ESPN panel now sees Clemson as likeliest ACC team to reach playoff after FSU loss

It didn’t take long for Florida State to go from preseason favorites to win the ACC to being an afterthought in the College Football Playoff.

That’s how quickly a loss to Georgia Tech on the opening weekend of the college football season changed the projected playoff landscape, at least according to an ESPN panel of 15 college football writers.

The panel released their updated projections for which teams were most likely to reach the playoff after Week 0, and Florida State’s loss to unranked Georgia Tech in Ireland made a significant impact on the way ESPN writers view the ACC race.

Of the 15 panelists, all but two saw Clemson reaching the playoff after Florida State’s 24-21 loss as time expired last Saturday.

Chris Low, Mark Schlabach, Bill Connelly, Adam Rittenberg, Ryan McGee, David Hale, Andrea Adelson, Kyle Bonagura, Harry Lyles, Eli Lederman, Paolo Uggetti, Dave Wilson, and even Clemson critic Heather Dinich all now favor the Tigers to make the playoff over Florida State, who was voted the preseason favorite to win the ACC by conference media members.

“According to the Allstate Playoff Predictor , Florida State entered the season with a 36% chance to reach the playoff. That dropped to 13% after the Week 0 loss to Georgia Tech,” ESPN’s panel stated.

Using the same model for comparison, the Allstate Playoff Predictor now gives Arizona, James Madison, UTSA and SMU a higher percentage of reaching the playoff than FSU.

Max Olson and Jake Trotter were the only two members from ESPN’s panel that didn’t have Clemson reaching the playoff. None of the 15 writers saw Florida State rebounding from its season-opening loss and reaching the postseason.

One writer, David Hale, had Clemson reaching the semifinals, along with Georgia, Ohio State and Notre Dame.

Several panelists saw the ACC getting two teams into the playoff. Hale, Dinich, Adelson, Bonagura, Lederman, Rittenberg, Schlabach and Uggetti saw the Tigers and the Miami Hurricanes reaching the 12-team postseason field, while McGee projected NC State to be in the playoff along with Clemson.

The 14th-ranked Tigers open the season Saturday against the top-ranked Georgia Bulldogs at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. Kickoff is set for noon ET. The game will be televised on ABC.

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