Apparently the Gator Bowl is not happy that the ACC strong-armed them into accepting Georgia Tech. It seems the Gator Bowl lost over a million dollars the last time the Yellow Jackets played there. You know, way back in last week.
The end result might be the end of the ACC Championship's sojourn in Jacksonville. Which I would have no problem with. It is rather silly to have the championship game run by the bowl that has the second post-BCS choice. The Peach Bowl hasn't picked the conference runner-up in either of the two years, and doesn't seem likely to. Putting the Gator in the position of hosting the same team twice in a month or kicking the runner-up down to an embarassingly low bowl, leads to unenviable situations like, well, this one. Better to move the championship game to Charlotte, D.C., Tampa Bay, or Atlanta.
The interesting thing that jumped out at me about this year's ACC bowl pairings:
Orange - Wake Forest vs. Louisville
Peach - Virginia Tech vs. Georgia
Gator - Georgia Tech vs. West Virginia
Meineke - Boston College vs. Navy
Champs - Maryland vs. Purdue
Music City - Clemson vs. Kentucky
Emerald - Florida State vs. UCLA
MPC Computers - Miami vs. Nevada
...is the potentially great match-ups that were missed since the bowls weren't working together to get the best games. Just shuffling it a bit and:
Peach - Georgia Tech vs. Georgia
Gator - Virginia Tech vs. West Virginia
Meineke - Maryland vs. Navy
Champs - Boston College vs. Purdue
...you've got a reignition of one of the bitterest rivalries of the old Big East, a crossstate match-up between two Maryland schools, and a happier BC. The downside is a repeat of a UGA-GT game that was disappointing just two weeks earlier, but still - deep-seated rivalry. You could also switch up Miami and FSU to get a repeat of the 1998 UCLA-Miami game that kicked the Bruins' out of the BCS championship game, but I think the Hurricanes are the team most deserving of the indignity of a blue football field.
Of course, it's not in the interest of the Peach Bowl - or the Gator or the Meineke - to maximize every bowl match-up, just their own game. And thus, everybody's unhappy. Is this really the best system people can come up with?