When June rolls around we submit our staff to a cobweb clearing exercise that churns out the preseason football rankings. We also debut the ACC Nation Podcast/Radio football previews (Georgia Tech with Kelly Quinlan on June 6 followed by North Carolina with Andrew Jones on June 15). The opening kickoff for ACC+1 teams comes in Week Zero, August 27. If you count on your fingers like we do that’s 3 short summer fun months away.
Now, as we do every year a quick disclaimer for those of you unfamiliar with our approach. When we talk about football rankings we refer to it as the ACC+1 and that means 15 teams (we’re including Notre Dame because of the amount of conference scheduling). This allows everyone to keep an eye on the Irish and gauge how they’ll do against ACC opponents. This year North Carolina, Syracuse, Clemson and Boston College are on their schedule.
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Football Rankings
The top slot in the preseason power poll was split between Clemson and NC State. The difference maker is where the voters placed the Pack in the rest of their rankings. Notre Dame did not fall consistently within the voting and was only selected at No. 2 twice.
Once the top 3 teams are determined things get spicy in our football rankings. There are three ties for the next positions which is a first in this poll. Each of the teams is placed in the poll alphabetically so don’t read anything into their positions.
The teams tied for No. 8 along with No. 10 and 11 are all very close in point tallies.
One final note, Duke, though coming in at No. 15 picked up enough votes to not be an overwhelming selection at that spot.
| RANK | TEAM | POINTS |
| #1 | CLEMSON | 85 |
| #2 | NC STATE | 81 |
| #3 | NOTRE DAME | 79 |
| T#4 | MIAMI | 71 |
| T#4 | WAKE FOREST | 71 |
| T#6 | NORTH CAROLINA | 50 |
| T#6 | PITT | 50 |
| T#8 | BOSTON COLLEGE | 42 |
| T#8 | LOUISVILLE | 42 |
| #10 | FLORIDA STATE | 40 |
| #11 | VIRGINIA | 39 |
| #12 | VIRGINIA TECH | 30 |
| #13 | GEORGIA TECH | 17 |
| #14 | SYRACUSE | 14 |
| #15 | DUKE | 8 |
Now, as always, preseason and way-too-early polling is merely an exercise to gauge where observers believe teams are headed when the season begins. Realistically, many things will change between now and the kick-off of the year. Once the season begins we’ll look back on these football rankings and adjust our opinions.
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