ACC Football 2017: Biggest x-factor for every team

These ACC football players represent the biggest x-factor for their respective teams and could help their team in pursuit of a conference championship.

The ACC might be regarded as one of the best in college football. The conference is home to the reigning national champion Clemson Tigers and the reigning Heisman winner in Louisville quarterback Lamar Jackson. He’s back to gun for another Heisman and a potential conference crown but Clemson’s Deshaun Watson moved onto the NFL and questions remain whether the Tigers have what it takes to repeat.

The conference appears to be loaded again as Clemson, Florida State, and Louisville figure to have the best teams heading into the year. Unlike the SEC, the ACC has fantastic coaches who have elevated their programs. Coaches like Dabo Swinney, Jimbo Fisher, Bobby Petrino, David Cutcliffe, and others deserve more national recognition. The ACC also isn’t dominated by just one team despite for Clemson’s recent run with Watson the past two years. We may just find out how good this conference is when Florida State kicks off the season with national title runner-up Alabama.

The ACC has also done well in producing NFL talent in recent years. In the most recent NFL Draft, Clemson produced 43 players that were drafted. That was the second most of any conference behind, of course, the SEC. They have had at least 42 draftees to represent the ACC the past three years which is the only conference to do so besides the SEC.

What did separate them from the group, however, was the fact that four quarterbacks were taken on draft day (Watson, Mitchell Trubisky, Nate Peterman and Brad Kayaa). That makes the ACC a heck of a lot of fun to watch with the productive play from the quarterbacks. Let’s take a look at who may make an impact as the team’s biggest x-factors during the 2017 college football season.