Tudor's Take: Preseason ACC predictions often mean little

Yep, readers, you’re right again.

Preseason ACC football predictions by the media have been fairly worthless of late.
That fact was pointed out to me in numerous messages Thursday from ACC fans who remembered that just a year ago, the summer media poll had Florida State finishing first in the Atlantic Division and Virginia Tech first in the Coastal.

At season’s end, Georgia Tech defeated Clemson in the league championship. Both were picked for divisional No. 2 spots in the summer poll. FSU wound up third in the Atlantic and Virginia Tech second in the Coastal.

Similar off-target picks have occurred regularly since the ACC first began the summer poll in 1976.

Since the ACC went to divisional play in 2005, the poll has been generally on target once. That was in ’05, when FSU (Atlantic) and Virginia Tech (Coastal) were picked first, finished that way and ended with the Seminoles winning the first league title game (as picked).

Otherwise, there has not been a perfecta. In 2006, it turned out to be a regular mess with preseason divisional favorites FSU and Miami finishing fifth and fourth, respectively.

This year’s favorites, by wide margins, are FSU and Virginia Tech, with the Hokies a solid pick to win the title game.

North Carolina, a likely preseason top-20 (or higher) national pick, came in fourth in the Coastal vote.

The media summer vote was substantially more accurate in the days before the ACC expanded to 12.

From 1976 through 2004, the summer poll favorite finished first or tied for first 19 times.

Granted, most of those votes were no-brainers for FSU, which was picked first and finished first or in a first-place tie 11 times from the school’s first season in the conference (1992) through 2003.

But some of the summer votes were surprisingly on the mark -- N.C. State in 1979, UNC in ’80 and Maryland in ’85.

There were big misreads in 1986 (Maryland pick No. 1, finished No. 5), 1992 (Clemson picked No. 2 behind FSU, finished No. 7) and 2002 (Virginia picked No. 8, finished tied for second).

On individual awards, records are less complete.

A year ago, Georgia Tech running back Jonathan Dwyer was the summer choice for player of the year by a close margin over Clemson runner/returner C.J.Spiller.

In the postseason vote, Spiller won easily with Yellow Jacket quarterback Joshua Nesbitt finishing second in the voting.

- Caulton Tudor