Everything you need to know about ACC football ahead of the 2023 season.
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It’s been awhile, but if there was any doubt at the end of 2022, the preseason consensus in 2023 is unanimous: The Noles are back.

It was only a matter of time, and the standing-room-only bandwagon in Tallahassee has declared that the time is now. Coming off an emphatic, 6-game winning streak to close the season, Florida State is enjoying its first round of undeniable summer optimism in what feels like ages — only 6 years in real time, to put it literally, but between 2 coaching changes, 5 consecutive unranked finishes, 4 consecutive losing seasons, a full-blown pandemic, and a series of ritual humiliations both on the field and on the recruiting trail, 6 years spent deep in the wilderness, with no discernible path back to civilization. For most of that period, the Seminoles were straight up bad, uncompetitive against the top half of the ACC and generally unrecognizable from the outfits that won 59 games, 3 conference championships, and a national championship from 2012-16. The rest of the time, they were merely mediocre.

Until roughly midway through last season, when suddenly they weren’t.

Coming off a 3-game losing streak in October, which started with a 3rd consecutive loss to Wake Forest, FSU hit the gas pedal, winning its last 6 by an average margin of 24 points per game. They humiliated Miami on the road, snapped a 3-game skid against Florida, and edged Oklahoma in the bowl game to finish 10-3. Despite an earlier loss to Clemson — their 7th straight in the series — the Noles leapt the actual ACC champs in both major polls, finishing as the conference’s highest-ranked team. That’s where they’ll open this year, too, coming in 1 spot ahead of Tigers according to both the AP and the coaches. Head coach Mike Norvell, just a few months removed from the hot seat, signed a contract extension that nearly doubled his salary through the end of the decade.

Overnight, a roster that had seemed weirdly devoid of difference-makers since the end of the Jimbo Fisher era is brimming with them, most of whom arrived at FSU via the transfer portal. Holdovers from last year’s surge include the 6th-year, face-of-the-program quarterback, Jordan Travis, who began his career at Louisville; the leading rusher, Trey Benson (Oregon); the leading receiver, Johnny Wilson (Arizona State); and All-American edge rusher Jared Verse (Albany).

This year’s transfer haul, man-for-man arguably the nation’s best, features plug-and-play starters at wide receiver (Keon Coleman, Michigan State); tight end (Jaheim Bell, South Carolina); offensive line (Jeremiah Byers, UTEP); defensive line (Braden Fiske, Western Michigan); and cornerback (Fentrell Cypress II, Virginia), all of whom project as All-ACC candidates. The lineup is essentially the same one that achieved liftoff over the second half of last season, except where it’s better.

Assuming you weren’t already, are you convinced yet? Because the case for skepticism can be just as compelling. It’s a testament to the FSU brand that a 6-game run featuring zero wins over ranked opponents — and only 1, at the expense of 7-6 Syracuse, over an opponent that finished with a winning record — is enough to effectively erase the previous 5 years of futility in the sport’s collective hive mind. Even immediately prior to that stretch, FSU laid a goose egg against its 3 best conference opponents, Clemson, NC State, and Wake Forest. Compared to the rest of the top 10, the roster in Norvell’s 4th season remains a work in progress; for all his efforts in the portal, Norvell’s recruiting classes have ranked 22nd, 23rd, 20th and 19th nationally per 247Sports’ composite rankings. 247’s Team Talent Composite ranks Florida State’s roster as whole 20th, trailing not only Clemson (5th), but also Miami (12th), Florida (15th) and North Carolina (17th).

It does not meet the threshold to qualify for the Blue-Chip Ratio, the bare-minimum standard of raw talent on hand for every team that has won a national championship in the BCS/Playoff era.

If anything, as strange as it is to say for a program synonymous for the better part of the past decade with chronic underachieving, these Noles are aspiring overachievers: A largely unsung group that accelerated through the curve and can just make out the finish line for the first time, well ahead of what anyone imagined at this time last year.

Either way, we’ll know before the end of September just how far along the track they really are. The Sunday night opener against LSU — the only nonconference game all year pitting 2 current top-10 teams — might be the most anticipated tone-setter of the early season. Three weeks later, FSU will visit its nemesis, Clemson, looking to break the losing streak against the Tigers in the biggest game on the ACC schedule. By October, the Seminoles will be bona fide national contenders with a direct path to the CFP laid out in front of them, or pretenders who have not come as far as fast as the hype implied.

