ACC Football Power Rankings: Preseason
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Welcome to our first edition of the ACC power rankings for 2026. As a reminder, these are not projected standings. Some teams, like NC State, may have easy schedules and may rise above teams like Florida State or Georgia Tech who have daunting schedules. This is a measure of how good I believe this team is right now and as the season progresses how good they’ve been. This is our pre-season version. There will be major shifts the first few weeks so subscribe and stay tuned.
Major Concerns Entering the Year
17. Boston College: I don’t understand what Bill O’Brien is doing with his QBs. Thomas Castellanos ran for 1,113 yards and 13 TDs in 2023. Bill O’Brien then comes as the new coach and predictably puts him in a boring, vanilla, NFL box. Castellanos didn’t even reach 200 yards rushing and quits the team.
Last year, Dylan Lonergan was adequate as a true pocket passer and needed more help around him. Instead of finding that, Lonergan is off to Rutgers and Boston College brought in a Division II transfer, Mason McKenzie, who ran for 942 yards last year. Will they play to his strengths this time?
More broadly, I don’t understand what Boston College athletics is doing at the highest level. Alumni Stadium is in shambles and Conte Forum connected to it isn’t much better. The non-athletics portion of their campus is pristine, but their sports facilities are in desperate need of update. They’ve fired their two best coaches since Tom O’Brien left for NC State. In 2008, they fired Jeff Jagozinski for interviewing with the New York Jets. He was 20-8 at Boston College. In 2019 they fired Steve Adazzio. He was 44-44. The other three coaches during that time period were all under .500. There are a lot of short and long-term issues at play here and the NIL era isn’t the cause but it isn’t helping either.
16. Stanford: The Cardinal finished 4-8 last year with losses to Hawaii and North Carolina along the way. They didn’t bring in a strong portal class to spark quick improvement. Their passing game was very poor last season and Michigan transfer Davis Warren ranks as the 119th best QB nationally (Athletic). On the bright side, there’s longer term vision and optimism with Andrew Luck as GM and new head coach Tavita Pritchard coming in from the Washington Commanders.
15. North Carolina: The Tar Heels brought in 20 transfers, but they lost 31. Among those joining is Billy Edwards Jr. who was once a starting QB for Maryland.
There’s really one reason to be optimistic and that is new offensive coordinator Bobby Petrino. He has coached some great and some horrible teams, but there’s a chance he can spark something. So, you’re telling me there’s a chance!
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Quality Core of the ACC
14. Florida State: Florida State could surprise, but it feels almost like the donors are punting the season. A year after Ashton Daniels was paid to be the backup at Auburn, he is the starter at Florida State. He has 24 career passing TDs to 22 career INTs and in four years has never hit 7.0 yards per pass attempt. He is a runner though and paired with RB Quintrevion Wisner (transfer from Texas) they could try to ground and pound there way to some ugly wins. Duce Robinson is their star WR who could do damage in play action if that works. They finished 28th in total defense last year so if they can maintain that, it isn’t unthinkable they can grind some wins. The problem is lost safety Earl Little to Ohio State and face probably the toughest schedule in the ACC with SMU, Alabama, Virginia, Louisville, Miami, Clemson, and Florida all on the docket. That doesn’t hurt them in these rankings, but it does in the standings, and it could make them lose hope early.
13. Duke: The Blue Devils are enjoying their best four year run in their last 50 years of football. A drop off was expected when Mike Elko left for Texas A&M, but Manny Diaz has done an outstanding job. This mediocre ranking is not ignorant of what they’ve done (including beating Clemson two in a row!), it is simply a result of Miami tampering and pulling away the best QB in the ACC and a top WR at the last minute.
Darien Mensah is not the most mobile QB, but he may be the best passer in the country and Duke relied on him to the tune of 500 pass attempts last season! Walker Eget comes in from San Jose State and he can air it out, but those are unrealistically huge shoes to fill, especially with their best WR Cooper Barkate leaving too. They brought in a big transfer class and Manny Diaz is excellent so they could be an early riser.
12. Syracuse: A schedule that includes 4 of the top 5 teams in these rankings plus Notre Dame may mute their win total, but the return of Steve Angelli will make the Orange dangerous. Unfortunately, Calvin Russell III, the 247 sports 5-star WR who was expected to headline their WR corps, tore his Achilles. The offensive line and defense also must improve significantly.
11. NC State: The Wolfpack have one of the easiest schedules in the country. They avoid the top 2 teams in these rankings while playing six of the bottom seven (excluding themselves). Richmond, Vanderbilt, and App State compose their non-conference schedule. Their biggest game of the year may be their first one. It was set to be in Brazil, but now the week zero game vs. Virginia will be played in Charlottesville. If they win that game, their schedule alone afford them a chance to make a serious ACCCG run. If they lose, it’ll be hard to climb these rankings unless they beat Vanderbilt and Louisville. They have a steady veteran in CJ Bailey at QB, but they lost RB Hollywood Smothers (Texas), WR Terrell Anderson (USC), and Jacarrius Peak (U of SC) in the portal.
10. Wake Forest: It feels like Jack Dickert is going to squeeze every win out of this program humanly possible. They won 9 games last year and now they’d added Gio Lopez from UNC and reunited him with his OC from South Alabama before that. If Gio Lopez is successful there after flailing at UNC it’ll speak volumes to the coaching differences.
9. Pittsburgh: Mason Heintschel brought life to the Panthers last year, winning his first five starts including wins over ranked Florida State and dropping 50 on NC State. They lost 3 of 4 to end the year. Notre Dame and Miami were two of them, but ECU was the other. The transfer portal wasn’t kind to the Panthers either with DT Fracis Brewu (Notre Dame) and LB Rasheem Biles (Texas) leaving after strong seasons a year ago.
