ACC Football Staff Picks: The Final Results

Congrats to the Pitt Panthers for taking down the conference title, getting a win for the Coastal Division for the first time in ages-2010 to be specific-and their prize will be to head to the Peach Bowl and face off against Michigan State. That actually sets up as a good game, and Pitt QB Kenny Pickett has a real chance to rocket up the NFL draft charts on a national stage.

Championship Weekend as a whole was difficult for your Tar Heel Blog staffers. No one had a perfect week. In fact, no one even went 5-1, and most of us have Baylor to thank for that. We had all gotten suckered in by the magic of Oklahoma State and the fighting mullets, but the Bears decided they would rather seal their trip to New Orleans and not hope that Georgia would take care of business against Bama. Good thing, too, as Bama basically showed who’s still the ruler of the SEC.

So how did we all do? Lots of black on this grid, folks. Lots of black.

Man, if only Oregon could have held up their end of the bargain, I’d have at least gone 5-1. Oh well, I guess Mario Cristobal will just have to settle for falling into the Miami Hurricanes job and $8 million a year instead of not even winning a Pac 12 title and taking his Ducks to the Rose Bowl.

Man, college sports make it so difficult to enjoy sometimes.

Anyway, as you can see there won’t be much change at the top, Let’s spell out for you how everything shook out.

Congratulations Max Sloan! You took over the lead and never let it go, but in one of our closer seasons where first and last were separated by only 10 games, you rose to the top to take the gold. As a reward, you get this GIF which is the first thing that comes up when I type “trophy” on GIPHY

Joe came up just short to take the top, but coming in second in picks is absolutely respectable. Meanwhile, you may have noticed that even though Jake and I finished with the same record, only I took a bronze. We know the saga of Jake by now, and know his first few weeks were just copying picks, so being incredibly petty and wanting as much glory for myself as I can take, I ruled that because he didn’t actually make his own picks for all of the season, that was a tiebreaker. So, enjoy fourth Jake, and keep fighting for our country!

Speaking of copying picks, eventually Jake learned it wouldn’t be a good idea to continue to copy picks from the guy he chose because that guy finished tied for last. That’s right, folks, last year’s champ Evan finished in last place. Oh the fall was a steep one. Small comfort for Evan, though, was that he was able to take a 4-2 week and claw his way back up to finish in a tie for last with Michael. That means Evan won’t go down as finishing 10th, but finishing in a tie for 9th. Micheal, meanwhile, gets to take solace in the fact that he tied with last year’s winner.

Thanks for following along, folks. We’ll be back in 2022 for further picks and to see if titles can be defended or if a new winner will rise up. In the meantime, enjoy the bowl games!