ACC Power Rankings Post-Week 12

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ACC Power Rankings Post-Week 12

Clemson beat a ranked team in the regular season! Virginia dominated Duke and Georgia Tech barely edged Boston College.

Teams that are bad

17. Syracuse (3-7 [1-6] Prev 17): Syracuse was off this week. They’ll go to South Bend to face Notre Dame next week and it will probably get ugly.

16. Boston College (1-10 [0-7] Prev 16): Boston College had 500 yards and 34 points against Georgia Tech, but the defense couldn’t get a stop to close out the win and they lost once again.

15. Stanford (3-7 [2-5] Prev 15): The Cardinal was off this week. They host JKS, Jacob De Jesus and the Cal Bears next week as they try to snap their three-game losing streak.

14. Virginia Tech(3-7 [2-4] Prev 15): The bad news is they got totally run over by a mediocre FSU team. The good news is it doesn’t matter because their season is already lost and they’re already getting a new coach. The really good news is my hope and plea for the Hokies to hire James Franklin seems to be coming true. If Franklin can get them to 8-10 wins per season, he will be very well-liked there. It will also be good for the ACC if Virginia Tech, a program with a great fan base that cares about football, was good again.

13. North Carolina (4-6 [2-4] Prev 14): You just can’t settle for six field goal attempts. They’ve made progress but are decidedly worse than Wake Forest still.

Teams that are .500

12.NC State (5-5 [2-4] Prev 9): NC state was utterly destroyed by Miami, 41-7. QB CJ Bailey had 120 yards and 2 INTs.

11. Florida State (5-5 [1-6] Prev 14): Thomas Castellanos ran for 2 TDs while star WR had 134 receiving yards in their impressive 34-14 win over Virginia Tech. Hokie QB Kyron Drones was held to just 125 passing yards. Florida State must now beat NC State or Florida to earn a bowl bid. While that’s a big fall from beating Alabama, it is definitely progress from last season.

10. Clemson (5-5 [4-4] Prev 11): I’m not sure I’ve seen an uglier win than the one the Tigers scored on Friday night Louisville. When you have a losing record, reaching .500 with a road win at a ranked opponent is sweet no matter how bitter the path.

For the first time in a long time, Clemson’s opponent couldn’t stop the simple inside zone. Adam Randall looked like an All-American as he bounced off defenders and burst through arm tackles. He finished with 105 yards on YPC with 2 rushing touchdowns and it should have been more. Even though Louisville had no answer for the most basic run call in Clemson’s playbook, the Tigers offense insisted on “creativity” in the most critical moments.

At the goal line they brought in a defensive tackle to pound it in and he fumbled. They recovered and got another chance. On fourth down, they kept him on the field to be the lead blocker, but a confused QB Cade Klubnik tried to hand him the ball, leading to a second fumble. The next time they got to the goal line, they just handed it to Randall who pushed his way into the end zone as seemingly every Clemson fan not calling the plays expected him to.

On a third down, there was a tunnel screen thrown behind the line of scrimmage that got stopped well short of the marker. At one point, I was begging them to just run an inside zone, and right on cue they actually did it for a 25-yard touchdown. Sometimes it doesn’t have to be that complex.

Despite Clemson getting in their own way, Louisville had even more unforced errors. Three unsportsmanlike penalties and 10 total penalties for 84 yards was crushing. After one of Clemson’s craziest unforced errors, a botched snap on a punt, Louisville looked poised to drive for the game-winning score. Penalties stopped their drive though, forcing a long field attempt. That’s where their most egregious errors came.

Kicker Cooper Ranvier entered the game 15/17 on field goals and 30/30 on extra points, but he was having a bad night. He missed his first extra point of the year and was 2/3 on field goals. With the game-winner upcoming, Coach Brohm decided to switch kickers. The bold move didn’t work as he missed too keeping Clemson ahead 20-19. Clemson hung on to beat Louisville in an ugly but fun game.

9. Duke (5-5 [4-2] Prev 10): The Blue Devils have now lost three of their last four including a loss to UConn and this week’s blowout to Virginia. They trailed Virginia 31-3 entering the fourth quarter. Coach Diaz said “Very disappointing night. We were thoroughly outclassed by Virginia.” The Blue Devils are now just .500 at 5-5 in large part because they lost non-conference games to Tulane, Illinois, and UConn. At least their bid to win the ACC yet not make the playoff is over.

Flawed teams that are putting together winning seasons

8. Louisville (7-3 [4-3] Prev 5): We covered this week’s loss above in the Clemson section, so I’ll keep this higher-level. Jeff Brohm has his moments of offensive genius like when they jumped all over Miami this season, ran through Clemson last year, or back in 2018 when his Purdue Boilermakers scored 49 on Ohio State. He has to get his teams to be most disciplined though. After beating Clemson last year, they lost to Stanford. After this year’s Miami win, they haven’t looked them same and have now lost two in a row. The unsportsmanlike penalties were especially embarrassing.

7. California (6-4 [3-3] Prev 8): Cal was off this week in the leadup to “The Big Game” against Stanford.

6. Pittsburgh (7-3 [5-1] Prev 2): Coach Narduzzi correctly said they could lose to Notre Dame by 100 and still win their next two games and play for an ACC Championship. Well, they only lost by 22. The Irish clamped down Pitts offense. QB Mason Heintschel had a sub-50% completion percentage, and they ran for just 70 yards on 2.8 YPC.

5. Wake Forest (7-3 [4-3] Prev 6): The Demon Deacons beat UNC in Winston-Salem to continue their unlikely successful season. The Deacon defense was able to stop the run keep the Heels out of the end zone for a 28-12 win. Wake Forest had 4 TDs while UNC was 4/6 on field goals.

4. Miami (8-2 [4-2] Prev 7): The good version of Carson Beck was back. His 291 yards and 3 TDs propelled the mercurial Hurricanes to a dominant 41-7 home win over NC State. They go to Virginia Tech and to Pitt to end the season. They have shown the most upside in the ACC and would be the most dangerous team in a postseason game, but they need Pitt to beat Georgia Tech and SMU or Virginia to lose just to get into a tie-breaker scenario for the title game.

3. SMU (7-3 [5-1] Prev 3): The Mustangs were off this week. They host Louisville next. Who knows what Louisville team they’ll see, but if is the Louisville of the past couple weeks it’ll be a fun time for them in Dallas.

2. Georgia Tech (9-1 [6-1] Prev 1): Georgia Tech’s defense was terrible for a second straight week. Facing the #16 team in these rankings, Georgia Tech needed a late game-winning FG to escape Chestnut Hill with a 36-34 win. They allowed 362 passing yards and 6.7 YPC. They’ll have to play much better to beat Pitt next weekend and if this is how they play against Georgia, they’ll be blown out. It’s Championship season and they need to get back to playing the kind of football they were in October.

1. Virginia (8-2 [5-1] Prev 4): Chandler Morris returned from injury and Virginia’s offense came back to life. After being unable to score without him vs. Wake Forest at home, they went to Duke and tallied 540 yards of offense and 34 points. I don’t think this is a truly championship level team, but I have to respect that kind of response and I’m finally giving them what many readers and YouTube watchers have been asking for, the elusive #1 spot.

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