- UNC has had two high-ranked recruiting classes in a row. Last year, they showed a major improvement in play after one year of improved recruiting. After a second year, it’s natural to expect more improvement. They have a Sophomore QB who looked stellar his freshman year. Unless he has a sophomore slump, you’d expect at least as good as last year.
- Miami is recruiting where they normally do. This year seems like last year at Miami, and the trend of past years, with the addition of locker room issues carrying over from last year. I also think the turnover chain buzz and other things that Richt instituted are wearing off. So, with Miami, why would you expect anything better than the last couple of years?
- Here are the projected SP+ numbers for the year, including transfers and recruits: https://www.espn.com/college-footba...+-college-football-rankings-alabama-back-no-1. UNC is third behind Clemson and Notre Dame. Based on how they played last year and who they recruited, UNC looks stronger than VT or Miami.
- Backing the Pack looked at those numbers and the schedules. https://www.backingthepack.com/nc-s...c-get-a-break-sorry-florida-state-wake-forest. We look a lot better than last year, and better than other teams in the conference. Our schedule is horrendous, though. It’s not even the toughest in the ACC, though—FSU has those honors.
- UNC has the weakest schedule in the conference. Based on their projected strength and the “luck of the draw“, you’d expect them to win a ton of games.
- VT has a below average schedule, but not nearly as easy as UNCs. Miami has a hard schedule.
- Those numbers have us better than Wake, Syracuse, NCST, BC, and Duke.
- They also have us with three wins. We’re below average for the league, but we’re moving up towards average. You could put is in a middle blob with Louisville, NCST, Pitt, and UVA.
- At the top of the league, you have Clemson, then Notre Dame and UNC are neck and neck, then a cluster of FSU, Miami, and VT.
- Duke, BC, Wake, and Syracuse are projected to be bad.
- Duke, BC, and Syracuse are must-wins for us. After that, we’re trying to carve out three more wins. Pitt and Louisville are our best upset shots.
- Based on projections and our strength of schedule, 5 wins (which was my guess for the season) is a massively lucky overachievement. If we get to 6 wins, we’ve held every game in which we could be favored, won two solid upsets, and had one miracle.
Here are the pre-season SP+ ACC Rankings
- Clemson. 27
- Notre Dame. 18.5
- UNC 16
- Miami 12.6
- FSU 12
- VT 10.2
- Louisville 6.7
- Pitt 6.0
- UVa 5.2
- GT. 1.3
- NCST 0.2
- Duke -1.7
- BC -2.2
- Wake -3.7
- Syracuse -6.4
I grouped one way earlier. You can easily draw a line between Clemson and everyone else. The next line seems to be under UNC. You might put another one between VT and Louisville.
You could put a line between UVa and us. I put a line between NCST and Duke, but part of that is that Duke went negative.