8. Georgia Tech: After an 8-0 start, the Yellow Jackets were the talk of the town. Then their defense reverted to the mean and they allowed 124 points in their next three games. The defenses stiffened up for their final two games, but UGA and BYU were better and they ended up losing four of their last five. A 9-4 season is still good, even with the bad finish, however the offseason has not been kind. QB Haynes King graduated, OC Buster Faulkner went to Florida, and he brought the QB heir apparent Aaron Philo to Florida. The Yellow Jackets did a nice job to snag QB Alberto Mendonza from Indiana and RB Justice Haynes from Michigan, but some regression from last year’s red hot start seems likely.
7. California: It appears that I’m higher on the Cal Bears than most. Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele (“JKS”) is a great pocket passer who overcame Cal being bad at basically everything except passing the ball. They had over 50 players either transfer in or transfer out including the infamous LB Luke Ferrelli. Coach Tosh Lupoi retained JKS though and they figure to be better after a super inconsistent year where they beat Louisville, lost to Stanford, beat SMU, and lost to Hawaii all in consecutive games.
6. Virginia Tech: 27 transfers including 12 from Penn State will make the Hokies look vastly different. Chief among them is Ethan Grunkemeyer, the former Penn State QB who led the Nittany Lions to a bowl win over Clemson. He should be a significant upgrade over Kyron Drones as a passer. They’ll also have a new OC Ty Howle and bring back former head coach Brent Pry as DC. Nobody has better vibes right now, and they’ll likely continue for a while as the schedule is heavily backloaded. They went 3-9 last year and will likely start 3-0 this year.
5. Clemson: The Clemson Tigers slot in at #5 and frankly anywhere between #4 and #9 may have been reasonable. They’ve become extremely unpredictable despite not being a heavy transfer portal team. The positives include a revamped defense that leaned on the portal to flip their personnel and fortunes. This is especially true in the secondary where they added safeties Corey Myrick (Southern Miss) and Jerome Carter (Old Dominion) along with Elliott Washington from Penn State who is poised to be their top cornerback. They also return the best WR corps in the ACC outside of Miami with TJ Moore and Bryant Wesco returning with support from Tyler Brown and freshman Naeem Burroughs. New offensive coordinator Chad Morris wasn’t a conventional hire but appears to be an upgrade over Garrett Riley who never was able to blend his offense into what Clemson does well. Players are being pushed to their limit and are buying in.
Unfortunately, there are weaknesses or at least unknowns as well. They start on offense where they Tigers struggled to run behind a porous offensive line. They brought in Chris Johnson Jr. from SMU to add speed to the backfield, but there may be some challenges on the offensive line. Last year’s group struggled and now four starters are gone with no reinforcements coming from the portal. Harris Sewell is moving to Center and Sadler may start at right guard or right tackle. Both have struggled in prior years. Others like Ronan O’Connell and Easton Ware have upside but scant experience. Braydon Jacobs and Elijah Thurmon may be their best options, but have had injury issues in the past.
Of course, the Tigers also didn’t go get a “shiny object” at QB from the transfer portal and will start 4th year player Christopher Vizzina. He looked good in his lone career start against SMU but struggled in his other appearances. The Tigers also are thin at linebacker following the Luke Ferrelli defection and need some injury luck.
4. Virginia: After a historic 11-3 season a year ago, Tony Elliott needs to maintain momentum and avoiding back into ACC irrelevance. We do not base power rankings on schedule difficulty and expected wins, but it sure doesn’t hurt. Trips to SMU and Virginia Tech will be tough, but their next hardest games are NC State (Home), WVU (Neutral), and Cal (Home). They bring in Beau Pribula plus Eli Holstein at QB which to me means they’ll be able to run Pribula like crazy knowing they have a strong backup. They added 31 transfers to avoid a drop-off, the only concern is how they won so many close games last year. Is there a reversion to the mean? For now, they deserve this ranking.
Consensus Top Challengers
3. Louisville: 10, 10, and 9. Those are the win totals from the Cardinals under Coach Jeff Brohm in his first 3 seasons back home and there’s little season to expect that to change. They retained their excellent running back combo of Isaac and Keyjuan Brown. Isaac Brown averaged 8.8 yards per carry while Keyjuan was at 7.3 YPC and both topped 700 yards. They also managed to retain excellent edge rusher Clev Lubin.
Star wide receiver Chris Bell is now a Miami Dolphin, but they added WR Tre Richardson from Vanderbilt (806 yards last season) and TE Brody Foley from Tulsa (528 yards last season). At QB, they replace Miller Moss with Lincoln Keinholtz from Ohio State. He’s a bit of an unknown, but reportedly pushed Julian Sayin before eventually losing the job to him before the season. Their two hardest games come in the first 3 weeks with Ole Miss in the opener and SMU two weeks later. If they win one of those, they could have 10 or 11 wins entering championship week.
2. SMU: The Mustangs have won 31 games in the last 3 years. They haven’t had a losing record since 2018. Unsurprisingly, the NIL era works well for the program that got the “Death Penalty” and had a documentary called the “Pony Excess” named in their honor. Coach Lashlee is an excellent offensive coach and he returns QB Kevin Jennings who is now experienced and could take another step.
Prohibitive Favorite
1. Miami: As mentioned, Darien Mensah is the best QB in the conference and maybe the best passer in the country. Malachi Toney and Cooper Barkate could be the best 1-2 punch at WR in the nation. They lose a lot on the lines of scrimmage, but they recruit the best, leverage the portal well, and have a coach in Mario Cristobal who excels at getting the most out of the trenches.
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