The idea that Norvell, whom a very noisy faction of the fan base wanted to show the door as recently as last fall, has succeeded in awakening one of the sport’s sleeping giants makes for a compelling narrative. Now he just has to make it happen for real.

Projected order of finish

(Remember, there is no more Coastal Chaos, as the ACC abandoned divisions. The top 2 teams advance to the ACC Championship Game Dec. 2 in Charlotte.)

1. Clemson. This is a pivotal season for the Tigers, who reasserted themselves as ACC champs in 2022 following a (relatively) down year in ’21, but offered few reminders of their former dominance in the process. They needed overtime to escape an upset bid at Wake Forest, and a dramatic 4th-quarter comeback to survive against Syracuse; meanwhile, they were soundly thumped by Notre Dame, had a 40-game home winning streak snapped by South Carolina (a loss that also ended an 8-year winning streak in the rivalry) and looked outmanned by Tennessee in the Orange Bowl. The return of the conference crown didn’t fool anyone into believing Clemson was back as a national contender.

For the second year in a row, most of the angst was directed at the offense, and at quarterback DJ Uiagalelei, specifically, whose trajectory from heir apparent to Trevor Lawrence to all-purpose scapegoat ended with Uiagalelei getting benched in the ACC Championship Game and portaling out less than 48 hours later. (He’s now at Oregon State.) More dramatically, Dabo Swinney also issued a rare pink slip to home-grown offensive coordinator Brandon Streeter, a Clemson alum who’d been on staff as quarterbacks coach since 2015. His replacement: 33-year-old prodigy Garrett Riley, Lincoln’s little brother and recipient of a $1.75 million annual salary, fresh from overseeing TCU’s offense during the Frogs’ gravity-defying run to the national championship game.

In addition to the Xs and Os, Riley’s main charge is developing sophomore QB Cade Klubnik, who finally dislodged Uiagalelei as QB1 at the end of the season and largely holds Clemson’s fate in his inexperienced hands. If they have any chance of clinging to their status as year-in, year-out Playoff contenders, the Tigers cannot afford 2 busts in a row.

Klubnik, a former 5-star in his own right, has all the tools to be a star. But his supporting cast (especially the wide receivers) is not on the level of the Deshaun Watson/Lawrence years, and the days of taking the quarterback for granted are long gone.

2. Florida State. The Seminoles remain in the on-deck circle until they actually beat Clemson, a feat they last managed in 2014 — the first year of the Playoff’s existence. The odd-year trip to Death Valley adds another layer of difficulty. Regardless, the conference is more interesting when FSU is relevant.

3. North Carolina. The Tar Heels lived dangerously in 2022, playing 10 games decided by a touchdown or less. Initially, they seemed bulletproof, winning 6 of their first 7 close calls en route to a 9-1 start. The correction hit hard: UNC dropped 4 straight to close the year, 3 of them nail-biters. With prolific QB Drake Maye back opposite the league’s most generous defense, they should reprise their role as the most shootout-friendly outfit in the game.

4. Miami. Mario Cristobal’s debut season at his alma mater was a bust, and an expensive, high-profile one at that. The 5-7 record was embarrassing enough; the specifics were worse. Miami lost by double-digits to Middle Tennessee State and Duke, and was blown out in November losses to Florida State, Clemson and Pitt. Quarterback Tyler Van Dyke, a favorite of pro scouts, never found a rhythm under the new staff, struggling early and sitting late due to a injured shoulder.

As ever, the Canes’ raw talent ensures plausible dark-horse status — especially on defense, they boast arguably the nation’s best combos at both defensive tackle (Leonard Taylor and Akheem Mesidor) and safety (Kamren Kinchens and James Williams). A healthy, confident Van Dyke and a couple of impact transfers could go a long way toward pulling The U out of the doldrums. But the offense is in desperate need of more firepower.

5. Pittsburgh. Career stalled? Draft stock on the wane? Take your talents to Pitt, premiere destination for journeyman quarterbacks! Last year’s big-ticket QB transfer, Kedon Slovis, never quite settled in as a Panther and re-entered the portal ASAP last December. (Slovis washed ashore at BYU, his 3rd school in as many years.) Enter Phil Jurkovec, a 6th-year vet with one last shot on campus following promising but injury-plagued stints at Notre Dame and Boston College. Keeping track of the middle-class QB market these days requires almost as much thread as keeping up with their coaches.

