In the preseason, much was made about the ACC’s parity. We called it the deepest conference, and said that every team in the league had top-40 potential. Vegas win totals had the entire league within a win of making bowl games.
Everyone thought the ACC would have too many good teams. About that!
We looked optimistically at the ACC’s parity in the preseason, but it’s looking like the wrong kind of parity.
Photo by Michael Shroyer/Getty Images
Well, as they say, potential will get you fired, and that might happen to more than one ACC coach this season. Because it is true that the ACC is a jumbled tier of teams behind a few contender types and Clemson ... but there’s a chance that most of that tier is actually pretty bad.
The ACC’s pretty much this at this point:
Clemson’s the known quantity. The jury’s out on every other team, and the deliberations aren’t terribly positive.
By the numbers, the ACC has been September’s most disappointing conference, and it currently ranks last among the Power 5 in average S&P+, closer to the non-power American than it is to the SEC:
- SEC (plus-14.9, down 1.4 points)
- Big 12 (plus-9.1, down 0.3 points)
- Big Ten (plus-8.7, down 0.7 points)
- Pac-12 (plus-6.5, same)
- ACC (plus-6.2, down 0.7 points)
- AAC (minus-1.6, down 0.3 points)
Let’s try to sort this thing out. We could start with the undefeateds who might be good?
- Syracuse: The Orange are 4-0 under Dino Babers. They absolutely dominated Florida State in Week 3, but we’ll get to the Seminoles later. Besides that, they’ve mollywhopped other bad teams, which I guess is all you can ask for.
- Duke: Also 4-0, and with some wins looking more decent by the week. A 20-point win over Army is nothing to laugh at — ask Oklahoma — and neither is a 14-point win over Northwestern. Maybe they’re decent. We’ll find out!
- NC State: We didn’t get a chance to judge the Wolfpack against West Virginia because that game got scratched due to severe weather. Other than that, they have wins over James Madison, Georgia State, and Marshall. /shrugs
The one-loss teams that might be good?
- Miami: The Canes are 3-1. They lost a somewhat deceptive blowout at the hands of LSU in Week 1, but in Week 4, made a quarterback change to N’kosi Perry. Malik Rosier looks done, and The U now has a short week in which the redshirt freshman will presumably take the reins against North Carolina. We’ll find out what Miami’s made of.
- Virginia: The Hoos lost a squeaker to Indiana. But even moreso than Mark Richt, I’m willing to trust that Bronco Mendenhall can buff and polish a lump of coal and make it a competitive team. And then I remember when he said more than half of his team isn’t ACC-level talent.
The one-loss teams that aren’t exactly what we thought they were after a couple weeks, and Wake Forest.
- Virginia Tech: Lost. To. Old. Dominion.
- Boston College: Honestly, pretty impressive season overall. BC handled Wake, and became ranked with impressive offense. Then the Eagles traveled to Purdue (which should’ve been more like 2-1 than 0-3) and looked as inept as they have for the bulk of Steve Adazzio’s tenure during the 30-13 loss. The troubling thing: they couldn’t run the ball early, then Purdue forced them to be one-dimensional when they took the lead. That led to four interceptions.
- Pitt: The Panthers lost a game to Penn State few expected them to win, but they were a 3.5-point favorite against UNC in Week 4, and S&P+ predicted them to win by six. They lost.
- Wake Forest: So maybe Wake wasn’t necessarily good but could hang around with better teams. Then Notre Dame ripped the Deacs limb from limb.
Everybody else.
- Florida State: Bad. They beat Northern Illinois like they were supposed to, but Willie Taggart even admitted his team wouldn’t have won against a good team.
- UNC: Bad. Blown out by ECU, beaten by Cal, and squeaked by Pitt. The silver lining for the Heels is that they didn’t have to play UCF this season.
- Louisville: Bad. “Another game, another complete failure on offense for the Cardinals.” And that’s the side of the ball Bobby Petrino is supposed to have a savant-like knowledge about.
- Georgia Tech: Bad. The Jackets lost to Clemson, 49-21, and it should have been worse. Consider this: Tech fumbled eight times, but somehow recovered seven of them.
For years, this question of whether the ACC had parity or just a bunch of bad teams was a problem limited to the Coastal Division.
You could count on Florida State and Clemson to figure it out, and depend on someone like Louisville to be right behind. There was an established pecking order in the league.
But now there’s not, and that might be the story of the ACC in 2018 when all is said and done.
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