ACC football primer on the CFBHG - 2020 conference analysis

Jake Wimberly

We continue on our journey towards the 2020 college football season and today we head over to the ACC. We recently posted about the SEC and you can read that here.

We also have installments on the BIG 10, BIG 12, our college football win totals and more on the website - check it out and share with your friends.

The ACC is really Clemson and everyone else. Let’s not try to make this conference anything other than that. For years it was all about Florida State and then everyone else.

Now; it’s about Dabo Swinney and Clemson and well everyone else. Clemson is the odds on favorite to win not only the ACC, but the National Title in 2020, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t really good football throughout the conference.

We have seen the emergence of Virginia, the return of Louisville and North Carolina and we wait to see what happens in places like Miami and Florida State.

New coaches abound, new play makers and while Clemson is the odds on favorite, there are still great story lines throughout this conference.

After Clemson - talent level inside conference is marginal to good:

Clemson has recruited and basically built an SEC team in the ACC, and while there are some talented teams in the conference, there is a great divide when talking three year roster talent in the conference.

Miami continues to recruit at a nice level, but has vastly under performed on the field. Last year alone, the Canes lost four games they were double digit favorites in.

Florida State is a shell of itself, but new head coach Mike Norvell looks to change that and it will take a few recruiting cycles.

North Carolina and Mac Brown look to be picking up major steam in recruiting over the last 18 months and they actually had an opportunity to beat Clemson a year ago, losing 21-20. If Brown and the Tar Heels continue on this recruiting pace, they could make Clemson’s life a bit uneasy.

NC State, Virginia Tech, and a slue of other teams are really comparable on roster talent, which is why when you focus on the ACC Coastal, we have had a different champion over the last several years. Seven different teams on seven different years have now won the ACC Coastal and Clemson has won five straight ACC Championships. If and when they win the seventh this year, you can start first by looking at the roster talent divide inside the conference.

3 Year Talent HG Composite

1 Clemson 93.08

2 Miami 86.67

3 Florida State 86.67

4 North Carolina 81.54

5 NC State 75.38

6 Virginia Tech 69.23

7 Georgia Tech 67.18

8 Pittsburgh 63.08

9 Louisville 63.08

10 Virginia 61.79

11 Syracuse 58.72

12 Duke 57.18

13 Wake Forest 55.90

14 Boston College 52.31

Sam Howell and North Carolina are set to have a monster year for Mac Brown. Photo courtesy of 247sports.com

ACC quarterbacks are solid after Lawrence:

No need to write anything on Trevor Lawrence, because you know the deal. The guy is on pace to be the number one draft pick in 2021 and unless something major happens, he should be at the Heisman ceremonies come December.

After Lawrence, five ACC quarterbacks are above average on our scale. The 2020 number for average quarterbacks or as defined is 11.7. There are some really solid guys, starting with Sam Howell at North Carolina. Howell thrived last year under Phil Longo’s wide open attack and looks to be even better in 2020.

Micale Cunningham really embraced Scott Saterfield’s power spread in year one at Louisville and what a turn around that was. D’Eriq King could be the ace in the hole if healthy for the Miami Hurricanes.

He was our number one G5 quarterback just two years ago and got hurt out at Houston. If he is back full speed, he could be the plug for Manny Diaz at quarterback.

Also watch Keyton Thompson at Virginia a way late transfer quarterback from Mississippi State who did some nice things early in his career under Dan Mullen. Thompson, who was a four star product out of Louisiana, has the skill set to run Bronco Mendenhall’s offense in 2020.

# Team Quarterback Metric

1 Clemson Trevor Lawrence 34.7

2 North Carolina Sam Howell 32.6

3 Louisville Micale Cunningham 21.2

4 Syracuse Tommy DeVito 19.4

5 Miami D'Eriq King 15

6 Virginia Tech Hendon Hooker 13.5

7 Pittsburgh Kenny Pickett 9.1

8 Fla. State James Blackman 8.3

9 Bost. College Dennis Grosel 7.3

10 Ga. Tech James Graham 7.1

11 NC State Devin Leary 4.2

12 Wake Forest Sam Hartman 3.4

13 Duke Chris Katrenick 3.1

14 Virginia Keyton Thompson 2.2

ACC coaches as a collective are below average:

Our average coaching value for coaches nationally in 2020 is around 6.5; the average coaching value in the ACC is 4.9, which puts the collection of coaches in this conference below average.

Yes there is Dabo, and yes there is some quality, but a lot of underachieving and head scratching with this group. Bronco Mendenhall got Virginia to the ACC Championship a year ago, but what will his team look like this year?

