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#GoACC Power Rankings: Week 9

Because you can’t spell “elite” without #GoACC, each week we will provide conference-wide football power rankings.

I still don’t get it, even though it somehow felt right at the time. After Saturday night, I certainly have little room to question him for it.

In the video above, before the biggest game of his life and the most hyped ACC game since Larry Coker and Ken Dorsey were names to know, Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston is goofing around. The first wave of thought that sweeps through the apartment living room I occupy when I watch this holds that he’s referencing some movie or comedy sketch with which we are unfamiliar, akin to how I pump up the Cav Daily sports staff with awkwardly delivered Keanu Reeves lines from “The Replacements” before a big week of coverage. A quick perusal of internet and Twitter, however, reveals no tie to popular culture, no wry joke. Winston is who he appears to be at face value: a freshman quarterback telling his team to smile with him for some reason, oblivious to the common convention that contests of such cataclysmic proportions demand sobriety and gravitas from the field general before the soldiers enter the battlefield.

It’d be overly reductive and unfair to classify what ensued (a 51-14 dismantling of then-No. 3 Clemson) as solely showcase for Jameis Winston. After all, the Florida State defense deserves perhaps the most plaudits for stifling Tajh Boyd and the Tigers to the extent that I kept expecting a befuddled Tommy Bowden to appear prowling the Clemson sideline. Still, with a sporadically attentive sports nation finally focusing its lens on the ACC, Winston emerged as the household name. His 22-of-34, 444-yard, three-touchdown performance solidified him as our Heisman front-runner — and the ACC’s first truly transcendent superstar since the Hokie freshman iteration of Michael Vick.

Since, like most superlative descriptors employed when talking about sports, “transcendent” connotes great potency but vague meaning to most of us, I should specify what I mean. Winston, is transcending the limits which typically confine young quarterbacks. Entering Saturday, I figured Winston could best prove his mettle by enduring some early lumps in a frenzied environment against a formidable foe, persevering, and emerging from the proceedings battered but triumphant. Instead, what we saw was an unorthodox masterpiece — a symphony conducted with such grace that Winston only really looked discomfited when he had to squint toward the sidelines for plays.

His talent is evident. While he was mesmerizing you with that laser precision and keen sense of when to run and when to throw, it likely slipped your mind that Winston also compiled a thoroughly decent season as both an outfielder and a relief pitcher for the Seminoles’ baseball team this past spring.

But what is truly distinguishing Famous Jameis right now is the frequency and magnetic pull of that easy smile. It flashes during a silly MC Hammer impersonation from the preseason, his pregame speech, after touchdowns, whenever. And it always sends the same message: even though I’m an insanely dangerous athlete and all, I’m still just a quirky dude. He sees what we romanticize as the battlefield for what it really is: a playground. 1999 Vick transcended his station thanks to his breathtaking, video-game speed. 2013 Winston is doing it with personality.

This is very good for the ACC as a whole. Remember, although the SEC was thriving long before 2006-7, it did not become “SEC: ESPN’s favorite, perfect child so just learn to live with it, uglier siblings” until Tim Tebow became a household name. Transcendent players can uplift entire conferences.

More importantly, for me at any rate, these first six glorious servings of Winston have reminded football fans that this sport resonates most when our expectations are blown away. I still don’t quite understand Winston’s zany pregame hype routine, or how he has reveled in tense situations that would reduce most of us to limp sacks of anxiety and fear. Nor can I augur when Winston will stumble, frown or show any other unrevealed foible, as all transcendent college football players eventually do.

I just know college football is more enjoyable because a supremely talented guy in Tallahassee has the audacity to not take himself too seriously. Given the current climate in Charlottesville, I’m grasping at any reason for college football joy I can find. Onto the rankings:

14. Virginia (down 1)

Record: 2-5, 0-3 ACC

Last Week: Probably what we deserved for that smug two-point conversion.

This Week: vs. Georgia Tech

STARTED FROM THE MIDDLE NOW WE HERE. Fun fact, though: Virginia ranks ninth in the FBS in allowing opponents to convert just 30.7 percent of their third downs, which has to owe to the Scott Stadium PA system blaring the Bush classic “Machinehead.” I hope we hear “little things that kill” after all of our silly penalties now.

13. N.C. State (up 1)

Record: 3-3, 0-3 ACC

Last Week: Bye

This Week: at No. 3 Florida State

Wake Forest is in the driver’s seat, but the Wolfpack still have a puncher’s chance at winning “North Carolina Team of the Year” despite being offensively atrocious in their last two games. What the hell is in the water down there?

