ACC 2024 preview: Can newbies challenge Florida State and Clemson?
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Costs Connelly, ESPN Personnel WriterJul 2, 2024, 09:08 AM ET Close Bill Connelly is a personnel writer for ESPN.com.Thank goodness actualfootball is starting quickly. No offense to the good folks of the Atlantic Coast Conference, but when claims and countersuits are the main story of your offseason, well, you haven’t had an extremely pleasurable offseason. (I believe there’s an “Affidavits and Contracts Conference” joke in here somewhere, however I won’t make it, even though there’s practically absolutely nothing Atlantic about this location now.)
Everything about the ACC feels strange today, from big football programs outlining to leave, to groups from Texas and California joining, to the easy existence of a conference with 17 teams and games like Stanford at Syracuse, Boston College at SMU and Cal at Wake Forest. The variation in schedule strengths– Georgia Tech ranks 15th in forecasted SP+ SOS, 5 other groups rank in the leading 40, and four others rank outside the top 70– makes this only loosely seem like a conference. But when the games really begin, we’ll have a potentially excellent race on our hands all the exact same. Florida State and Clemson, the standout escape plotters (and winners of 12 of the previous 13 ACC champions), start out in the front of the race, however 5 groups are projected in between 19th and 32nd in SP+ and loom not far behind.Let’s preview the ACC!Every week through the summer season, CostsConnelly will preview another FBS conference specifically for ESPN +, eventually including all 134 FBS groups. The previews will consist of 2023 breakdowns, 2024 previews and team-by-team pills. Here are the MAC, Conference USA, AAC, MWC and Sun Belt previews.Jump to a section:2024 projections|Best games Title contenders|Who’s
close?Hoping for 6-6
2023 wrap-up
GROUP REC. (CONF) SP+ RK OFF. SP+DEF. SP+ST SP+F lorida St.(ACC) 13-1(9-0 )19.4 (9) 34.1 (23) 16.5 (9 ) 1.8 (8 ) Clemson (ACC ) 9-4 (4-4) 10.5 (23) 29.3 (51 ) 19.0 (21 ) 0.2 (66 ) SMU (AAC ) 11-3 (9-0) 10.1 (24) 34.1 (22 ) 23.0 (39 ) -1.1 (98 ) Miami (ACC ) 7-6 (3-5) 9.6 (28) 30.7 (41 ) 23.1 (40 ) 1.9 (3 ) Duke (ACC ) 8-5 (4-4) 9.4 (30 ) 27.3 (63 ) 19.5 (25 ) 1.5 (18 ) Louisville (ACC) 10-4 (7-2) 8.0 (34 ) 30.1 (46 ) 22.3 (36 ) 0.2 (64 ) NC St. (ACC) 9-4 (6-2) 7.4 (39 ) 25.5 (73 ) 19.7 (26 ) 1.6 (15 ) N. Carolina (ACC) 8-5 (4-4) 7.4 (40 ) 34.4 (21 ) 27.8 (78 ) 0.8 (46 ) Va. Tech (ACC) 7-6 (5-3) 5.8 (46 ) 27.5 (62 ) 23.3 (42 ) 1.7 (14 ) Ga. Tech (ACC) 7-6 (5-3) 0.3 (65 ) 29.4 (50 ) 29.1 (86 ) 0.1 (68 ) California (Pac-12) 6-7 (4-5) -0.1 (67 ) 30.6 (43 ) 28.7 (84 ) -2.0 (128 ) Syracuse (ACC) 6-7 (2-6) -4.4 (80 ) 22.2 (88 ) 26.1 (61 ) -0.5 (85 ) Boston Coll. (ACC) 7-6 (3-5) -5.9 (83 ) 22.2 (87 ) 27.6 (77 ) -0.5 (83 ) Pittsburgh (ACC) 3-9 (2-6) -7.3 (91 ) 19.3 (108 ) 26.0 (59 ) -0.6 (87 ) Wake Forest (ACC) 4-8 (1-7) -7.9 (96 ) 20.2 (102 ) 26.9 (68 ) -1.2 (102 ) Virginia (ACC) 3-9 (2-6) -10.8 (105 ) 21.0 (98 ) 31.7 (99 ) -0.1 (70 ) Stanford (Pac-12) 3-9 (2-7) -11.9 (108 ) 21.4 (95 ) 34.5 (116 ) 1.1 (36 ) Last we saw Florida State, Mike Norvell’s Seminoles were the victim of the College Football Playoff committee’s worst-ever choice and laying the egg of all eggs in the Orange Bowl. It was regrettable for any number of apparent factors, but it also just sidetracked us from the truth that, in the period of just two years, Norvell had actually changed the Seminoles from a listless mess to the class of the ACC. They won their first league title in nine years and, in spite of the Orange Bowl, enjoyed their best surface in SP+ in 10 years.Elsewhere, Louisville protected its very first ACC championship game look thanks to a 4-0 record in one-score finishes in conference games, but Jeff Brohm’s Cardinals were amongst a large batch of similar groups. Consisting of SMU– which, like FSU, dealt with its own late-season QB injury problems– 7 existing ACC groups finished between 23rd and 40th in SP+. Which does not consist of a Virginia Tech team that delighted in a huge midseason turn-around. After beginning the season 2-4 and ranking as low as 76th in SP +, Brent Pry’s Hokies won five of their last 7, overachieved projections by an average of 14.7 points per game and credited 46th. And now they rank in the country’s top five in returning production.Meanwhile, the other brand-new additions, Cal and Stanford, were essentially West Coast Georgia Tech and West Coast Virginia.