Justin Fuente has vastly underachieved at Virginia Tech, Manny Diaz is on the fast track to the hot seat, as is Geoff Collins if they can’t get their programs turned around in the right direction.

Scott Saterfield at Louisville and Mike Norvell offer along with Mendenhall, some possible future high end coaching for the conference.

Dino Babers has done a solid job at Syracuse, but needs to stack good years on top of another and in the Tobacco state, Mac Brown is climbing and David Cutcliffe, along with Dave Doeren look to be falling.

# Team Coach Metric

1 Clemson Dabo Swinney 37

2 Virginia Bronco Mendenhall 7

3 Virginia Tech Justin Fuente 6

4 Florida State Mike Norvell 5

5 Louisville Scott Satterfield 4

6 Wake Forest Dave Clawson 4

7 North Carolina Mac Brown 3

8 Pittsburgh Pat Narduzzi 3

9 NC State Dave Doeren 2

10 Boston College Jeff Hafley 2

11 Syracuse Dino Babers 1

12 Miami Manny Diaz -1

13 Duke David Cutcliffe -1

14 Georgia Tech Geoff Collins -3

Manny Diaz hopes D’Eriq King can put the “U” back on the college football map in 2020. Photo courtesy of 247sports.com

ODE gets to the meat of a team matter:

A lot of times in college football, we see teams who recruit well and then not perform so well. Sometimes that’s coaching, sometimes that is a miss in the talent evaluation process and some times that’s coaches and how each side of the ball performs as a unit.

Offensive and defensive scoring efficiency can tell you a lot about a program and what is going on with a team. Since the college football playoff - and even back into the BCS, we have seen teams that typically make these stages of college football live around or inside the top 10 in ODE (Offensive, Defensive Efficiency).

Some teams like Oklahoma are superior on offense, annually housing the nations top offense, but defensively they are exposed once on the national scene because their defensive unit is so bad. Is it talent? Probably not; Oklahoma annually recruits in the top ten. Is it coaching? Maybe on the defensive side. Is it culture or toughness? Possibly.

All are great questions on why some teams are good on one side and not so good on the other.

2020 ODE ACC Rankings: NOTE: ODE Ranker is the national ranking of the team as a combined offensive and defensive number together. the O and D ranks are a teams offensive and defensive rankings over the last two years.

Team ODE Ranker O and D Ranks

Clemson 2 4 and 1

Virginia 30 40 and 41

Boston College 42 39 and 56

Pittsburgh 44 64 and 33

Miami 47 92 and 12

Syracuse 53 72 and 43

Duke 55 84 and 31

Virginia Tech 59 49 and 73

NC State 62 59 and 66

Wake Forest 63 55 and 71

North Carolina 68 51 and 82

Florida State 72 99 and 37

Louisville 92 65 and 103

Georgia Tech 94 69 and 102

After Clemson, Virginia is the closet team to a top 25 team on offensive and defensive scoring efficiency on our two year average. And, this tells the story in the ACC as we look at ten of the 14 teams that sit from mid forties to low seventies in the rankings. You see lots of teams with marginal to below average offenses and defenses.

Which ever one of these teams (or two), can improve their scoring or ability to stop teams will likely be the team or teams behind Clemson. Yes, that sounds simple, but if any graph we have defines the ACC, it’s this one.

Scheduling matters and never apologize for scheduling help:

Strength of Schedule Numbers :

NOTE: Number to the right of each team is strictly a mathematical identifier that allows us to rank schedules, derived off 2020 opponents.

1 Georgia Tech 1155.88

2 Florida State 1009.01

3 Louisville 992.48

4 Wake Forest 958.34

5 Virginia 952.4

6 Boston College 917.86

7 Pittsburgh 911.29

8 NC State 887.76

9 Duke 885.72

10 Clemson 857.39

11 North Carolina 839.44

12 Virginia Tech 823.54

13 Syracuse 812.85

14 Miami 786.18

Georgia Tech has the toughest ACC schedule on our metric which is not good for Geoff Collins in year two. Playing Georgia annually and Clemson, on top of Central Florida and other - look for this to be a bad year again for Tech.

On the other end, it should be a good year for Miami with a new quarterback and easy schedule. North Carolina and Virginia Tech also have managable schedules, which is why the Coastal should be a four horse race in 2020.

Clemson does have to travel to Notre Dame late in the year, which is the best non con game in the conference in 2020.

It’s Clemson and then who knows:

We have to no surprise, Clemson winning the ACC title in 2020 and then after that, it really is a huge coin toss. Look for teams with high level quarterback play or a defense that can make a stop to be the separators in the conference. That is an elementary statement to make; really sums up football, but this conference has literally been that.

We have Clemson over North Carolina this year for the title. Records are below.

All photos courtesy of 247sports.com