Clemson is the preseason favorite to win the Atlantic Coast Conference ahead of Miami and SMU, while North Carolina is picked to finish eighth in its first season under NFL coaching great Bill Belichick.
The league released its preseason poll Wednesday among media members who attended last week’s preseason football media days in Charlotte, North Carolina.
The reigning champion Tigers earned 167 of 183 possible first-place votes as the runaway choice to win the league for the 10th time under Dabo Swinney, a run that includes eight of the last 10 going back to the 2015 season.
“We’ve been around a lot of good teams, and this team has the ingredients to be a really good team, but we’ve got to go do the work,” Swinney said last week at the ACC Kickoff event. “We can’t talk about it or predict our way into it. Y’all can’t predict our way into it. We’ve got to go do it and do the work.”
The Hurricanes were picked second and earned seven first-place votes, coming as they look to Georgia transfer quarterback Carson Beck to fill the job vacated by No. 1 overall NFL draft pick Cam Ward. The Mustangs were third after reaching last year’s ACC title game in their first season in the conference amid the league’s westward expansion, and is coming off consecutive 11-win seasons under Rhett Lashlee.
As for the Tar Heels, Belichick is a first-time college coach who led the New England Patriots to six Super Bowl titles. The Tar Heels have overhauled their roster in a bid to reshape and elevate their program, though it’s unclear exactly how well it will work — landing them in the middle of the 17-team league.
Georgia Tech was picked fourth, followed by Louisville, Duke and Florida State — last year’s preseason favorite that won only two games in a stunning flop.
Pittsburgh was ninth, followed by N.C. State, Virginia Tech, Syracuse, Boston College and Virginia. California was 15th, followed by the two other league schools breaking in new head coaches: Wake Forest with Jake Dickert, and Stanford with former NFL head coach Frank Reich working under an interim tag.
The league is scheduled to release it preseason all-ACC honors Thursday.
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AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football