12. Syracuse (no change)

Record: 3-4, 1-2 ACC

Last Week: L 56-0 at Georgia Tech

This Week: Bye

You know, I’m baffled that the two-tone helmet thing backfired on the Orange Saturday considering all the success it has bestowed upon the Jacksonville Jaguars. But really, there’s something self-defeating, on a very fundamental level, about a team whose mascot is a single color donning two-tones.

11. North Carolina (no change)

Record: 1-5, 0-3 ACC

Last Week: L 27-23 vs. No. 10 Miami

This Week: vs. Boston College

One can only hope that government agents have seized all footage of that North Carolina-Miami abomination and tossed it into an incinerator, along with all evidence of this past Monday Night Football game’s existence.

10. Maryland (down 5)

Record: 5-2, 1-2 ACC

Last Week: L 34-10 at Wake Forest

This Week: vs. No. 9 Clemson

No win, no power rankings mercy in the cutthroat world of middling ACC teams. The Terrapins will probably still make a bowl, even with C.J. Brown banged up and a random assortment of stray cats filling in as Maryland’s only healthy receivers. But it will be closer than you think.

9. Wake Forest (up 1)

Record: 4-3, 2-2 ACC

Last Week: W 34-10 vs. Maryland

This Week: at No. 7 Miami

Given the Hurricanes yielded 199 receiving yards to a tight end whose last name looks disturbingly similar to “Efron” when you first read it, it could be fun watching Wake Forest’s Michael Campanaro (55 catches, 704 yards, five touchdowns) operate this Saturday.

8. Duke (up 1)

Record: 5-2, 1-2 ACC

Last Week: W 35-22 at Virginia

This Week: at No. 14 Virginia Tech

Writing this about a Duke man induces nausea, but credit to Anthony Boone for overcoming a putrid first half to spearhead the Blue Devils’ comeback Saturday. His 245 yards on 21-of-39 passing may seem pedestrian, but remember: he threw a perfect ball to Anthony Harris that, through no fault of his own, counted as an incompletion.

7. Pittsburgh (up 1)

Record: 4-2, 2-2 ACC

Last Week: W 35-24 vs. Old Dominion

This Week: at Navy

Isaac Bennett’s season totals jumped from 210 yards on 4.5 yards per carry with two touchdowns to 450 yards on 5.8 yards per carry with five touchdowns in the course of a single game, a performance that must have been quite the treat for the six people who absentmindedly left their TV on Comcast SportsNet Saturday evening.

6. Boston College (up 1)

Record: 3-3, 1-2 ACC

Last Week: Bye

This Week: at North Carolina

I realize this ranking belies Boston College’s win-loss record, but the Eagles would likely be 5-1 and the Cinderella of the ACC had they played Maryland’s schedule to this point. Plus, that close loss to Clemson looks a little less like a pure Tiger letdown in light of Saturday’s events.

5. Georgia Tech (up 1)

Record: 4-3, 3-2 ACC

Last Week: W 56-0 vs. Syracuse

This Week: at Virginia

Sneaky, alarming tidbit: Georgia Tech ranks third in the ACC in total defense, allowing 327.7 yards per game. The Yellow Jackets should point and laugh at the 8.5 point spread as they cruise past it Saturday, but keep in mind that the Ramblin’ Wreck has yet to register its requisite awful loss thus far. Hmm…

4. No. 16 Virginia Tech (no change)

Record: 6-1, 3-0 ACC

Last Week: Bye

This Week: vs. Duke

Anybody else see that one of the BCS computers ranked Virginia Tech 5th? This is why we’ll miss the computers next year: only they reflects our heart’s yearning to see teams with bad offenses and narrow wins against East Carolina and Marshall play in a major bowl.

3. No. 7 Miami (no change)

Record: 6-0, 2-0 ACC

Last Week: W 27-23 at North Carolina

This Week: vs. Wake Forest

Because they followed the oldest chain-of-command rule in the book — punish yourself before the bigger guy really punishes you — Miami escaped further postseason bans Tuesday in an NCAA ruling that basically screamed “We just don’t want to get yelled at by Jay Bilas anymore.” Congrats to Al Golden and this Miami team, neither of whom had anything to do with any of this.

2. No. 9 Clemson (down 1)

Record: 6-1, 4-1 ACC

Last Result: L 51-14 vs. No. 5 Florida State

This Week: at Maryland

Clemson still gets the edge over Miami, since Saturday was far more about Florida State’s dominance than the Tigers’ futility and the Hurricanes are always a Duke Johnson injury away from mediocrity. Expect a resilient, emphatic win Saturday.

1. No. 3 Florida State (up 0.5)

Record: 6-0, 4-0 ACC

Last Week: W 51-14 at No. 3 Clemson

This Week: vs. N.C. State

Lost in the Winston hoopla: how stunning was Lamarcus Joyner Saturday night? Never thought one defensive player could ever make Clemson fans fleetingly pine for the Charlie Whitehurst days.

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