David Hale's ACC Position Group Rankings

[GTrob21]

Bottom three.. SMH...

 

[iceeater1969]

Aren’t these talent rankings? I don’t see it as being a stretch to say our RB talent is 6th in the conference.

I think we are slammed due to the system. Slammed by joke commentators like this guy and and fast strong rb that want more than end run carries.

 

[jeffgt14]

I can’t fully disagree in many areas.

We are ranked 6 at QB and 6 at Run. The only reason we are ranked that high at QB is due to the QB’s effectiveness in the run game. We could either 6 at both or 1/2 at Run and 13/14 at QB.

Can’t argue at WR as we generally only have 1 WR that contributes much from a reception standpoint.

O-Line is about accurate. I call BS on BC being a 1 there though.

D-Line is accurate

LB we may be able to argue a spot or 2 but based off last year I wouldn’t.

DB we have a ton of new faces. Hard to rank us high there but I think we’ll outperform that.

S/T I don’t see how anyone on this planet can argue that. When we can’t make chip shot FG’s, have terrible KR/PR yardage, and pray to all that is holy that we just kickoff out of bounds, we deserve every bit of it. I honestly would rank us almost dead last in the entire country in S/T.

Ideally, I think our hope is usually that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. I have faith in every one of those categories except special teams.

 

[HurricaneJacket]

Speciaal teams should improve on the kicking side since King had the offseason to heal and hharvin has had another year in the weight room. Returns idk, but ko coverage should be helped by the bew fair catch rule.

 

[RamblinWreck92]

In another thread I saw posters suggesting we would be 3-0 when we play Clemson. Further down some suggested we might be 7-0 when we play VT. Have we lost touch with reality, or do our coaches/system help us overcome tremendous deficiencies?

Some have lost touch with reality. Fact is, we haven't defeated a healthy Clemson team in 7 years and won't this year either. The system hasn't helped us defeat the likes of Duke 3 of the past 4 years. When teams like UVA and Duke are stifling the offense, I think it's safe to say that any advantages it ever gave us have long-ago expired.

 

[Oakland]

I agree the running backs are rated too low. I think our linebackers are rated too high. Everything else looks about right. I hope he does this at the end of this season. I believe the defensive linemen will be much improved and Marshall will be better than 6th. I'm worried about our linebackers.

 

[JorgeJonas]

The rankings aren’t completely unreasonable, but it does appear that he’s got some recency biases in them.

 

[TheTechGuy]

Some have lost touch with reality. Fact is, we haven't defeated a healthy Clemson team in 7 years and won't this year either. The system hasn't helped us defeat the likes of Duke 3 of the past 4 years. When teams like UVA and Duke are stifling the offense, I think it's safe to say that any advantages it ever gave us have long-ago expired.

As long as we're stating random facts to fit a preconceived position...VT hasn't beaten a healthy GT in 4 years, and the system has beaten UGA two of the last four years.

Also, UVA gave up 36 to us last year; I would not consider that "stifling the offense."

 

[orientalnc]

Speciaal teams should improve on the kicking side since King had the offseason to heal and hharvin has had another year in the weight room. Returns idk, but ko coverage should be helped by the bew fair catch rule.

I think higher kickoffs that come down inside the 25 are going to be more the rule this season than in the past. We'll see how that plays out in coming seasons as teams collect data on how ithe new rule is working.

But, just as information, here are some data to peruse:

We ran 751 offensive plays (runs and passes)
Our opponents ran 606 offensive plays (runs and passes)

We punted 50 times (opponents returned 21) 42%
We kicked off 57 times (opponents returned 21) 37%
We attempted 10 FGs (made 7) 70%
We attempted 38 PATs (made 34) 89%

Our opponents punted 57 time (we returned 16) 28%
Our opponents kicked off 56 times (we returned 17) 30%
Our opponents attempted 19 FGs (made 16) 84%
Our opponents attempted 31 PATs (made 30) 97%

So, not counting PATs, our special teams were on the field 117 times when we had the ball, and 132 times when our opponents had the ball. That's 249 plays. But most of those plays were dominated by the ability of the kicker/punter on each team. The ability to force a fair catch or no return is a key element to special teams efficiency. Our net punt yardage versus our opponents was 39.7 to 39.2. On kick offs it was 35.9 to 39.8.

We may have to worst special teams in the ACC, but I do not think it hurts us very much. Our punting and punt return units are not hurting us at all. It's lack of kickoff coverage versus our opponents that put us at a field position disadvantage. But it's not that many plays and not very many yards difference.

