ACC epitomizes chaos in supersized conferences

Three months after it began, regular season heads to frantic finish with little decided.

- By WILL GRAVES

COACH Rhett Lashlee celebrates with fans after SMU's 26-20 overtime win over Miami in Dallas on Nov. 1.

(JEFFREY McWHORTER Associated Press)

Rhett Lashlee lost track midsentence. Considering the sentence, how could you blame him?

The Southern Methodist coach was running down the list of teams that have a shot at reaching the Atlantic Coast Conference title game entering the final weekend of the regular season and then just sort of gave up.

“Both us and Virginia have that opportunity this week,” Lashlee said. “Pitt’s still in it. Miami. Duke. I think there’s a lot of people still in it.”

In the end, perhaps too many — Lashlee inadvertently left out Georgia Tech — for the Power Four conference everyone loves to pick on to receive multiple berths into the College Football Playoff.

In all there are a half-dozen ACC teams with viable — albeit in some cases, unlikely — paths to Charlotte, N.C., on the first Saturday in December, when the league title game winner could lock up a spot in the CFP.

The ACC is hardly the only conference in which order may descend into chaos. There are still four teams in the mix to make it to the Big Ten championship. The same goes for the Big 12 and the Southeastern Conference.

Yet the handwringing in the ACC is particularly acute. This is the same league, after all, in which an unbeaten Florida State was shut out of a four-team CFP two years ago largely because of to an injury to quarterback Jordan Travis. The aftertaste of the disrespect still lingers.

Parity comes at a price in the ACC