An old-time tradition: predicting the end results of a season before any teams have taken the field. For football, it made sense to go through and attempt to predict the outcome of every conference game. After that task was done, I tallied the results, broke a few ties and filled out my ballot.
Before you make fun of my ballot, though, check out a few stories from Sunday: Andrew Carter on the overall state of the ACC, Luke DeCock on the new arrivals, Pittsburgh and Syracuse, and yours truly with notes from Duke, UNC and N.C. State (Kareem Morris's comments on South Carolina are worth checking out).
Now, in the spirit of transparency, here are my preseason ACC predictions.
Atlantic
Clemson
Florida State
Syracuse
N.C. State
Boston College
Maryland
Wake Forest
Coastal
Miami
Virginia Tech
Georgia Tech
North Carolina
Duke
Pittsburgh
Virginia
ACC Champion
Clemson
Preseason ACC Player of the Year
Tajh Boyd, Clemson
The main takeaway from this exercise: both divisions have two tiers of teams. In the Atlantic, there's Clemson and Florida State, a large gap and then five mediocre teams that could really win or lose any game against a fellow mediocre team.
In the Coastal, there are more contenders. Miami, Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech and UNC all have a shot to win the division, in my estimation. Draw a line, and then there's Duke, Pittsburgh and Virginia to fight for fifth place.
I had both UNC and Georgia Tech finishing 5-3 in ACC play. Georgia Tech took third by virtue of a head-to-head tiebreaker. My other tiebreakers: Duke over Pittsburgh and Boston College over Maryland.
Feel free to disagree.
For all the latest Duke news, like Duke NOW on Facebook and follow me on Twitter.
-- Laura Keeley
Monday, July 22, 2013
Laura Keeley's preseason ACC football ballot
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
3 comments:
It's Kareem Martin from UNC.
You could at least spell the name right as much as you bash the Heels.
Isn't interesting that almost all the major sports outlets, including espn, predict Wake Forest to finish third or fourth in their division, but Keeley (and only keeley) has them dead last. Her bias and lack of any understanding is embarrassing.
How is she bashing UNC? She mentioned them as a possibility to win their division (of which not really anyone would probably agree). With so many starters and key players out already for the season or at least a part of the season, that's a pretty generous estimation on her part.
Post a Comment