ACC Football Power Rankings

'12 Football5

From the National Football Post linked here.

5. N.C. State: Head coach Tom O’Brien navigated his team through an up-and-down season in 2011 but finished strong, ending the year on a three-game roll including wins over Clemson and a bowl victory over Louisville. Quarterback Mike Glennon cut down on his interceptions late in the year, but the Wolfpack need James Washington, Tony Creecy or the troubled Mustafa Greene to emerge to improve on a rushing attack that ranked No. 109 in the country last fall. An experienced offensive line will help.

A few observations:

  • I would say NC State is about exactly where we would all expect the Wolfpack to be ranked heading into this season — in at #5 is better than most of the teams in the league but not ‘elite’ while still sitting in striking distance in the event a few things could break our way.
  • Wake Forest is a little higher than I had expected; but, I haven’t done much research and reading about the upcoming season as of yet.
  • It is interesting to see a media outlet not fawn over UNC-CH simply because they are UNC.   There is a still a lot of talent in that program, but motivation and adjusting to a new style are real challenges to overcome.
  • The Atlantic Division and the Coastal Division seem to be pretty evenly balanced with a slight edge going to the Atlantic.

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'12 Football

5 Responses to ACC Football Power Rankings

  1. baxter 05/22/2012 at 10:25 AM #

    Wake lost a lot with that OL graduation, but they do have, in my opinion, one of the better QBs in the league in Price, fits well in that crazy offense. If that kid who torched us last year Campanaro stays healthy, I think they’ll be fine at WR. As always, they need to jump out of the gates early, with UNC week 2 at home, and FSU on the road followed by Duke and Maryland, they could be 3-1 in ACC play at the bye week. @UVa, Clemson home, BC home, @NCSU, they could go 2-3 or 3-2 in that stretch and be in the discussion at the end of the year. But I doubt that happens. They probably go 4-4 in the ACC.

    UNC looked awful on defense in their spring game, they are having to learn a lot on both sides of the ball and I think that will make this a rough transition year. They open after Elon (wouldn’t that be awesome if Swepson beat them?) @Wake, @Louisville, ECU, Idaho, VT, @Miami, @Duke, NCSU, Bye. Nine games before a bye, new system on both sides, sounds disastrous to me. We’ll see, I think he got a 7 year contract because first few years he expects to be rough.

  2. swamppack 05/22/2012 at 11:00 AM #

    Comparing N.C. State football now to where it has been throughout it’s history, O’Brien is doing a good job. As a fan or an alumni or both, you always want to see the team rise to a new level and I am no different, but things could be a whole lot worse.

    A nice addition to the trophy case would be another ACC title, it would do wonders for the program. Our last was in 1979.

  3. Plz2BStateFan 05/22/2012 at 11:10 AM #

    UNC will have had us right before their bi-week 2 years in a row. Man Swofford really is pulling strings for his team.

    /sarcasm

  4. gcpack 05/22/2012 at 1:39 PM #

    It seems to me that we are lucky to be at 5. I have heard from different sources that O’Brien hasn’t really done a great job of building relationships with the in state high school coaches. Personally I expected to see something more by the sixth year of the O’Brien era.

    When he was hired I wondered if he was going to recruit a much more athletic player since he wasn’t bound by the restrictions of a small, private Jesuit school. It seems like he is recruiting the same type player and not taking advantage of being head coach of a large public university and the ability to get higher rated players admitted.

    His stearn authoritarian approach may attract a certain type of athlete with a high level of dedication but there are more quality athletes out there who are not attracted to this approach. When that occurs you better make sure as head coach that you have great connections with the high school coaches in your home state and O’Brien hasn’t done that.

  5. runwiththepack 05/22/2012 at 7:40 PM #

    gcpack,

    Maybe O’B knows that the Carolina Machine makes effective in-state recruiting nearly impossible. The Machine has done a good job of smearing NCSU forever, even while that great multitude of monkey-shines has been occurring in Chapel Hill for God-knows-how-long. Imagine if all that sh*# occurred in Raleigh.

    Amato somehow managed to do pretty well. And Sheridan did fairly good. We were all hoping that the historically widespread cheating B.S. would open eyes to what Chapel Hill is all about. But now that it is clear what they are all about, it is now apparent that that crap suddenly doesn’t matter a whole lot (unless it happens in Raleigh, of course). Recruiting in Chapel Hill is going just fine, all considered, thank you very much.

    On the brighter side, NCSU usually seems to fare better when the preseason prognosticators underestimate us. Hopefully, that’s the case this year. I have actually come to dread high pre-season expectations, which don’t matter anyway. They just put a target on us that we don’t need.

    I don’t care to make any predictions. We’ll just see what happens when it happens, but I will say that things look pretty good. Well, here goes anyway – #5 or better.

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