2023 College Football Review: ACC

Photo by Charles Mays from Tomahawk Nation

It should have been an excellent year for the ACC, before the powers that be determined that it just wasn’t worth it.

Alas, there’s still much to discuss from the Atlantic Coast Conference.

1. Florida State Seminoles [Conference Champions] (My Prediction: 1)

Florida State was exactly as advertised.

Jordan Travis was great. Excellent defense. Fun receivers.

It was a great team that went 13-0 despite the injury to Jordan Travis. They were only one of 3 undefeated power 5 conference teams.

But hey, I guess that just isn’t good enough for the playoff…

2. Louisville Cardinals (My Prediction: 5)

I figured Louisville would have a good season considering the talent they had and the coach Jeff Brohm was.

I didn’t expect an ACC title game appearance, however.

Considering they had QB troubles all year as well, this was a great, great first year for Brohm at Louisville.

3. NC State Wolfpack (My Prediction: 8)

I said in the preview post that NC State, while bringing over Virginia’s offensive coordinator and quarterback, may be getting the wrong guy.

After all, Virginia head coach Tony Elliott had great Clemson offenses and a great UVA offense last year.

Well, judging by NC State’s season and Virginia’s, I think the Wolfpack got it right!

4. Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets (My Prediction: 12)

Brent Key did a great job righting the ship for the Jackets last year, but it was built off of a lot of one score games. Those are usually headed towards regression a season later.

But hey, I was wrong!

Georgia Tech went 5-3 in the conference and due to tiebreakers ended up 4th.

It’s good progress for Key to build off of.

5. Virginia Tech Hokies (My Prediction: 13)

Speaking of a great season, Virginia Tech, after starting 1-3, went 5-3 in conference play!

Were their 5 wins against absolutely terrible teams? Yes.

But look, you can only play who’s in front of you.

And considering past years of VT football, 6-6 is a good start for head coach Brent Pry.

6. Clemson Tigers (My Prediction: 2 & Conference Champion)

Well. I was sort of right about Clemson in my prediction.

I said that I thought Clemson would start slow.

After all, new offensive coordinator. First year with Cade Klubnik starting.

It was going to take some time.

And it did!

It just took a lot longer than I thought it would.

Clemson started 4-4 and were really struggling, before the Tigers rattled off 4 straight wins, and against some pretty good opponents too.

They beat Notre Dame, UNC, and getting revenge from last years loss against South Carolina.

So they did figure it out.

Just way too late for it to be a great season.

7. North Carolina Tar Heels (My Prediction: 3)

UNC was gonna have a super fun offense and a not so great defense.

And then they had a super fun offense AND a good defense!

Things looked great!

And then it all went poorly, as UNC lost 4 of their last 6, including losses to Virginia and Georgia Tech (and almost Duke as well).

It leaves a sour taste in the mouth of Tar Heels fans for sure after a 6-0 start.

8. Duke Blue Devils (My Prediction: 10)

This looks like my prediction was close, but it really shouldn’t have been.

Duke had a great start to the season, and then Riley Leonard got hurt against Louisville and the Blue Devils just couldn’t string together wins.

Now, Mike Elko has left for his alma mater Texas A&M, and Duke is left to pick up the pieces.

9. Miami Hurricanes (My Prediction: 4)

I said they’d be fine.

I did! I said they’d be fine!

And I was wrong.

3 of their 5 losses were one score games, but a couple of them were absolutely atrocious game management by Mario Cristobal, including the Georgia Tech game which was full on inexcusable.

I can accept losing close games. Sometimes it’s luck of the draw.

Losing the way Miami did? That’s a systemic problem.

10. Boston College (My Prediction: 14)

I got this wrong a couple of times.

One, I thought Boston College would be an absolute disaster.

They weren’t! They made a bowl game!

I also thought Phil Jurkovec was the reason for their success in years past which…yeah.

We’ll get to him.

11. Syracuse Orange (My Prediction: 9)

Dino Babers saved his job last season, but he couldn’t save it this year, as Syracuse finally moved on from the long serving head coach.

Still, they managed to get 6 wins and make another bowl game.

Not a terrible year at all, but definitely not a great one.

12. Pittsburgh Panthers (My Prediction: 7)

I thought Pitt was headed towards another year of mediocrity due to head coach Pat Narduzzi’s belief that fun offense is bad.

And boy, did he get his wish on not having a fun offense!

Phil Jurkovec was such a disastrous transfer for Pitt that he ended up switching to play tight end.

Offensive coordinator Frank Cignetti Jr. is gone, so we’ll see what Pitt does offensively going forward.

It can not possibly be worse.

13. Virginia Cavaliers (My Prediction: 11)

It has not been easy for Tony Elliott at UVA.

He took over a very poor roster, had to deal with the tragedy of losing 3 of his players in a shooting, and having to deal with losing his QB and coordinator to NC State.

The results weren’t great.

But let’s hope that it turns around quickly.

Elliott deserves some breaks.

14. Wake Forest (My Prediction: 6)

I thought Dave Clawson would do a fine job replacing Sam Hartman after Hartman transferred to Notre Dame.

I was completely wrong about that, as Wake only managed to score 136 points in conference play this year, the worst in the conference.

Clawson has earned a year where things go poorly considering the work he’s done at Wake Forest, but let’s hope it doesn’t look like this again.