2021 ACC Football

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

Will Ojanen @WillsWorldMN –

Welcome to 2021 ACC football. Clemson was ranked in the top five in the polls in the preseason. UNC was ranked in the top 10, and Miami in the top 15.

Now, Clemson is hanging on by a thread in the polls, thanks to suffering two losses in the first four games. It’s their first season with more than one loss since 2014. UNC has two conference losses, and is out of the polls. Miami also has two losses. The highest ranked team in the AP poll is NC State at 23, in part because of their win over Clemson. Wake Forest is at 24 and one of two undefeated teams in the ACC. The aforementioned Clemson Tigers are at 25. In other words, everything we thought we knew about ACC football has, for the most part, been wrong.

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Literally, with few exceptions, nothing has gone the way we thought. We thought Boston College’s season would be in trouble with Phil Jurkovec gone for the season, but they went out and beat Missouri in overtime. The Eagles are doing it with the running game, which was below average. We thought Clemson would be a top five team, and would be a playoff contender. But, their offense is, well, offensive, and has been the reason they’ve lost twice. We thought Florida State would be better this year, with all of the transfers they brought in. But, they lost to an FCS school, and are winless through four games for the first time in nearly 50 years.

Hardly anyone would have thought Syracuse would be 3-1 at this point, with a 20 point win over Ohio, and a win over Liberty. Who would have guessed Pitt’s defense would be secretly bad, giving up 41 points and 517 yards to Western Michigan? Nobody expected to watch Virginia football this year, and see something similar to Mike Leach era Texas Tech, with Brennan Armstrong throwing for at least 400 yards on a weekly basis. Nobody thought Georgia Tech would go from losing as a 19 point favorite at home to Northern Illinois to then going out and dominating North Carolina.

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So what has actually gone according to plan? Wake Forest looks good. But how good they really are is still up in the air. The competition hasn’t been great, and they’ve had some turnover luck on their side. NC State has looked good, even with the poor performance against Mississippi State. Virginia Tech has made their fans scratch their heads repeatedly, and wonder when the Justin Fuente chapter would end.

All of this has happened in less than four games, and who knows how far off track the roller coaster will go for ACC football. Just buckle up, and do your best to enjoy the ride.