The 2008 college football season begins next Thursday night, with NC State taking on South Carolina in Columbia. Today we'll roll out some projected standings for the upcoming season. Most of the country is picking Clemson to win the conference, but will they? If not, who will challenge them?

Picking games is tough. It's tough to factor in team unity, injuries, or teams just overachieving or underachieving. I've already gone through and picked each game for each ACC team (that article will run Monday), so it's time to unveil the projected conference standings. As usual, these will probably turn out to be very inaccurate.

First, we'll look at the Atlantic Division.

That's a three-way tie at the top between Wake Forest, Florida State and Clemson. The first tiebreaker is to form the teams in a mini-division. Will that break the tie? No. Each team has a record of 1-1 when you break them down into a three-team division.

Now we have to look at their records within the Atlantic Division. I have Wake Forest at 5-1 against Atlantic Division teams, with the loss coming to Clemson. Likewise, Florida State is 5-1 in the Atlantic, with one loss to Wake Forest. However, Clemson is just 4-2 in the Atlantic, with losses to Boston College and Florida State.

That eliminates the Tigers from the tiebreaker, and since Wake is projected to beat Florida State head-to-head, the Demon Deacons will earn the trip to Tampa to play for the ACC Championship.

FSU and Wake meet on September 20, the third game of the season for each team. Many FSU players will still be suspended as a result of their academic scandal, so I've got Wake winning that game.

I also feel that Boston College will field a better team than many expect this year. Matt Ryan is gone, but Brian Toal and B.J. Raji return from injury and suspension to bolster what could be the best front seven in the ACC. They'll also have a r-senior quarterback and a group of solid, inexperienced wide receivers. They could easily be a factor in the Atlantic race.

Virginia Tech is the clear favorite in the Coastal Division, and I believe they'll win it.

The Coastal doesn't look like it's going to be nearly as strong as the Atlantic. The Hokies will take advantage of that, and will beat North Carolina head-to-head in September in what will be a de facto Coastal Division championship game.

I don't quite buy into the Carolina hype this year, though I expect them to have a solid football team. I don't know if I've ever seen so much hype over a team that won exactly four games the previous season. They'll become a solid program under Davis, but I don't think they are quite there yet.

Finally, I'll go ahead and pick Miami to sneak into a bowl, even though I really don't have any confidence that they will. I think the ACC will have more than six bowl eligible teams, so I went with the 'Canes.

Now that we've seen the standings, here is how the bowls will look.

Virginia Tech is a bad matchup for Wake Forest in the ACC Championship Game, and the Hokies will go back to the Orange Bowl for the second year in a row. This year it would be a pleasant surprise if they won it. If they did manage, it would make up for last season's loss.

The Chick-fil-A Bowl will pick Florida State, since Clemson played in last year's bowl, and they will have played their first game of the 2008 season in the Georgia Dome. The Tigers will then head to Jacksonville for the Gator Bowl. Wake Forest, as a result of their low TV appeal and small fan base, will drop to the Champs Sports Bowl.

Boston College will get the Music City Bowl, where they'll try to keep their impressive bowl winning streak alive. UNC will play in their bowl game in Charlotte and have a very good fan turnout. Miami will head to San Francisco. Because the ACC will only have seven bowl eligible teams, no one will have to go to Boise this year. The Congressional Bowl in Washington, DC will have to find a team from another conference as well.

I'll return Monday with my game-by-game prediction breakdown.