Pitt rebounds in this week’s ACC power rankings after upsetting UCF and North Carolina tumbles after losing to Appalachian State.
Last week, everything was bad and nothing was good for the ACC. Except for Clemson that is. I am obligated to say that Clemson was good last week (and the week before and the week before that and so on and so forth). But so far, Clemson has been the only good thing for the ACC.
That changed when Pitt, a struggling, weaker ACC member found a way to upset Central Florida, effectively knocking UCF out of any sort of possible playoff discussion and saving the entire college football world from a debate about whether the Knights deserve to call themselves national champs.
That landmark win for the Panthers doesn’t mean that this conference is great, however. Appalachian State stunned North Carolina, NC State struggled with Ball State, Virginia was tested by Old Dominion, and Miami barely beat Central Michigan.
But, you know, the ACC should take this chance to enjoy the little things. Like Pitt inexplicably beating UCF. Ignore the bad. Enjoy the good. That’s all this conference can do right now.
Georgia Tech didn’t do anything this past weekend. They didn’t win, they didn’t lose, they didn’t break anyone’s hearts, and they didn’t have their hearts broken. Bye weeks are good for fans of bad teams.
Speaking of bad teams, Louisville lost to one. And, well, Louisville is one. The Cardinals are still very much so a work in progress and that deflating loss to Florida State has to sting a bit. Louisville fell behind early and almost completed a comeback, but the Seminoles actually have a decent offense thanks to Kendal Briles and were able to score late to keep this game from getting away from them.
Hey, look, Florida State found a way to finish a game. Kind of. The Seminoles survived and are lucky that Louisville is also rebuilding. FSU was able to have an explosive first quarter, but pretty much disappeared until the fourth quarter. If the Seminoles could ever play a full game, they might be better than mediocre. They haven’t done that yet.
North Carolina, it was fun for a few weeks, right? The first couple of weeks of the 2019 season were enjoyable, right? Mack Brown is still back and North Carolina is still rebuilding. It’s probably going to take a few years before the Tar Heels are really a threat to anyone in the ACC. Still, the start of this season was enjoyable. Losing to Appalachian State wasn’t so enjoyable.
Boston College rebounded from a rough loss to Kansas by beating Rutgers. That’s really not much of an accomplishment, to be completely honest, but it’ll keep the Eagles from falling any lower in the ACC power rankings.
Syracuse scored 52 points in a win. A relatively dull offense came alive and guided Syracuse to a win. If you ignore the fact that this win came over Western Michigan and the Orange gave up 33 points, then that looks a little better, right? Focus on the good and ignore the bad, right?
If you don’t play anybody, your heart can’t be broken. Virginia Tech embraced the bye week motto all bad teams live by and didn’t do a darn thing one way or the other. The Hokies will host Duke Friday evening. That would be a great opportunity for Virginia Tech to actually do something and get some respect back in the ACC.
Miami won, technically. The Hurricanes offense disappeared almost entirely as Manny Diaz and company relied on Miami’s defense to carry them through this game against Central Michigan. Like several other teams in this conference, Miami is rebuilding, but sometimes it feels like the Hurricanes make things seem harder than they have to be. This is the same team that challenged a top 10 ranked Florida team to start the season, by the way. This team only beat Central Michigan by five. This team is a mess. It has potential, but it is a mess.
North Carolina State did win by double digits, but only beating Ball State by 11 isn’t going to get the Wolfpack a ton of respect in the ACC this season. Or really from anyone. It’s not a huge shocker that this team took a bit of a step back from where it was a season ago, but still, this team is halfway to a bowl game and a chaotic conference picture might provide NC State a chance to win a few more games than it should.
Pitt, I don’t know what to do with you. The Panthers are not a good team by any stretch of the imagination if you only look at what they’ve done in the first three weeks of the season. But, if you only look at Pitt’s win over UCF, then it’d be really easy to say that this is one of the best teams that the ACC has to offer. The Panthers dominated the time of possession, took advantage of turnovers, and beat one of college football’s most electrifying teams. That’s remarkable for a team that struggled against Ohio.
The Duke Blue Devils took a week off and are nice and rested before their trip to Virginia Tech. A win over the Hokies on the road would be respectable and would show that this team can compete against conference foes. A win, well, would throw the Blue Devils into the mess that is the rest of the ACC.
Virginia probably shouldn’t have had to struggle with Old Dominion, but the Cavaliers did anyway. UVA is still undefeated, but hardly looks the part of the No. 18 team after that struggle against the Monarchs. It could be that the Cavaliers were looking ahead to Notre Dame. Or it could be that Virginia just isn’t that good right now.
Wake Forest cruised to an easy, smooth 49-7 win over Elon. The Demon Deacons, like Virginia, are undefeated. However, unlike the Cavaliers, at least Wake Forest appears to be a consistently somewhat decent team so far this season.
Clemson, still No. 1 in the ACC, barely had any sort of challenge when the Tigers faced off against the Charlotte 49ers. That’ll probably be the case for most of the rest of the season as Clemson should win with ease down the stretch. At the moment, it’s hard to imagine anyone truly challenging the Tigers.
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