Week 15 College Football Preview
(“This Week In College Football, with David Glenn” show = below)
By David Glenn
North Carolina Sports Network
Well, it’s almost over.
The 2024 college football season continues Friday and Saturday with an intriguing Week 15 schedule, led by nine conference championship games at the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) level, but the only role for the state of North Carolina this week — at any level of major college football — is playing host for the Atlantic Coast Conference title contest.
The Old North State didn’t have entries in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) or Division Three playoffs this year, and its only representatives in the Division Two bracket, Wingate and Lenoir-Rhyne, were eliminated in the first and second round, respectively.
While the top FBS-level conference championship games mentioned below will get the overwhelming majority of the attention this weekend, those teams still alive in the FCS (Sweet 16), Division Two (quarterfinals) and Division Three (Sweet 16) playoffs will attempt to take one more step toward those respective national championships.
Meanwhile, five teams will punch their tickets to the newly expanded, 12-team College Football Playoff this weekend with victories in their respective league title contests.
Based on the current CFP committee rankings of the contending teams heading into this week’s nine conference championship games, the five highest-ranked champions almost certainly will come from the ACC (#8 SMU or #17 Clemson), Big 12 (#15 Arizona State or #16 Iowa State), Big Ten (#1 Oregon or #3 Penn State), Mountain West (#10 Boise State or #20 UNLV) and Southeastern Conference (#2 Texas or #5 Georgia).
In some cases, based on their revised résumés, the losers of those conference title games still will have a good chance of being selected by the CFP committee for one of the seven at-large bids to the playoff.
League championships also will be decided this weekend in the American Athletic Conference (10-1 Army vs. 9-3 Tulane), Conference USA (8-4 Jacksonville State vs. 8-4 Western Kentucky), the Mid-American Conference (9-3 Ohio vs. 8-4 Miami-Ohio) and the Sun Belt Conference (10-2 Louisiana vs. 9-3 Marshall), but none of those teams is considered a realistic candidate for the College Football Playoff.
NC Football Bowl Subdivision (Seven Teams)
(Games Saturday Unless Otherwise Indicated)
no games this week
Bowl Game TBA: Duke (9-3), East Carolina (7-5), North Carolina (6-6), NC State (6-6)
Season Complete: Appalachian State (5-6), Charlotte (5-7), Wake Forest (4-8)
Atlantic Coast Conference (17 Teams)
#17 Clemson (9-3) vs. #8 SMU (11-1) in Charlotte, 8 pm (ESPN)
(ACC championship game)
Bowl Game TBA: Boston College (7-5), California (6-6), Duke (9-3), Georgia Tech (7-5), Louisville (8-4), #12 Miami (10-2), North Carolina (6-6), NC State (6-6), Pittsburgh (7-5), #22 Syracuse (9-3), Virginia Tech (6-6)
Season Complete: Florida State (2-10), Stanford (3-9), Virginia (5-7), Wake Forest (4-8)
NC Football Championship Subdivision (Seven Teams)
no games this week
Season Complete: Campbell (3-9), Davidson (6-5), Elon (6-6), Gardner-Webb (4-8), North Carolina A&T (1-11), #23 NC Central (8-3), Western Carolina (7-5)
NC Division Two (14 Teams)
no games this week
Season Complete: Barton (3-8), Chowan (3-7), Elizabeth City State (3-7), Fayetteville State (4-5), Johnson C Smith (8-2), #15 Lenoir-Rhyne (10-3), Livingstone (6-4), Mars Hill (5-4), Shaw (6-4), St Augustine’s (program suspended for 2024), UNC Pembroke (6-5), #17 Wingate (9-2), Winston-Salem State (7-3)
NC Division Three (Five Teams)
no games this week
Season Complete: Brevard (6-3), Greensboro (1-9), Guilford (3-7), Methodist (1-9), North Carolina Wesleyan (4-6)
