By Luke Brumm
With the season quickly approaching, we will be looking at each conference and previewing them. We will go over the favorites, second tier teams, sleepers, best players, and best games. This should look to give you some things to look for as we head into the season. Let’s start it off with the ACC.
Favorites: Florida State, Clemson, & Miami
The favorites to win the conference to most people are Florida State, Clemson, and Miami. The Seminoles went undefeated during the 2023 regular season and won the ACC. Clemson had dominated the conference for multiple years before the Noles got it done, and will look to return to their spot on top. Miami hasn’t won the ACC once since joining in 2004. They bring in Heisman hopeful quarterback Cameron Ward (more on him later) and have been stacking good recruiting classes for years now. If Mario Cristobal can get it together once the game is actually kicked off, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if the Hurricanes get their first ACC championship this year.
Second Tier: Louisville & NC State
Right below them is Louisville and NC State. The Cardinals surprised a lot of people by going 7-1 in conference and winning ten games last season. They struggled towards the end by losing their final three games to rival Kentucky, FSU in the ACC Championship, and USC in the Holiday Bowl. However, they did also have good wins vs Georgia Tech, Notre Dame, NC State, and Miami.
NC State is a team that has quietly had a really good decade so far for their standards. They haven’t had a season with less than eight wins since 2019. They improved from 8-5 to 9-3 a season ago and it feels like this could be their year to take that next step. Kevin Concepcion is a beast at wide receiver and Coastal Carolina transfer QB Grayson McCall will bring some veteran playmaking to this offense and I think the defense will be good enough as well. Look out for both of these teams in the ACC.
More Sports News
Sleepers: Virginia Tech & Georgia Tech
My two sleepers this year are the two Tech schools with the two Brents in charge. Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech have both slowly been improving under their new head coaches. Brent Pry at Virginia Tech and Brent Key at Georgia Tech have been doing stellar jobs. After a bad 3-8 season in his first year, Pry got the Hokies to 7-6 last season. I’m looking for QB Kyron Drones to have a great season and that offense should follow in his lead.
Georgia Tech is another program who has seemed to start turning around under new leadership. Texas A&M transfer QB Haynes King is also set for a good year. I like the combo in the backfield of King at quarterback and Jamal Haynes at running back. After Geoff Collins started off 1-3 in 2022, the Yellow Jackets fired him and Key came in and led them in to a 4-4 finish. He was given the full time job and led them to a 7-6 record last year. They both will certainly look to improve on that and compete for the conference in 2024.
Newcomers: SMU, California, & Stanford
SMU is coming from the American Conference and their route to the Power 4 was unique to say the least. They essentially won’t make full revenue from the conference for nine years and will fund themselves through boosters. Cal and Stanford are coming from the Pac-12 which makes no sense. Two PACIFIC coast teams playing in the ATLANTIC Coast Conference. I don’t blame them as they were just grasping at any conference that would take them. SMU seems to be the best team out of the three, with Cal coming second, and Stanford in third.
New Coaches: Duke, Syracuse, & Boston College
Manny Diaz will replace Elko at Duke after serving as the Penn State defensive coordinator. Syracuse made a good hire in taking Fran Brown from Georgia’s staff, and finally Boston College got Bill O’Brien to take over for Jeff Hafley, who left to be a coordinator in the NFL. I do like all these hires and think they can help improve off the last coaches at each school.
The Rest: UNC, Wake Forest, Pitt, & Virginia
Believe it or not, Mack Brown is still coaching at North Carolina and he will look to have success in the post Drake Maye era. They start the season with a trip to Minnesota and then play two group of five teams with an FCS team sandwiched in between. Their hardest opponents seem to be Florida State, NC State, and Georgia Tech.
Wake Forest has a hard schedule with trips to UNC, Miami, NC State, and they host Ole Miss and Clemson. Pitt had a rough season in 2023 and will look to bounce back starting with the Backyard Brawl in Week Three. Finally, Virginia went 3-9 last season and I think it will a lot for them to drastically improve in 2024.
Top Player: Miami QB Cam Ward
Cameron Ward is coming over from Washington State and is one of the more exciting players in the country. He will have more talent around him than ever before and I am super excited to see him this season. Last season with the Cougars, he threw for 3,735 yards and 25 touchdowns. He also ran for eight touchdowns and only had sevn total interceptions. Don’t be surprised to see Ward in New York for the Heisman ceremony at the end of the season.
Top Game: Florida State @ Miami (October 26th)
Not only is this game a huge rivalry, it is also a matchup of arguably the two best teams in the conference. I just mentioned Cam Ward, who came from Washington State, but I didn’t mention Florida State’s new QB. He came from Oregon State and his name is DJ Uiagalelei. Which quarterback plays better could determine who comes out on top in this one. I lean Miami at home as of right now, but we have over two months before this game starts, so a lot can change.