6. NC State. The Wolfpack, too, are banking on a recycled quarterback, Virginia transfer Brennan Armstrong, who crashed and burned in 2022 after rewriting the UVA record book in ’21. To rekindle the flame, they also brought in Armstrong’s former coordinator in Charlottesville, Robert Anae, who’s coming off an underwhelming season himself as the OC at Syracuse. If the reunion clicks, the offense could be one if the ACC’s pleasant surprises. If not, there’s very little else on that side of the ball that moves the needle.

7. Louisville. The Scott Satterfield era was a forgettable one, yielding a 26-24 record and few tears last December when Satterfield hopped the Ohio River for the top job at Cincinnati. Local feeling for his successor, Jeff Brohm, on the other hand, runs deep: Brohm was born and raised in Louisville, starred at UL as a quarterback in the early ’90s, and served as an assistant during one of the best runs in school history in the mid-aughts. As a head coach, he’s 22 games over .500 at Western Kentucky and Purdue. The roster in Year 1 is nothing to write home about, but that will hardly diminish expectations for a native son who has done more with less.

8. Wake Forest. Against all odds, Dave Clawson has presided over 6 winning seasons in the past 7 years, good for the best winning percentage of any Wake Forest coach since the immortal Peahead Walker in the 1940s. (More important for my money, he’s also said on multiple occasions that his favorite band is Talking Heads, revealing himself to be a man of introspection and taste.) Even in a rebuilding year, which barring a revelation at quarterback this season figures to be, baseline expectations at Wake have risen to the point that bowl eligibility is the floor.

9. Duke. With apologies to TCU, arguably no team improved more from 2021 to ’22 than Duke under first-year coach Mike Elko, and the turnaround was close to being an even bigger miracle than the 9-4 record implies: The 4 losses came by a combined 16 points. Sustaining that pace in ’23 might qualify as a minor miracle in itself. Most of last year’s core is back — including underrated QB Riley Leonard, who is begging to be adopted by draftniks touting him as the next Daniel Jones — but the degree of difficulty is significantly higher this time around thanks to a schedule that trades Kansas, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech and Miami for Notre Dame, Florida State, NC State and Clemson.

10. Syracuse. At one point last October, Syracuse was 6-0, ranked 14th in the AP poll, and held a 21-10 lead at Clemson in the 4th quarter. Remember that? No? That’s how quickly it all unraveled. The Orange let a landmark upset over the Tigers slip from their grasp, then proceeded to lose 5 of their last 6 en route to a 7-6 finish — good enough to preserve coach Dino Babers’ job following 3 consecutive losing seasons from 2019-21, but well short of what appeared to be on the table just a few weeks earlier. Minus their headliner, prolific RB Sean Tucker, this still looks like a nondescript outfit that tops out in the Pinstripe Bowl.

11. Georgia Tech. The Yellow Jackets probably waited 10 months too late to fire Geoff Collins, but they might have a keeper in his successor, Brent Key, who managed to go 4-4 in an interim role last fall after Collins was sent packing. Tech hit the portal hard in search of a spark on offense, landing a trio of SEC wideouts from Alabama (Christian Leary), Georgia (Dominick Blaylock) and Texas A&M (Chase Lane), but that will all be for naught unless the new quarterback, A&M transfer Haynes King, has leveled up since we last saw him as an Aggie.

12. Virginia. The Cavaliers’ 2022 campaign was suspended last November after the tragic murder of 3 players by a former teammate, rendering anything happening on the field irrelevant. A routine season that feels relatively normal in the wake of tragedy is the only goal.

13. Virginia Tech. The situation in Blacksburg is dire enough at this point to demand a lengthy investigation into What Went Wrong, in which 2nd-year head coach Brent Pry — coming off a 3-9 debacle in Year 1 — takes pains to emphasize he inherited a mess that’s going to take time to get back in working order. Which, fair enough. But it’s never going to excuse losing to Old Dominion.

14. Boston College. The running game cannot possibly be as bad again as it was in 2022, but the fact is the Eagles were so far behind the curve that even meaningful improvement could still leave them at the bottom of the conference.

The players

MVP: North Carolina QB Drake Maye

Maye took the baton from the most prolific passer in UNC history, Sam Howell, and never looked back, setting school records for total offense and touchdowns with room to spare as a redshirt freshman. By year’s end, even a nosedive in his production over the course of an 0-4 finish wasn’t enough to cool his surging stock: He turned down lucrative transfer opportunities in favor of another year in Chapel Hill, and – like his predecessor – enters Year 3 on the short list for both the Heisman and the No. 1 overall pick next spring.

