Booking the ACC: With Top 10, Top 25 games on the schedule, it’s decision time

The hard part for a booker is knowing that the guy you’re putting over is going to be able to carry the flag for you down the road.

That’s our dilemma as we approach Booking the ACC in Week 5.

We’ve got ourselves a pair of big-time matchups – #5 Clemson hosting #10 NC State, #22 Wake Forest traveling to #23 Florida State.

Gotta get these right. We want at least one team in the College Football Playoff.

Let’s take care of the lower hanging fruit first, though.

Wagner (0-3) at #25 Syracuse (4-0): Squash match for the Orange to get to 5-0.

Louisville (2-2, 0-2 ACC) at Boston College (1-3, 0-2 ACC): Boston College, apologies, is of no use to us now. We need Louisville to go over, and go over big.

Virginia Tech (2-2, 0-1 ACC) at North Carolina (3-1, 0-0 ACC): North Carolina is probably of slightly more value down the road, so we’ll take the Tar Heels here.

UVA (2-2, 0-0 ACC) at Duke (3-1, 0-0 ACC): If the UVA offense can get going, the ‘Hoos can at least be a player in the Coastal race, so we’ll go there.

Georgia Tech (1-3, 0-1 ACC) at #24 Pitt (3-1, 0-0 ACC): Yeah, Pitt.

This gets us to the hard ones.

First, to Wake (3-1, 0-1 ACC) at FSU (4-0, 2-0 ACC).

I’m going to go with the brand name here, because as a booker, that is my inclination.

The ‘Noles have a brand-name win over LSU, and they’re of value because they still have games left with both Clemson and NC State later in the season.

Keep them protected with the win here, and we can set up some interesting games later on.

Now, to the really hard one, Clemson (4-0, 2-0 ACC) and NC State (4-0, 0-0 ACC).

You know my philosophy: brand names.

So, Clemson.

But maybe we can preserve State somehow by doing a Wake redux, taking this one into a couple of OTs.

This just in case Clemson fades down the stretch, and we need the Pack to be around to do something for us.