2005 ACC Championship Game

2005 ACC Championship Game

The 2005 Dr. Pepper ACC Championship Game was the inaugural contest of the championship game for the recently expanded Atlantic Coast Conference. It was a regular season-ending American college football contest held at Alltel Stadium in Jacksonville, Florida. The game decided the winner of the ACC football championship. Florida State University defeated Virginia Tech 27–22 in a game characterized by penalties, defense, and a fourth-quarter comeback attempt by Virginia Tech.

About 2005 ACC Championship Game in brief

Summary 2005 ACC Championship GameThe 2005 Dr. Pepper ACC Championship Game was the inaugural contest of the championship game for the recently expanded Atlantic Coast Conference. It was a regular season-ending American college football contest held at Alltel Stadium in Jacksonville, Florida. The game decided the winner of the ACC football championship. Florida State University defeated Virginia Tech 27–22 in a game characterized by penalties, defense, and a fourth-quarter comeback attempt by Virginia Tech. The idea for a championship game originated with the league’s 2004 expansion, which added former Big East members Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College. Virginia Tech entered the 2005 season having won the 2004 ACC Championship, the last to be awarded without playing a championshipgame at the end of the season. The Hokies began the 2005 regular season ranked eighth in the country and played their first game at ACC opponent North Carolina State. The Virginia Tech quarterback Marcus Vick was released from the team due to repeated violations of team rules and several legal infractions. The team won their first eight games and appeared to be on course to have an untroubled run to theACC Championship Game. But against the fifth-ranked Miami Hurricanes, Tech suffered their first defeat of theSeason, losing 27–7 on November 5. Normally, a loss to the Hurricanes would have knocked the Hokies out of contention for the ACC Championship game. But because each team had one ACC loss and the Hurricanes had the tie-breaking head-to-head win, Miami had the lead in the Coastal Division.

Miami later lost a second ACC game to the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, and thericanes were knocked out of consideration for the Coastal division title in favor of the Hokie, who lost only to Miami. The first two quarters of the game were characterized by defense and penalties that stifled both teams’ offenses. In the second half, Florida State took advantage of a punt return for a touchdown to begin a third-quarter surge. Although Virginia Tech made a late-game comeback, the Seminoles ran out the clock and secured a 27-22 victory. Florida state’s win earned it the 2005 ACC Championship and a bid to the 2006 Orange Bowl against Penn State. Virginia Tech was awarded a bid against Louisville in the 2006 Gator Bowl. The league’s first championship game had to wait until after the addition of Boston College, which had been delayed by a year. Once they had been added, the ACC consisted of 12 teams, allowing it to hold a conference championship game under NCAA rules. After the game, Tech hosted an record 45 games, an NCAA record for the 15th record of an ACC championship game. After that game, the Virginia Tech defense held Duke’s offense to just 35 total yards, a defense in those games was typical of the typical of their first games. In their ninth game, however, the third-ranked Hokies lost 27-7 to Miami, Normally, but the third game of the week was at home, at the home of the 5th-ranked Hurricanes.