The ACC Football Championship Game

The ACC football championship game today pits the Clemson Tigers against the Virginia Tech Hokies. This is a re-match of the October 1st game where Clemson won 23-3. The model I use to rank NCAA FBS teams does not bode well for the Tigers as it shows that Virginia Tech is a vastly superior team than Clemson, and I make the conclusion that Virginia Tech is the more productive team and thus the predicted winner. Let's look at the "tale of the tape".

Clemson is currently 9-3 against a strength of schedule of 59.0. While Clemson is ranked rather high in the BCS standings, they are not as highly ranked with the NCAA production model. Why? There rather inefficient defense. The NCAA FBS production model ranks Clemson as the #53 most productive team overall. On the scoring (what I call the offensive side) Clemson is the #44 most productive team and on defense they rank #62.

Virginia Tech is currently 11-1, their only loss to Clemson as mentioned above. The Hokies have played against a strength of schedule equal to 68.6, easier than Clemson's in part the model has Virginia Tech ranked higher than Clemson, and Virginia Tech is hindered by the fact that they cannot play themselves to lower their strength of schedule. That said, Virgina Tech currently have the #14 most productive team overall, with the #28 most productive offense and the #16 most productive defense.

Edge: Virginia Tech