ACC power rankings, Week 2: Clemson takes back top spot
After a rough weekend for ACC teams, Clemson took back the title of the conference’s best team after Florida State suffered some hiccups.
The ACC had itself a tough opening weekend, with some teams not living up to their hype and some faltering even in their wins. Out of all of that madness, however, we saw Clemson return to their top form in their season opener, and that brought them right to the top of this week’s power rankings.
The Tigers showed that they aren’t skipping a beat since their national title win earlier in 2017, and are looking strong atop the ACC to start the season. However, it does help when your competition in the conference falters in their openers, as well.
The conference also saw one of its best teams take a huge hit on Saturday night, as Florida State lost a big game against Alabama in Atlanta to open up the year. To make matters even worse, in what will likely be the biggest loss of the season no matter who they lose to during the year, the Seminoles’ starting quarterback Deondre Francois went down for the year with a knee injury.
With all of that madness in the conference, plenty of teams moved up and down in the rankings heading into Week 2. Without further ado, take a look below at who made jumps and who fell in this week’s edition of the ACC’s power rankings.
Virginia Cavaliers 1-0
Last week: Won 28-10 over William & Mary
Last rank: 14
Although they won on Saturday in their season opener, Virginia finds themselves in a tough spot where they need to do something drastic to really make an impact in the ACC this year.
Even with a 28-10 win over William & Mary on Saturday, the Cavaliers still don’t quite match up to the talent of a lot of their rivals in the ACC, and have a big Big Ten (no pun intended) matchup against Indiana on Saturday with the Hoosiers looking to bounce back from a bad loss to Ohio State last weekend.
If they can pull out the win against Indiana, maybe we can take a better look at moving Virginia up in the power rankings.
North Carolina Tar Heels 0-1
Last week: Lost 35-30 to California
Last rank: 9
Unfortunately for North Carolina, they found themselves on the wrong end of an embarrassing loss to open up their 2017 season, and it came at a horrible time when most of their competition in the ACC came out on top of their season openers.
The Tar Heels fell to a lackluster California team in a 35-30 game on Saturday, and didn’t look very good in the process. There was a lot of hype surrounding the team heading into the year, and, especially in an open conference like the ACC after a solid year in 2016, they could’ve been in for a big year if they started on the right foot. For now, UNC finds themselves at the bottom of the totem pole, and they’ll have to bounce back in a big way to get back up.