Chalk held in ACC football this week. There wasn’t much drama to speak of so here are your power rankings for Week 11.
This week in As the ACC Turns we find the real contenders and flush out the pretenders.
A coach falls as his team dropped to an old foe. There’s a lot of mold on the Orange and the electricity of the Carrier Domes has withered to a spark; and that’s just to keep the lights on. The Tigers had their annual paycheck game before the “Rivalry that Really Ain’t”. Can a pseudo-rivalry game be a trap game, too?
The Good Book says, you reap what you sow and the Tar Heels kept swiping victories just to have a victory stolen from them. Steve Addazio might get his seven, Wake Forest might be the only team in the ACC that’s not four touchdowns worse than Clemson and North Carolina State is really bad at football. All this and more on As the ACC Turns.
I couldn’t tell you if Willie Taggart was the guy to fix the ills at Florida State, but two years wasn’t long enough to repair anything. Addazio’s hot seat has cooled significantly thanks to being one game from bowl eligibility and the possibility of another seven-win season at Chestnut Hill. Build that man a statue — no, seriously, do it.
Here at the ACC headquarters somewhere on Tobacco Road between the plot for David Cutcliffe’s future statue and a pop-up food truck that reads “All proceeds to go to Dave Clawson’s contract to keep him in Winston-Salem”, we know the challenges of coaching a Power Five team in the New England area. Simply, it ain’t easy. Dino Babers is experiencing that at Syracuse.
We’d love to spin a yarn about busting through at Boston College and Syracuse, but they are two of a host of ACC schools with challenges to recruiting at a high level.
With that being said on the heels of the Textile Bowl or the “Rivalry that really ain’t”, here are your ACC power rankings for Week 11.
One of our favorite personalities stop by headquarters for a mint julep with extra mint. So we asked legendary coach Jim Mora about the Orange’s chances of winning out and getting to a bowl. “A bowl game — wha — bowl eligibility? They better hope they can win a game.” We were so entertained by Mora we figured why not another mint julep, and another question about Syracuse. “So why do you think they’re so bad coach?” His reply, “They can’t run, they can’t pass, they can’t stop the run, they can’t stop the pass, they can’t do diddly poo.”
Unless there’s another schedule we can’t see, the Orange are in danger of an eight or nine-loss season. Mora’s analysis of the Orange’s season was on point. We took a straw poll and decided he would come to break down film at headquarters every week, and he said he’d do it for as many mint juleps as we can make — but really, wouldn’t that be awesome if it were true?
We flipped a coin to see if the Yellow Jackets or the Wolfpack would end up No. 13 in the rankings this week and it turned up ‘Pack. Each team has a Power Five win — if you can call Syracuse a Power Five win this season — but Georgia Tech’s win was against a team (Miami) that has actually defeated a Power Five team.
NC State was supposed to have enough talent to survive losing Ryan Finley, Reggie Gallaspy and Germaine Pratt; we knew Georgia Tech was going to be this bad. We didn’t know the Wolfpack were going to be this bad. There isn’t much hope for a win this year in “The Rivalry that Really Ain’t” against Clemson. Their best shot at another win this season is in the ACC tickle fight of the decade against Georgia Tech.
While we’re on the subject of the tickle fight contestants. Georgia Tech actually is starting to get it. The Yellow Jackets’ bright spot offensively was their offensive line. They only allowed two sacks against one of the best pass rushes in college football. They had three turnovers on defense, but couldn’t do much of anything with them.
This might be completely off base, but the Yellow Jackets are going to get someone on this schedule. All they have to do is piece together every positive thing from each game, and put it together for one game.
For example, take the offensive line performance from today and pair it with their 200-yard passing performance against Duke and their 100-yard rusher from the Miami game, and come with that package on offense. Defensively, get three turnovers like they did against Pitt and give up 10 points like they did to South Florida.
Now, we just need an upset candidate — can a yellow jacket sting through wolf fur?
The Seminoles are in free-fall. The loss at home to the Hurricanes was too much to bear for the Florida State boosters and administration. Through private donations, the Florida State boosters raised $20 million dollars to buy out the remaining $17 million dollars of Taggart’s contract.
Economics drove Taggart out. Season ticket sales were so bad, they were losing money and home attendance was the lowest it had been in years. One thing that will get you fired from a program quickly is lack of interest. The on-field product is going to take time for anyone taking that program, but when the students and alums don’t care, the hook will come.
Let’s not make this completely about the firing of Taggart. The Seminoles still have a shot at a bowl game. Florida State has two winnable games left on its schedule. We’ll see if there’s any player leadership on the team that can get them to a bowl.
Accountability is huge at the power rankings headquarters. When an intern was accused of stealing a cheese sandwich from the staff fridge, he let everyone know he’s a lactose intolerant vegan, but he saw the culprit. We would like to extend an apology to head coach Steve Addazio for ever doubting he could get to his high water mark of seven wins.
Even without starting quarterback Anthony Brown, the Eagles offense is playing well. They racked up over 400 yards against Syracuse last week and are two wins away from seven. It might take the postseason, but it’s doable — or they can lose their last three games. Their home game against Florida State will be very interesting. We’ll see just how much the Seminoles get up for that one.