In Howell’s case, his final season on campus in 2021 fell well short of those lofty expectations, largely for reasons beyond his control. Maye’s bid for local immortality hinges on an as-yet unproven supporting cast as well. The Tar Heels lost their top two receivers and best pass blocker to the draft, while the running back-by-committee approach left Maye himself as the team’s leading rusher even after subtracting for negative yardage on sacks. A nice line to have on the résumé again come awards season, sure. But the only way to guarantee he remains relevant at that point on the calendar is to make sure he remains in one piece.

Offensive POY: Clemson RB Will Shipley

Shipley is not the biggest back, or the fastest, or the most creative in the open field. But as a combination of all of the above, he might be the most complete: Sturdy enough at 5-11, 205 to break tackles and handle a full-time workload, explosive enough to wreck pursuit angles on his way to the end zone, and perfectly capable of leaving tacklers grasping at air.

As a sophomore, he was also Clemson’s primary kick returner, a frequent receiving target out of the backfield, a dogged blocker and a beast in short-yardage, while finishing 2nd in the ACC in all-purpose yards and touchdowns. As a junior, he may still be the only skill player the Tigers can count on week-in, week-out. Keeping him upright is indispensable to their bid to return to the CFP.

Defensive POY: Florida State edge Jared Verse

More than any other player, Verse is the poster child for just how dramatically the free-transfer era has changed the sport for late bloomers. How many overachieving talents have been overlooked or written off over the years playing out their college careers in obscure outposts like the University of Albany? Fortunately for Verse (and for the beleaguered quarterbacks of the Colonial Athletic Association) the portal has rendered the question academic. After 2 dominant seasons at the FCS level, he made a seamless transition in 2022 from hidden gem to headliner, emerging as an instant hit in Florida State’s spring session, the ACC’s most productive edge rusher in the fall, and, with his decision to return for another year, the early favorite to be the first edge rusher off the board in 2024. Whatever questions still exist about his game by then, his initial detour coming out of high school won’t be among them.

Most exciting player: Florida State QB Jordan Travis

Travis has made huge strides over the course of his career as a passer, finishing as the ACC leader in 2022 in passer rating, Total QBR and overall PFF grade. He was so efficient he’s even generating first-round buzz this summer in spite of his bantamweight frame (listed at 6-1, 212). But he might have never survived long enough to develop his arm if not for his legs. Once considered a glorified Wildcat type, his elusiveness is what got him on the field in the first place, kept him there through a couple of marginal years as an underclassman, and continues to make him must-see TV.

Excluding sacks, Travis has accounted for 2,142 career rushing yards, 25 touchdowns and 86 missed tackles forced, per PFF, with 26 runs of 20+ yards. Note that because those numbers only reflect rushing plays (including scrambles on designed passes), they don’t include the many more escapes that bought him extra time to throw. At the same time, PFF also has him down for 19 career fumbles, which, hey, “exciting” doesn’t have to run in only one direction.

Breakout POY: Pitt RB Rodney Hammond Jr.

Hammond is no secret to Pitt fans, who have watched him rack up 1,094 scrimmage yards and 12 touchdowns the past 2 years despite injuries and the presence of an All-ACC workhorse, Israel Abanikanda, at the top of the depth chart. The lion’s share of Hammond’s production in 2022 came in just 3 games, against West Virginia (129 yards, 2 TDs), Syracuse (124 yards, 1 TD) and UCLA in the bowl game (102 yards, 2 TDs), the latter two with Abanikanda on the shelf.

In fact, had he not missed the next 5 games following his season-opening turn against the Mountaineers, it’s easy to imagine Hammond commanding an equal share of the workload with Abanikanda as 1a/1b, if not surpassing him altogether. At any rate, now that he has the feature role to himself, Hammond’s career numbers to date should be the baseline target for 2023 alone.

Fat guy of the year: Duke OT Graham Barton

The best player on a team that pulled off 2022’s most dramatic turnaround. A fixture at left tackle, Barton earned the top PFF grades among ACC linemen for both run and pass blocking, good for the 6th-best overall OL grade nationally. He’s huge, he’s mean, he spent his summer interning in a local office for North Carolina senator Thom Tillis, he’ll be playing on Sundays for years to come. Get in on the ground floor!

