The best part of college football for me is the Power Rankings. It gets the conversation going about the different conferences. We all know when in comes to college football conferences there is one that is king. There is however an argument to be made for what conference is second. I think that is a matter of taste to be honest. Do you like slow, ground and pound, low scoring games? Or do you like wide open, stretch the field, bend don’t break defenses.
My personal opinion flip flops from year to year, game to game depending on the matchups. I will say this year I think top to bottom the ACC is the second best conference. There are far better QB’s and top to bottom the teams are just deeper. So here is my ACC Week 5 Power Rankings.
- Clemson: Not as invincible as they usually are in this conference. They have shown some struggles on offense at times. Although during the Wake game, DJ played his best game and the defense struggled to slow Hartman. Close games don’t count though, you have to knock them off the throne to be King.
- Wake Forrest: Sam Hartman is a top tier college QB. He shows so much guts and poise running the slow RPO game. Throwing for 6 tds vs the big boys in the conference and no ints. The only question is can he win the big game not just keep it close. I think this team with the weapons on offense shouldn’t lose another ACC game.
- NC State: How good is the wolfpack? The answer to that is I really don’t know. They are undefeated, but haven’t really cemented a dominate performance, UConn does not count. Leary is a great QB and their defense is touted as being on top of the ACC. This Saturday we will find out if NC State can hang with the big boys or just fall short of expectations again.
- Syracuse: The old adage is “you are what your record says you are”. I don’t know if I buy that when it come to the Orange. The question in my head is “Is Syracuse Good? I think they have the pieces with Shrader and Gadsden. The Orange have good wins over Louisville and a good Purdue team. If they just handle their business that question I asked could be a yes.
- Florida State: As mentioned in the above ranking, undefeated is undefeated. They even won a road game vs. a decent Louisville team without their starting QB. I will say winning the “neutral” site game in New Orleans is also impressive, we all know that was an LSU home game. I think with the defense continuing to gel and if Travis comes back healthy FSU could be a real force.
- Miami: This is by far the most confusing team in this conference. They have a great defense, when they decide to show up. They have a good QB, when the wide receivers decide they want to catch. I just do not understand this team. The offensive play calling is so vanilla. It may be on Cristobal though, he did have a governor on Herbert at Oregon as well. If he will allow his offense to open up and use VanDyke as the dynamic passer he is they could be great. They could also fall further into irrelevancy and lose games like they did to Middle Tennessee State.
- Pitt: This team is the definition of one dimensional on offense. I think they have a great defense both vs. the pass and the run. The big achilles heel of this team is on offense. They are running Abanikanda into the ground. The transfer of Slovis to Pitt was suppose to bring the same kind of Kenny Picket type plays. Instead, Pitt is highly relying on the legs of their tremendous running back, I just do not know if he will hold up for 8 more games.
- North Carolina: This team is the exact opposite of the team ranked right above them. Gene Chizik is the worst defensive coordinator in college football. The Tarheels do no have much of a running game, but it isn’t terrible. Where do they scare you? Drake Maye can spin some pigskin. This kid can straight out play QB, and has the weapons like Nesbitt to help him. They can score a lot in a hurry, the problem with that is their defense is always on the field. North Carolina can only win a game by outscoring opponents and while that is fun to watch the wins are not always there.
- Louisville: This will be a short and sweep reason on how the Cards will do. As well as Malik Cunningham plays, is how far Louisville can go. He will win them games they have no right to win and they will lose the games he plays average or below. It really is that simple with this team.
- Virginia: To be honest this team is very lucky to be 2-2, ODU should have won that game. I just do not understand why they are so bad on offense. I really liked Armstrong coming into this season based on how great he played last year. This team is destined to maybe go .500 and make an early December Bowl Game. They will lose that Bowl Game to a team that actually wants to be there.
- Virginia Tech: The only good thing about this program right now is when Enter Sandman hits at night. Other than that this team is too young and the coaching staff is too new to compete in this conference.
- Boston College: Even though they have what some experts say is a N.F.L. QB, they lost to the team above. I can not be convinced that North East football will ever be good, but hey nice uniforms.
- Duke: Well, they are not as bad as they use to be in the 90’s and 00’s. They have been making bowl games as of late. This year though, thank god they are a basketball school.
- Georgia Tech: Made the right move in firing Collins, now if they take my advice they hire Coach Sanders. This would make this team go from perennially on the bottom to always on the top.
There you have the ACC Week 5 Power Rankings. If you have a problem with them, well there is my twitter. Go ahead yell, tell me I am wrong, I know I’m not. I went 6-1 in gambling this week, I am over 59% on my picks this year on Units Only Go Up. I am one of the brightest, yet unknown minds in college football.