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King of the Hill: ACC Football Power Rankings (Week 1)

Ranking the teams in the conference after the first week of play

By CardiacHill
NCAA Football: Clemson at Auburn Shanna Lockwood-USA TODAY Sports

Each week, I’ll again rank the ACC’s football teams as I’ve done in the past. As usual, the first few weeks are the most difficult. Hard to gauge comfortable wins against mostly weak teams. As I always say, there will be a lot of fluctuation early on. But here is where I’ve slotted teams for this week.

It was difficult slotting teams 6-10, all of which won by big margins. How can we possibly tell, for example, if North Carolina State is better than Duke at this point? Or if Pitt is better than Virginia Tech? Also, while I have Florida State No. 1, that’s more of a product of beating a Top 15 team than actually believing they’re better than Clemson right now. Time will tell on all of these things.

Let me know what I got right/wrong in the comments.

  1. Florida State: Clemson probably better team but after struggling early against No. 11 Ole Miss, Seminoles still managed a 45-34 win. For that, they deserve the top spot this week.
  2. Clemson: Didn’t look great, but won a road game against unranked Auburn, 19-13
  3. Miami: Easy 70-3 win over Florida A&M
  4. Louisville: Easy 70-14 win over Charlotte
  5. North Carolina: Can’t drop them too much after a 33-24 loss to Top 20 Georgia - especially since the Tar Heels led going into the fourth quarter
  6. North Carolina State: 48-14 win over William & Mary
  7. Duke: 49-6 win over North Carolina Central
  8. Pitt: Had some problems but did enough in a 28-7 win over Villanova
  9. Virginia Tech: 36-13 win over Liberty - also had a relatively slow start
  10. Syracuse: 33-7 win over Colgate
  11. Georgia Tech: In the only ACC game of the week, the Yellow Jackets defeated Boston College, 17-14
  12. Wake Forest: 7-3 win over Tulane - this had to be absolutely miserable to watch
  13. Boston College: Lost to Georgia Tech, 17-14
  14. Virginia: Same old, same old with an ugly 37-20 home loss to FCS Richmond

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