Most valuable transfers:  Louisville WR Jamari Thrash, Virginia Tech WR Ali Jennings III and North Carolina WR Devontez Walker*

Thrash (Georgia State), Jennings (Old Dominion) and Walker (Kent State) are all making the leap to the Power 5 level on the strength of all-conference campaigns in the G-5 ranks, and all 3 have a path to emerging as their new team’s top wideout from Day 1. Collectively they combined for 27 touchdowns in 2022 on 17.3 yards per catch, marking them as obvious targets in the first portal window for any outfit in the market for more big-play pop.

 

 

The asterisk in Walker’s case concerns his eligibility: As a double transfer from Kent State and North Carolina Central (where he never actually played due to COVID-19 suspending his only season there), he requires an NCAA waiver to suit up this season for the Tar Heels; as it stands, that waiver has been officially denied. UNC has appealed the verdict, arguing that Walker enrolled before the NCAA voted to tighten its guidelines for granting waivers and that he transferred in part to be closer to his ailing grandmother. His case has generated such outrage locally that even the governor of North Carolina has thrown his weight behind the appeal. As of this writing, it remains pending, and Walker remains on ice. If he gets on the field this season, he’ll immediately move to the front of the line in the competition to be Drake Maye’s favorite receiver.

Sleeper of the year: Boston College edge Donovan Ezeiruaku

The ACC was loaded with NFL-ready defensive linemen in 2022, which made a guy like Ezeiruaku — a first-year starter on a last-place team — easy to overlook for anyone not specifically paying attention to Boston College. (So, pretty much everyone.) For the opponents who actually had to block him, not so much. Ask opposing coaches, who voted him second-team All-ACC, or Duke’s Graham Barton, arguably the conference’s best offensive lineman:

On paper, Ezeiruaku tied for 4th in the league with 14.5 tackles for loss and led ACC edge defenders in stops, PFF’s metric for tackles that represent a “failure” for the offense based on down and distance. Whether or not his team is any better, as a true junior his star is still very much on the rise.

Best name: Louisville DB Storm Duck


Honorable Mention: Miami DL Akheem Mesidor… Pitt WR Konata Mumpfield … Louisville edge Popeye Williams.
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Best position group: Clemson’s LBs

As freshman, Jeremiah Trotter Jr. and Barrett Carter came in together as 2 of the highest-rated linebackers in the 2021 class. As juniors, they’re right on schedule to go out together as 2 of the best in the country. Trotter, the son of a former Pro Bowler, was born to be a modern middle ‘backer, boasting instincts in coverage, sideline-to-sideline range on the hoof, closing speed as a blitzer, and the explosiveness to leave o-linemen grasping at air en route to the backfield. Even at a position declining in value at the next level, he has the makings of a first-rounder.

For Carter, on the other hand, “linebacker” is strictly a term of convenience: Although he does line up frequently in the box, you’re just as likely to find him on any given snap applying his free-range skill set to nickel or edge roles, and making plays wherever he goes. He was the only FBS player in 2022 to hit double-digits in tackles for loss (10.5) and passes defensed (10), and one of a very small handful with at least 100 snaps as a run defender, a pass rusher and in coverage to earn PFF grades of 75+ in all 3 columns.

The new guy in the starting lineup, sophomore Wade Woodaz, is not an All-American, but does come with reasonably high expectations after recording 5.5 TFLs, 3 passes defended, and a forced fumble in just 180 snaps as a true freshman. This time next year, who knows? He may on track to being well-decorated himself.

Biggest X-factor: Clemson QB Cade Klubnik

Many Clemson fans spent the 2022 season openly pining for Klubnik, the gem of the Tigers’ freshman class, to replace embattled starter DJ Uiagalelei. Having finally gotten their wish, many of those same fans spent the offseason preaching the virtues of patience. After a handful of spot appearances throughout the year, Klubnik made his move in the ACC Championship Game, seizing the reins for good in the first half of an eventual blowout win over North Carolina. But his first start, a 31-14 loss to Tennessee in the Orange Bowl, was a wake-up call: Opposite a blitz-happy SEC defense on a big stage, Klubnik was sacked 4 times, picked twice and generally looked not quite ready for primetime.

Still, while he was just a freshman in the end, there is no doubt about Klubnik’s status as QB1 as a sophomore (Uiagalelei portaled out immediately after getting benched, to Oregon State), or the fact that Clemson’s Playoff fate rests largely on his gifted right arm. In contrast to the towering pocket gods who have manned the position the past 5 years, Klubnik is on the lighter side, and more reliant on his mobility, accuracy, and decision-making. Once the latter catches up to big-game speed, the Tigers will find out what they really have.