Since we are apologizing, we have to send a huge apology letter to the Miami Hurricanes who we left for dead three weeks ago after losing to Georgia Tech and 2-of-3 at that point. Since then, the Hurricanes have won two in a row including beating division leading Virginia and arch-rival Florida State.
It’s actually in the realm of possibility for the Hurricanes to play int he ACC Championship Game. Everyone in front of them has to lose at least once. That would give the Tar Heels four conference losses, and they own tie-breakers against the Cavaliers and Panthers, so even if they all finish 5-3 Miami would win the division. Hey, it’s the Coastal, so it might just happen.
This is the last apology from headquarters. Virginia Tech is not dead. Justin Fuente has found his quarterback in Hendon Hooker and Quincy Patterson isn’t bad in relief. Their young defense has improved as the season has gone on.
Not only does Miami have a legit chance to win the Coastal, the Hokies do as well. Unlike the Hurricanes, the Hokies have only two losses and their remaining games are all in conference including three division games.
Even if they drop the Wake Forest game and go 3-1, they would hold all the tie-breakers. Their schedule does them the biggest solid ever. It’s as funky as the Coastal itself.
The Tar Heels are starting to show their age. They start or play 12 freshmen or sophomores this season including the living legend Sam Howell at quarterback. Still in their perpetual Groundhog Day, they’ve played the same game over and over. The Tar Heels’ loss to Virginia is their eighth one-possession game this season.
Tied at the half, the Cavaliers out-scored 21-14 North Carolina in the third quarter — their final touchdown the game-winner — to defeat the Tar Heels 38-31. They could not stop Virginia quarterback Bryce Perkins who had 490 yards of total offense and five total touchdowns.
The Tar Heels need two of their last three for a bowl, and they have a shot at all three. Hopefully they can get out of Groundhog Day.
Bye weeks can be good for some teams. This is the case for the Blue Devils. Every team in front of them had no so good weekends so they get bumped by default. We’ll see how long they hold their spot in the top 10. They have a difficult home stretch to close the season that begins with hosting Notre Dame and ends with hosting a resurgent Miami team. With their injury issues, and offensive struggles, I don’t know where they get two wins; they are going to have to pull off an upset somewhere and they might not have it in them this season.
This was the performance everyone in Charlottesville had been waiting for from Bryce Perkins. He’d been steady all season, but hadn’t had the breakout performance. He had quite the breakout performance against the Tar Heels, though. They needed every bit of his outing to get past the Tar Heels as well.
The defense didn’t play very well, and they got nothing from the run game. Moving toward the end of the season, this might be of some concern for the Cavaliers. They have two winnable games against Georgia Tech and Liberty, but their game against rival Virginia Tech might just be for the Coastal title.
We tease a lot around here at the ACC power rankings headquarters, and the Pitt Panthers make it easy with their Lightning McQueen philosophy on playing football. If you don’t know what that is, you probably don’t have small children — go rent Cars and learn something. However, Pitt knows how to win. They are limited this season. They don’t have the great bell-cow running back they usually have, but their pass rush is as good as its ever been.
There might not be a team better in close games than the Panthers this season. They defeated the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets in a nice and neat 20-10 win. They are off this week before they finish the season with three consecutive conference games.
This division is going to have quite the ending.
The Louisville Cardinals have an opportunity to have an incredible season in year one under head coach Scott Satterfield. The Cardinals are coming off a bye and travel to Hard Rock Stadium for a game against the Miami Hurricanes.
These last three games this season present an opportunity few people thought the Cardinals would have this season. It won’t be easy, but the Cardinals could win nine games in Satterfield’s first season. If they run the table — which would include a victory against the rival Kentucky Wildcats — Satterfield has to get some consideration for coach of the year.
We’ll use some Geoff Collins wisdom and take it one day at a time.
The Wake Forest Demon Deacons unfortunately are in the wrong division. Their record is being overshadowed by the long shadow the Clemson Tigers’ cast. We here at the rankings are curious to see how they measure up. The whole gang’s coming. Jim Mora already accepted the invitation because they smelled like fresh mint, Jim Grobe and Tommy Bowden will be there to open with a wrestling.
Clemson’s better than Wake, but can the Deacons put up points against this Tiger defense? If people start talking about Wake Forest’s offense before the game, they might do the Demon Deacons like they did, well, like they’ve done everyone this season.
The result of their game against Clemson won’t change the season Dave Clawson and the Deacons have had so far. They still have every chance in the world for a 10-win season. Not bad for the smallest school in the Power Five.
It seems as if the Tigers are going wire-to-wire as the No. 1 team in these power rankings. They defeated the Wofford Terriers in their annual “paycheck scrimmage”. This business of Clemson being ranked No. 4 in the polls isn’t an indictment of their play this season; it is people thinking they can’t beat the teams in front of them. None of those teams have faced a defense quite like what the Tigers bring.
First things first though. The Tigers turn their attention to “The Rivalry that Really Ain’t” otherwise known as the Textile Bowl.
Clemson has won seven in a row, and it will be eight after this weekend unless the top 33 players from Clemson get the worse case of botulism ever and can’t play. Someone make sure the woman making the sloppy joes isn’t a Wolfpack fan.