ACC Roulette: As usual, the wheel stops on Virginia Tech

Virginia Tech 28, Georgia Tech 21. Every week I indulge on the ACC's well-earned reputation for inconsistency, parity, inscrutability and all-purpose chaos. The whole time, though, I that somewhere in the pack, like the tortoise staying the course amidst a frenzy of manic-depressive hares, Virginia Tech will eventually emerge at the front. It may take them all year, and it will be ugly. It will include a six-touchdown loss to LSU, or a loss to East Carolina, or in a I-AA paycheck game, in a fashion that by all rights should condemn the Hokies to obscurity. At this point, though, as they trudge steadily toward their seventh consecutive finish as the conference's highest-ranked team in the final polls, there's as little doubt as ever that they're going to be there at the end.

This bunch is right in that niche. They're slow starters, proven again tonight by an early 14-0 hole that had only been closed to 14-7 going into the fourth quarter. The defense is only a little better than a shadow of its former, dominant self. No matter what, they'll always be owners of one of the worst losses of the season. Even tonight, they were outgained by almost 100 total yards, at home, by a team playing the entire second half without its starting quarterback.

But with Rashad Carmichael's end zone interception to thwart Georgia Tech's last-gasp drive to tie, Virginia Tech is 5-0 in conference play, atop a division where every other team already has at least two ACC losses. Assuming they make it seven straight against instate whipping boy Virginia, the only way the Hokies won't wind up back in the ACC Championship Game for the fourth time in its six-year existence is if they somehow drops games against both injury-plagued Miami and scandal-plagued North Carolina, and either the Hurricanes or Tar Heels run the table by knocking off two other conference foes with winning records to end the regular season. Did we mention Virginia Tech is now 21-2 in the month of November since joining the conference in 2004?

You don't need absolute mathematical certainty to draw the conclusion: Beamer Ball is going to Charlotte next month. No other team in this league would ever get that kind of benefit of the doubt without having its tickets locked up in an airtight vault. But seeing as the rest of them seem to be in a constant state of chasing their own tails while the Hokies keep moving on, it's not really much of a gamble.

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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.

Source: http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/blog/dr_saturday/post/ACC-Roulette-As-usual-the-wheel-stops-on-Virgi?urn=ncaaf-282741

Joe Corvo Jared Cowen Jace Coyle Nick Crawford