When the Atlantic Coast Conference places five teams in the men’s basketball Top 25, it’s expected. Heck, in some years, it’s even viewed as a disappointment.
The ACC putting five teams in the football Top 25 is much less common, and when two of those teams are ranked in the national top 10, the league begins to approach the greatest season in its 70-year history.
The high-water mark for ACC football came just six years ago. In 2016, Clemson went 14-1 and captured the national championship. Florida State finished 10-3 and #8 nationally. Virginia Tech, Miami and Louisville also were ranked in the final Top 25 poll. Eleven of the ACC’s 14 teams made a bowl, and nine of them won their postseason matchup.
Louisville star Lamar Jackson won the Heisman Trophy in 2016. The league’s other future NFL quarterbacks that year included Clemson’s Deshaun Watson, North Carolina’s Mitch Trubisky, Duke’s Daniel Jones, and Wake Forest’s John Wolford, among others.
Never before 2016, and never since, has the ACC had a football season that ended with two of its teams in the top 10 and five of its teams in the Top 25.
More than halfway through the 2022 regular season, however, that combination remains a realistic possibility. At least for now, the ACC again has both two top-10 teams (#5 Clemson, #10 Wake Forest) and five Top 25 teams (adding #16 Syracuse, #21 UNC and #24 NC State). It’s possible that one or more of those teams could fall out of the polls in the coming months, but it’s also possible that another ACC team could join them.
Either way, with college basketball season almost here, it’s great news for the ACC to still be nationally relevant in multiple ways on the gridiron as the calendar turns to November.
Featured image via Inside Carolina/Jim Hawkins
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