ACC Football Power Rankings, Week 14: Don’t sleep on Virginia Tech

There were some tough decisions with the rankings this week. The most difficult was between the Cavaliers and Hokies. They are tied for first place in the Coastal and next week’s game is winner take all. So, we pulled out the advanced metrics to make our decision — we flipped a coin. The Cavaliers came out on the short end of the flip, but that won’t matter after this weekend. This is when rivalry games get awesome; this game is for the Commonwealth Cup and a shot at the ACC Championship Game.

We are believers. The ACC power rankings staff are men and women of integrity, grit and peas. We can admit when we are wrong. We were wrong about Justin Fuente and the Hokies. Virginia Tech looked all over the place early in the season. Ryan Willis wasn’t the answer at quarterback for the Hokies; Fuente wants more of a dual-threat guy.

They were 5-2 after their win against North Carolina, but three of those wins came against Old Dominion, Furman and Rhode Island and those games were closer than they should have been. Fuente has finally settled on Hendon Hooker at quarterback, and that’s made all of the difference. It should be a good one this weekend against Virginia in Charlottesville.

Since their one-point wake-up call against North Carolina and the legend Sam Howell, the Tigers have averaged 52.5 points per game. They have given up 9.6 points per game over the same span. With the exception of their annual FCS paycheck game against Sanford, these were all conference games. That means the Tigers are six touchdowns better than everyone in the ACC, and they should be. They play a different class of football from everyone else in the ACC.

The Tigers are proof that you can be dominant on offense and defense. So, who’s the most complete team in college football again?