November should have been a cakewalk for the ACC. When the month began, the league had one undefeated team and two legitimate playoff contenders.
Neither Clemson nor Louisville had a ranked team left on its regular-season schedule. Both were overwhelming favorites to win the remainder of their games. All they had to do was follow the script and win.
But over a five-day span, they unwittingly trashed the script and left the ACC staring at a sobering thought: A league widely expected to land a team in the College Football Playoff for the third straight season might be shut out.