Ok, yet they lost to a Kansas team (Big 12), and only played against Clemson, Virginia, a Matt Ryan led BC, and LSU to prop their schedule up. Lets look at the other 4 teams around them in the rankings that year. LSU, Ohio St, Oklahoma, and UGA.
LSU
SEC > ACC (conference schedule), 7 Top 25 opponants not counting the championship game which stands alone. 11-2 regular season record.
Oklahoma
Big12 > ACC schedule, 3 top 25 opponents(4 if you count fiesta bowl), 1 of those top 25 was #1 when they beat them. Their 2 regular season losses were for a combined 10pts. 11-2 regular season record.
Ohio State
Big 10 > ACC, 4 Top 25 opponents regular season (5 if you count Natl Championship), their only loss came at home by 7 points. 11-1 record regular season.
UGA
SEC > ACC, 4 top 25 opponents (5 if you count bowl), they beat all top 25 opponents they faced, combined losses were 25pts. 10-2 regular season. 2 losses came in conference play.
VT
ACC schedule, 5 Top 25 opponents (6 if you count orange bowl), they lost 2 of those 5 (3 if you count orange bowl), and their combined loss was 45pts. 11-2 regular season
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UGA non conf schedule - Oklahoma St(W), Western Carolina(W), Troy(W), GT(W), and Hawaii(W) if you count bowls.
VT non conf schedule - East Carolina(W), LSU (L), Ohio(W), William and Mary(W), Kansas(L) if you count bowls.
You would put a team that lost at least 50% of its quality games in over a team that won every single top 25 game they played in (UGA), AND played a better OOC schedule? Come on dude. VT lost to the only 2 quality non conference opponents they had. While Georgia’s aren’t overly strong they still beat all of them by double digits. If you want to take it on the surface, UGA was 5-0 OOC, VT was 3-2. Thankfully for all of us, SoPines is not on the selection committee.