Syracuse Football: Top analyst dishes on ACC's inclusion in College Football Playoff

As Syracuse football is set to put its 2-0 record on the line this Friday night at home versus new Atlantic Coast Conference member Stanford, teams across this league are looking to score victories in week four this weekend and improve their standing in the ACC's pecking order.

Naturally, it's super early in the 2024 season, so a lot of the discussions about bowl projections, ACC title game contenders, and possible participants in the 12-team College Football Playoff ("CFP") are undeniably speculative.

At the same time, it will prove fascinating to watch the ACC race unfold over the coming weeks. Some national and ACC observers have opined that the conference appears fairly wide open at this juncture, with No. 8 Miami possibly being the early team to beat.

By the same token, the Hurricanes have yet to play a conference contest, and there are plenty of other ACC schools, including the Orange, that feel they have a legit shot to reach the league's championship encounter that will take place in early December in Charlotte, N.C.

Syracuse football hopes to remain undefeated when it hosts Stanford on Friday evening.

The CFP grew from four to 12 teams in the 2024 season. Participants will consist of the five conference champions ranked the highest by the CFP's selection committee, plus the next seven highest-ranked groups.

The four highest-ranked league winners will be seeded one through four, and they will receive first-round byes.

Following every weekend of games during the 2024 season, plenty of national pundits make their projections about which squads will make the CFP. Because the current top 10 of the major polls is dominated by the Southeastern Conference (and then the Big Ten Conference), it's understandable to think that those two leagues will likely earn multiple at-large CFP invites.

Regarding the ACC, Florida State is 0-3 so far. The Seminoles, which won the 2023 ACC grand prize and were the preseason favorites to repeat in 2024, have virtually no shot to get to the expanded CFP.

Many analysts are high on Miami, but let's see how the Hurricanes fare in ACC competition. Clemson got smoked by Georgia earlier this month and sits at 1-1. Miami, the Tigers and Louisville are the only ACC teams in the top-25 polls.

How the ACC race is going to shake out is anybody's guess. Boston College has looked pretty good. Georgia Tech is solid. Syracuse football is on the cusp of the top 25. California, Duke, North Carolina and Pittsburgh are undefeated to date.

Just how good are teams like N.C. State, SMU, Virginia and Virginia Tech? Things will become more clear in the coming weeks. A few days ago, Greg McElroy, one of the lead analysts for ABC and ESPN, discussed the ACC and the CFP, per an article from On3 national writer Kaiden Smith.

Given FSU's awful start in 2024, McElroy says he thinks that it's likely the ACC might only get one team in the CFP.

"The ACC’s only hope for two teams in the College Football Playoff is an upset in the ACC Championship game," he said. "Now it’s easy to kind of evaluate and be a prisoner of the moment, it’s easy to evaluate teams based on what they’ve done through three weeks, and it’s easy to jump to conclusions. I’m gonna try to resist doing that, just gonna be honest."

I understand where McElroy is coming from, because so far, Clemson hasn't done anything special. The Seminoles are toast. And just how good other ACC schools, including the 'Cuse, are remains a question mark.

So if Miami does end up being head and shoulders above the rest of the league's members, and the Hurricanes win the ACC title, that could result in no other conference schools earning an invite to the CFP.

However, I'd also be remiss if I didn't say that there's no guarantee that Miami is just going to roll through its ACC docket. Oh, and the Orange's 2024 regular-season finale is against those Hurricanes, at the JMA Wireless Dome, on November 30. Fun.

McElroy added: "So right now, I look at the ACC and it’s feeling more and more like a one-team league and that one team at the moment feels like Miami. Now (if) Clemson gets in, beats Miami in the ACC title game, then obviously it becomes a two-team league. But like I said, the takeaway here is that unless there’s an upset in the ACC Championship game, I don’t see a scenario where the ACC is getting two in the 12-team College Football Playoff."

McElroy knows his stuff, without question. But it's also week four. A lot of games left to be played. I'd love to see Syracuse football handle Stanford on Friday night and enter the top-25 polls early next week.