Is it possible that CPJ not having a ST coach wasn't that crazy after all?

 

[RamblinWreck92]

As long as we're stating random facts to fit a preconceived position...VT hasn't beaten a healthy GT in 4 years, and the system has beaten UGA two of the last four years.

Also, UVA gave up 36 to us last year; I would not consider that "stifling the offense."

If pick-6s are now being credited to the offense, then yeah - we didn't get stifled.

VT is definitely trending downward though, no argument there. CPJ owns Fuente.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

We are ranked a butt hair away from being dead last. I'm not sure what the point of these are - is it to predict how we'll fare as a team? If so, he's a complete moron as we've only finished worse than like 8th in the ACC once in the last 12 years and here he is picking us just about dead last. Is it to reflect star rankings as recruits? If so, then shouldn't he be calling this analysis recruit rankings? I honestly don't think that's what it is, since we're ranked 11th at the DB position and at the DB position we currently have 5 guys who were rated 4-stars by at least one service (Jaylon King, Gentry Bonds, Kaleb Oliver, Tre Swilling, Jaytlin Askew) and another that was 0.1 away (Christian Campbell).

So I don't know what to make of this, other than to say its the typical overlooking, disrespecting of our team. We've finished below 0.500 only 1 single time in all of CPJs tenure, but these guys act like they've never seen us play before.

They're a bunch of idiots as far as I'm concerned. Every time they publish trash like this, we should remind them how bad their predictions are at the end of the season.

 

[RamblinWreck92]

...

They're a bunch of idiots as far as I'm concerned. Every time they publish trash like this, we should remind them how bad their predictions are at the end of the season.

Every January, after the CFB championship is over, all these preseason-ratings articles need to be updated with What Actually Happened. It'd give every one of them more credibility if they were willing to publish how wrong they were in various places.

 

[okiemon]

The rankings aren’t completely unreasonable, but it does appear that he’s got some recency biases in them.

I agree, but I'm not sure what else he would have to go on other than recent performance and perhaps recruiting rankings.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

As a reminder, David Hale's ACC power rankings last year (he predicts Georgia Tech #11 this year) had Florida State at #1. They finished 9th. He had Boston College 13th, and they finished tied with Georgia Tech for 5th...along with Wake Forest, whom he had predicted 10th. He's a loony tune.

In 2016, he didn't predict a single ACC Coastal Team would finish in the top 25, but FIVE teams finished with 8 wins or more, 2 teams finished with 9 wins (GT and Miami), and Virginia Tech finished with 10 wins. He's a loony tune.

 

[dressedcheeseside]

Who cares?

Play ball. The only thing that matters is who wins on the field. You guys can have the preseason bologna. It's more fun to do more with less anyway. Hail the conquering underdog!!!

 

[JorgeJonas]

I agree, but I'm not sure what else he would have to go on other than recent performance and perhaps recruiting rankings.

I guess my point is that each year is independent of one another, and just because there’s continuity doesn’t mean things will be better. For example, he rates our receivers as the worst in the league. It is one thing to say they are unproven, which is valid, but another to say they aren’t good. I’d be very surprised if, at the end of the year, Camp or Dolphus doesn’t take a leap forward with people wondering where that guy came from.

As for the recency bias, it’s no different than 2014 when we were supposed to suck, or 2015 when we were supposed to be good. Each season is different.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

Who cares?

Nobody likes to be disrespected, overlooked, and underrated year after year.

 

[dressedcheeseside]

Nobody likes to be disrespected, overlooked, and underrated year after year.

We won 5 games last year, it shouldn’t come as a surprise. Maybe we can, to quote Coach Klein, “use it on the field... TACKLIN’ FUEL!”

 

[TheTechGuy]

We won 5 games last year, it shouldn’t come as a surprise. Maybe we can, to quote Coach Klein, “use it on the field... TACKLIN’ FUEL!”

I understand what you are saying, and you have a point. However, we had a bad year in 2017 and still finished with as many, or more, ACC wins than 7 teams ranked ahead of us in Hale’s rankings.

At risk of stating the obvious, the caveat here is that none of this matters, and the ranking is largely based on the need to generate clicks.

Hale ranks teams with larger fan bases higher and throws in Wake Forest to generate interest. Standard as it comes.

 

[AlabamaBuzz]

DLine and Receivers.....sounds about right