Week 1 - November 3, 2011

Chick-fil-A Bowl Scouts hit the road this week!

Welcome back to another series of Team Selection Blogs we will post to give fans and media an inside look into the Chick-fil-A Bowl’s team selection process.

Over the next four weeks, we’ll try to give you an idea of who we’re scouting and what teams are on our short list each week. Keep in mind that game results will change our short list from week to week, so you’ll have to keep checking back to get the latest information.

You’ll be able to read each week’s blog on Thursday and we encourage you to post comments in support of your team on the blog as well.

We will still be very active in social media and fans can follow selected scouting trips each week by following us on Twitter (@chickfilabowl). We will ask our scouts to tweet from their games to give you an idea of what goes on behind the scenes on a bowl scouting trip. Expect lots of photos and great experiences with each team’s best traditions.

We will post our scouting schedule for each week on our Facebook page so you can check to see when our scouts will be at your game. If you find them, you might even be able to talk them out of a free Chick-fil-A milkshake!

Make sure you Like us on Facebook and Follow us on Twitter to get the latest scoop from our Team Selection Committee War Room.

We had our first Team Selection Committee meeting Tuesday night, so let’s hit the highlights for our first week.

Our first meeting was spent firming up our plans for which games we will scout over the next month. We talked briefly about the ACC and SEC match-ups for this Saturday. 

Key games for us this week look to be Florida State at Boston College and Vanderbilt at Florida.

Some general thoughts on the two conferences:

In the ACC:
We’ve been really impressed by the play of Clemson who got off to a great 8-0 start before dropping a tough road game at Georgia Tech. Tajh Boyd and Sammy Watkins are huge stars and could lead this team to an ACC Championship.

Staying in the Atlantic Division, we also really like what Coach Grobe is doing at Wake Forest. The Demon Deacons are in position to win the division with their “game of the year” looming with the Tigers.

As projected, the Coastal sports Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech leading the pack with a huge game against each other in Atlanta Nov. 10. Frank Beamer and Paul Johnson are both at the tops of their games and we’re expecting this to be one of the great games this season. The winner of this game looks to be in the driver’s seat the rest of the way. GT and VT have both played in our game in the last three years, so we’ll be watching them closely.

In the SEC:
Not a lot of surprises on either side of the SEC so far with South Carolina and Georgia battling in the East and LSU and Alabama in the West. And let’s not forget about Arkansas just yet, either.

Still a lot of teams from the SEC in our picture and it’s too early to try and nail it down. Eight of the 12 teams are still on our board right now.

Some early thoughts: South Carolina has done what we expected, but with Lattimore out, they face some challenges down the stretch. Georgia needs to re-focus and get through this week while missing some key players. Florida? They need to put the injuries behind them and finish strong despite a tough schedule. Surprises? How about Vandy being a couple bad breaks away from a 6-2 record? We love it! An 8-win season isn’t out of the question.

Like everyone else, we’re looking forward to the LSU-Alabama game this week. This has all the makings of one of the greatest of all time and we can’t wait to see how it turns out. Doubtful we’ll see either of these two teams this year, but it will still be a lot of fun to watch.

Be sure to check our Facebook page for the complete list of games we’ll scout this week. And don’t forget to talk up your team with our new U-Post feature on the Chick-fil-A Bowl website.

A lot more detail to come out of our next meeting, but I’d love to see some of your projections for us posted here. Always interesting to see which teams the fans think we will end up with this early on.

Good luck to all the teams and enjoy the games!

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