Shape of the coming ACC schedule

Two games in and I thought it would be useful to look at the remaining games on Clemson's schedule to get a sense of where the victories and losses will come from. Dividing the games up into three general categories, this is how I see things right now:

Clemson favored (6): @NC State, @BC, Maryland, Virginia, Miami, GT

Opponent favored (5): @GT, Duke, FSU, @FSU, @Wake

Toss-up (3): UNC, @VT, @Maryland

These are extremely broad categories that encompass a range of likelihoods for individual games within each category but I think these are generally pretty defensible. You might quibble with a game or two (you could move one or both GT games into the "toss-up" category, for example), but let's call it reasonable for now. Clemson can expect to win 4-6 from the first category, 1-2 from the second, and 1-2 from the final category (win one, lose one, and the last one is up for grabs). That leaves us with a realistic range of 6-10 additional wins for the season, with the most likely scenario at 9 total wins (8 + the already-notched BC win).

Two observations from this breakdown: 1) the toss-up games become "swing" games of a sort. The best way for Clemson to add "unexpected" wins to their ledger is by playing well, getting some bounces and key calls, and running the tables in these games. It's early in the season, but this is why next Wednesday's game is so critical for the Tigers. It's also worth noting that UNC is classified as a toss-up not because I think the game will be close, but because I don't have any idea how the two teams will really matchup with each other this year. I'll elaborate more later in the week in the UNC preview. 2) The bulk of the difficult matchups for Clemson come at the end of the schedule, 3 of the last 4 and 5 of the last 8 fall into the "toss-up" or "opponent-favored" categories. This has two general effects: 1) we need to rack up wins in the early going and 2) the setup of the schedule will feed the lazy "Clemson-falters-at-the-end-of-the-year" media narrative that the Tigers are apparently cursed with. It's a media narrative I tried to debunk at least for last season here, and I have a feeling I'll be trying to debunk it this year, as well.