CHARLOTTE — With the college football campaign passing the midpoint of the 2024 season, a handful of local teams are sitting right at the border of possibly notching a bowl appearance if current trends continue.
Unlike the Duke Blue Devils (5-1, 1-1 ACC), who are now just one victory away from a locked-in bowl bid, these in-state teams have their work cut out for them if they want to play in a postseason matchup.
The North Carolina Tar Heels (3-4, 0-3 ACC), NC State Wolfpack (3-4, 0-3 ACC), and Wake Forest Demon Deacons (2-4, 1-2 AAC) are each set to battle through the rest of ACC play as they try to hit the six-win marker for bowl eligibility.
Meanwhile, the Charlotte 49ers (3-3, 2-0 AAC) and East Carolina Pirates (3-3, 1-1 AAC) could soon be fighting for their first bowl bid since 2019 and 2022, respectively.
Over in the Sun Belt, the Appalachian State Mountaineers (2-4, 0-3 SBC) will need to flip the downward momentum in the second half of their season in order to avoid their first two-year bowl drought since moving from the FCS to the FBS in 2014.
In Chapel Hill, the once 3-0 Tar Heels are now reeling after four straight losses, opening the door for UNC to snap its streak of reaching a bowl game in each of its past five campaigns since Mack Brown’s return to the program.
“They’re all coming down to a play,” Brown said of his team’s tough stretch of luck following its recent 41-34 home loss to Georgia Tech (5-2, 3-2 ACC). “There’s a thin line between winning and losing, and this team’s had a load put on them. So what we’ve got to do is just keep getting better … There are so many things we can fix that give us a chance to be a better team and win the last five games, and that’s what we’ll do.”
The Tar Heels now have a bye week before traveling to face Virginia (4-1, 2-0 ACC) on Oct. 26, rounding out their season with Florida State (1-5, 1-4 ACC), Wake Forest, Boston College (4-2, 1-1 ACC), and NC State.
With similar records and sitting below .500, it’s possible that the Heels’ looming home matchups with the Demon Deacons (Nov. 16) and Wolfpack (Nov. 30) could have major bowl implications for all teams involved.
Both Wake and NC State have lost three of the past four games and stand at risk of losing more ground with respective road contests at UConn (4-2) and California (3-3, 0-3 ACC) awaiting them this upcoming weekend.
The two teams have both struggled to keep opposing teams out of the end zone; the Deacs have the nation’s 128th-ranked defense, while the Wolfpack have the 90th-ranked defense.
“For us, playing well and learning how to win, it starts with learning how not to lose,” NC State coach Dave Doeren said in his weekly Monday press conference. “Beating yourself is the fastest way to lose a football game. We’ve learned the hard way how precious winning is and how hard it is to win football games. When you’re used to it, when you start taking that stuff for granted, sometimes the football gods come back and remind you how hard it really is to win a game.”
Representing NC in the American Athletic Conference, the aforementioned Niners and Pirates will both need to win at least half of their remaining six games in order to make a bowl game. In the recent head-to-head matchup between the two teams, Charlotte throttled ECU in a 55-24 home finish as second-year coach Biff Poggi’s team had one of its biggest victories in years.
The Niners will now take on a difficult trio of opponents (Navy, Memphis, and Tulane) — who have a combined record of 14-3 — before playing an easier trio of teams (South Florida, Florida Atlantic, and UAB) that has combined for a 5-13 record.
Despite entering the 2024 season with noted deficiencies in team depth, both ECU coach Mike Houston and App State coach Shawn Clark have begun to draw increasing fire from their fan bases as their seats get hotter with each compiling loss.
In Boone, quarterback Joey Aguilar has led the Mountaineers to the 19th-best passing offense in the country, but App’s 113th-ranked defense has thwarted the team’s progression on a week-to-week basis.
The final months of the year will not only determine which teams make a bowl game but could indicate which direction these local programs are heading going into 2025.
