Because you can’t spell “elite” without #GoACC, each week we will provide conference-wide football power rankings.
We were going to have Virginia alum Matt Schaub handle the overwrought introduction this week, but sadly it looks like his draft was intercepted mid-transit. All you really need to know from a broad, conference-wide perspective this week is that Jameis Winston is pounding defenses these days like a kid playing the Super Smash Bros level with all the weak Yoshis. Oh, and about 128 teams in the conference now wear orange whenever they can.
Since this low week represents the calm before the storm arrives Oct. 19, with the long-anticipated Florida State-Clemson showdown serving as the eye, team reports will analyze and, in most cases, ridicule last week’s slate of performances.
Onto the rankings:
14. Syracuse (down 1)
Record: 2-3, 0-1 ACC
Last Week: L 49-14 vs. No. 3 Clemson
This Week: at N.C. State
The highlight of this Clemson skeleton drill arrived in the first-half, when the Tigers failed to convert a fourth-down conversion deep in Syracuse territory with a 35-7 lead. Upon watching his team stonewall Tajh and the Boydettes, Orange coach Scott Schafer described Clemson counterpart Dabo Swinney with an epithet members of N.W.A. once routinely employed to characterize members of law enforcement. But is Schafer cooler than Coors Light?
13. North Carolina (down 1)
Record: 1-4, 0-2 ACC
Last Week: L 27-17 at Virginia Tech
This Week: Bye
For a miasma of despair and melancholy, North Carolina’s situation could be far bleaker. The defense finally stirred to life in the second half against the Hokies, the offense moved the ball in spurts against the ACC’s top-ranked defense, and after they host Miami next Thursday — with a nighttime crowd behind them on national television — the Tar Heels face ACC teams on the bottom half of this list and mighty Old Dominion.
12. Virginia (down 3)
Record: 2-3, 0-1 ACC
Last Week: Bye, right?
This Week: at Maryland
David Watford needs to start playing like I did with Michael Vick in “Madden NFL 2004” — scampering around frantically for five seconds before launching rainbows 50 yards downfield. He flashed glimpses of promise when plays collapsed last Saturday, and it would at least nudge watching the Virginia offense in front of folding laundry and reading Beowulf in old English on the master list of most titillating things to do with your Saturday afternoon.
11. NC State (down 3)
Record: 3-2, 0-2 ACC
Last Week: L 28-13 at Wake Forest
This Week: vs. Syracuse
And here I thought the most lifeless performance from a Wolfpack this year would come from “Hangover Part 3.”
10. Wake Forest (up 4)
Record: 3-3, 1-2 ACC
Last Week: W 28-13 vs. N.C. State
This Week: Bye
Good thing I didn’t make the “Demon Deacons quarterback Tanner Price has as good a chance to finished with 350 total yards and four touchdowns in a resounding Wake Forest victory as Miley Cyrus does of reclaiming some of her public respectability with a self-deprecating SNL cameo” joke I was planning to last week. Note: Wake may not have deserved this drastic a jump, but the preceding four teams floundered so disastrously this past week that they left me no choice.
9. Duke (up 2)
Record: 3-2, 0-2 ACC
Last Week: Bye
This Week: vs. Navy
The ACC: where not playing is the best way to climb the conference hierarchy! With Wake’s Michael Campanaro (44 receptions, 582 yards, four touchdowns) resting this week, Duke receiver Jamison Crowder (37 catches 530 yards, two touchdowns) has a golden opportunity to state his case for the Calvin Johnson Memorial Blue-Chip ACC Receiver Trapped on a Mediocre Offense of the Year Award. The CJMBCACCRTOAMOTYA, if you prefer the shorthand.
8. Boston College (up 2)
Record: 3-2, 1-1 ACC
Last Week: W 48-27 vs. Army
This Week: at No. 3 Clemson
Glad to see the Eagles’ game against Army proceed as scheduled. In other news, running back Andre Williams leads the nation with 153.6 rush yards per game and qualifies as Boston College’s first bona fide offensive star since Matt Ryan, and will probably swing the outcome of one of your fantasy football matchups as a random waiver pickup next year.
7. Pittsburgh (no change)
Record: 3-1, 2-1 ACC
Last Week: Bye
This Week: at No. 24 Virginia Tech
Pittsburgh visiting Virginia Tech weighs in as our most important and tantalizing conference tilt this week, and it promises to be the kind of game that depletes your capacity for feeling joy ever again. I swear, John Swofford must have had a wedding to go to this weekend or something.
6. Maryland (down 2)
Record: 4-1, 0-1 ACC
Last Week: L 63-0, dignity, at No. 6 Florida State
This Week: vs. Virginia
Last week, I argued that fans and pundits should laud Maryland coach Randy Edsall’s yeoman work with his theretofore resurgent Terrapins “no matter how Saturday plays out.” Thus, because my word is my bond: even though your team just suffered the most lopsided battering of any ranked team in history, you lost quarterback C.J. Brown to a concussion, and your team’s burgeoning national reputation plummeted as quickly as mid-2000’s Blockbuster stock, you’re the man, Randy!
5. Georgia Tech (up 1)
Record: 3-2, 2-2 ACC
Last Week: L 45-30 at No. 14 Miami
This Week: at BYU
Although Miami quarterback Stephen Morris was playing on an ankle held together by rubber bands and Elmer’s glue, Georgia Tech’s inspired road effort against the Hurricanes earned the Jackets a bump in this week’s rankings. I appreciate any team that can slog to its 85th consecutive 6-6 season and a bowl game nobody watches with such relish.
4. No. 24 Virginia Tech (up 1)
Record: 5-1, 2-0 ACC
Last Week: W 27-17 vs. North Carolina
This Week: vs. Pittsburgh
I’m running out of snarky things to say about our odious but thriving cross-state rivals, whose defense continues to thrash opposing offensive units and whose quarterback is rounding into the period where he starts rounding into shape. On an utterly unrelated note, I poured myself a shot of terrible whiskey and started crying after writing that last sentence.
3. No. 13 Miami (no change)
Record: 5-0, 1-0 ACC
Last Week: W 45-30 vs. Georgia Tech
This Week: Bye
Though Maryland definitively snagged the title of conference enigma this past week, are we really sure how good Miami is, either? They narrowly edged a Florida team running a broken hobo-wagon of an offense at home, pasted a few pasties, and notched decisive, but mistake-riddled wins against South Florida and Georgia Tech. They’re like “Anchorman 2”: early indications portend greatness, but concerns certainly linger.
1.5. No. 6 Florida State (up 0.5)
Record: 5-0, 3-0 ACC
Last Result: W 63-0 vs. No. 25 Maryland
This Week: Bye
After that 393-yard, five touchdown tour de force — which included one dizzying, dazzling touchdown strike of unearthly nature — I really don’t see the argument against Jameis Winston as our midseason Heisman frontrunner. That said, I did feel similarly about Geno Smith at a similar juncture last season, so I’m hesitant to anoint him Cyborg Cam Newton-Peyton Manning just yet. Still, if he spearheads a road victory against Clemson on the road in two weeks and maintains this searing pace, I’ll believe him capable of anything short of mediating an end to the shutdown.
1. No. 3 Clemson (no change)
Record: 5-0, 3-0 ACC
Last Week: W 49-14 at Syracuse
This Week: vs. Boston College
That guy I just spend a paragraph fawning over? He may be the second-best quarterback in the conference.
Take a personal weekend to gather your bearings, ACC devotees. Oct. 19 is coming.
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