Miami Football: 5 reasons why the Hurricanes will win the title in 2017

3. The ACC Coastal is weak

There are a few elite conference divisions in college football. The SEC West has been on top of the mountain for the better part of a decade, but the ACC Atlantic and Big Ten East have both made advances in the recent past. The ACC Coastal, however, is nowhere near becoming one of the nation’s best divisions. That bodes well for the Hurricanes.

Miami finished fourth in the division in 2016, but had a better overall record than second place finisher Pittsburgh and third place finished North Carolina. In fact, the ‘Canes were just one win behind Virginia Tech for the division crown.

The top four schools in the ACC Coastal will all be breaking in brand new quarterbacks in 2017. Each school has their warts. North Carolina was full dependent on Mitchell Trubisky. Matt Canada, formerly of Pittsburgh, is the new offensive coordinator at LSU. Virginia Tech’s junior quarterback declared early for the NFL draft but went undrafted leaving Justin Fuente in a bind. With offenses in flux, that leaves the aforementioned Miami defense as one of the better units in the division.

There isn’t a team in the rest of the division (Georgia Tech, Duke and Virginia) that poses a real threat to Miami. As the conference takes a step into a down year, the Hurricanes are on the rise. They just need to take care of a weaker conference slate that should work in their favor.