I won’t even lie to you, dear reader: It’s hard to do power rankings this early in the season. How can you differentiate between various wins over FCS programs? Really, we’re just all here waiting for conference play to start and the excitement to ramp up. Fortunately, we did get one ACC game last week, and we have two more this week – Clemson vs. Louisville and Florida State vs. Boston College. That, along with Notre Dame’s ACC Barnstorming Tour coming back to South Bend for a game against Georgia Tech, gives us a little more reason to be excited about ACC football in week three. For now, let’s go to the rankings.
1. Clemson – A road test at Louisville is on the horizon after a convincing win against Appalachian State, reminding us that it is no longer 2007.
2. Florida State – After the rousing success (I suppose? I wasn’t there) of Brad Paisley’s free concert at Virginia Tech, he has added dates at Florida State and Wake Forest (and three other schools) during October. The FSU concert is two days before Miami plays the Seminoles, but Paisley will have moved on to Winston-Salem for the October 10th concert … just in time for BC-Wake. In a related news item, Paisley needs a new manager.
3. Georgia Tech – The Yellow Jackets continue to rise up the rankings after another convincing victory. This week’s contest against Notre Dame should give us a much stronger idea of what to expect from the Ramblin’ Wreck in 2015.
4. Virginia Tech – This week we learned that if you are named Virginia Tech’s offensive lineman of the week, you get a meat tenderizer named “The Fool’s Hammer” with ‘Beat UVA’ inscribed on it. Because why the hell not? Do you have a better idea? Exactly.
5. NC State – LITTLE KNOWN FACT: The Most Interesting Man in the World is the Wolfpack defensive coordinator. Dave Hutxtable’s Jonathan Goldsmith’s defense pitched a shutout against Eastern Kentucky last week, and hopes to stay thirsty against Old Dominion.
6. Duke – David Cutcliffe, solid human being, solid head coach, sent a note of encouragement to Pitt’s James Conner wishing Conner well in his recovery from a season-ending knee injury. We need more David Cutcliffes.
7. Louisville – Louisville faltered in the first half of week one before a late rally came up short. Last week against Houston, the offense gave Louisville plenty of chances at the win, but the defense kept passing them up in the fourth quarter.
8. Pittsburgh – Ever been browsing around on your computer and said, “You know what I need? An academic journal that takes a deep look at Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies?” Well, good news! The University of Pittsburgh heard you and has announced the launch of Ledger! I would make a hip cryptocurrency joke here, but my knowledge of the topic doesn’t reach beyond “Dogecoin sponsored Josh Wise’s NASCAR a few times.” MOVING ONNNNNNNN…
9. Miami – A YouTube video making the rounds shows Miami defensive coordinator Mark D’onofrio patiently responding to an unruly Hurricanes fan criticizing the team’s defensive play against Temple. The Hurricanes would go on to shut out Temple on its final four drives to win 44-20. In other news, literally everything is on YouTube now. Yes, even your 6th birthday party. I watched it last night. Pretty jealous of that Power Wheels truck you got.
10. North Carolina – I’m just going to leave this link of former UNC football player/supervisor of morale Caleb Pressley’s new business venture and walk away. Far, FAR away.
11. Boston College – The Eagles scored 62 points in the first half against Howard Saturday. That half featured more Boston College points than nine of BC’s basketball games last season.
12. Virginia – Virginia football fans: The gift that keeps on giving. Last year gave us Goose Guy, and then we got Slumping Man after the Hoos’ heartbreaker against Notre Dame. Oddly enough, Slumping Man (aka Mike Bunting, per the intrepid reporters at Streaking The Lawn) has yet to meet Goose Guy (aka Brandon DeCoursey). If only there were a detective in the UVa football department that could work to unite these two…
13. Syracuse – You know, Mr. Ford Keys To The Game guy, if you didn’t want to be here (AND WHO CAN BLAME YOU, RIGHT?), all you had to do was say so.
14. Wake Forest – Despite the valiant efforts of John Wolford, Wake Forest lost 30-17 to Syracuse. Welcome back to the bottom, Deacs! We missed you.
Until next week, peace, love, and #goacc.
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