Top 25 Football Teams Playing in 2020

We’ve been seeing lots of preseason top 25 lists come out now that certain conferences have declared that they plan to, you know, actually play football. While there is some variability, there are also some ACC teams which keep popping up on everyone’s top 25 list.

Here’s a summary of five different rankings:

If you include the one “temporary” ACC football team whose long-term status is still to be determined, there are eight teams in one top 25 list or another (and never less than five). That’s a very solid football conference, worldwide pandemic notwithstanding.

Here is a table showing the average ranking (note: for teams which are unranked in certain polls I assumed 30th for their rank for purposes of averaging):

No surprise: the Clemson Tigers are the unanimous #1, and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish are a nearly-unanimous top 10 team. What about the Pittsburgh Panthers? Pitt’s rank in these polls averages around 24th, which means the Panthers are virtually tied with the Miami Hurricanes and the Florida State Seminoles. As for other ACC teams, some seem to be in love with North Carolina Tar Heels football while others are not so sure.

Other ranked teams include the Virginia Tech Hokies and the Louisville Cardinals.

Bottom line: this all bodes well for ACC football since the best way to finish in the top 25 is to start there.