Saturday’s action: North Carolina could win the division and advance to the ACC Championship Game for the first time.
The Tar Heels had not won at Georgia Tech since 1997. They’ve struggled mightily against the Jackets in recent years, and when they fell behind by that 21-0 score, no one felt they had a realistic chance of bouncing back. Larry Fedora was about to sink into that familiar state of being behind the eight-ball in the early half of October, likely having to scramble in November just to get to a bowl game.
It’s a tale as old as time.
Even when the Tar Heels were down 28-24 in the fourth quarter, Georgia Tech was one yard away from driving the final nail into the coffin.
Much as the Grinch somehow saw his heart grow in size when the overloaded sleigh was falling off the cliff, North Carolina’s defense — backed up to its own goal line — found the resilience which has been sorely lacking over the years.
That stop didn’t just offer hope in a game; Carolina turned hope into results, something which hasn’t occurred very much over the past few decades.
As a result, North Carolina is now poised to take Saturday’s turnaround in Atlanta and make a division championship out of it.
With Miami, Virginia Tech, and Georgia Tech looking awful; Duke and Pittsburgh being “half-a-loaf” teams (good to great on one side of the ball but painfully deficient on the other); and Virginia… well… being Virginia, the path is there for North Carolina to top everyone else in the Coastal.
Georgia Tech being the worst; North Carolina possibly being the best.
This isn’t just your bumper-car Coastal Division of craziness; it could be an upside-down world where black is white, down is up, and Larry Fedora’s coaching for a conference championship.
