Louisville football: ACC power rankings week 1
11. Syracuse
Anything that could go wrong did go wrong for Syracuse to start the 2019 season. The Orange faced serious attrition on the offensive line, which crumpled a team and coaching philosophy that places a heavy emphasis on offense.
Head coach Dino Babers brought in a new offensive coordinator and defensive coordinator in an attempt to salvage an offense that still shows promise, and give the defense a fighting chance to hang in some games in 2020.
The Orange return uber-talented Tommy Devito at quarterback and he will have talent around him in guys like Abdul Adams and Jawhar Jordan. Still, the offensive line is a massive question mark after a season where they allowed more sacks than any team in the country.
The defense is an even bigger red flag. Defensive coordinator Tony White runs an unconventional style and has to implement his system in short order with only four starters returning.
Syracuse will always be a threat under Babers, but they have a long way to go to return to the form of the 2017 and 2018 squads that ACC fans knew.
10. Wake Forest
The ACC, like many college football conferences, is beginning to stake its reputation on high-powered, up-tempo, unconventional, difficult to stop offenses.
Wake Forest yet another in a string of mid-tier ACC teams that go offense-heavy, and hope that they can muster enough defense to win some conference shootouts.
On one hand, it felt like Wake could play with anybody in the country last season. The Demon Deacons had a fantastic quarterback in Jamie Newman and he had a plethora of dangerous weapons all over the field. The Deacs, at one point, had a nine-game winning streak dating back to 2018. On the other hand, Wake struggled mightily on the defensive side of the ball, leading to a downward trend by the end of the season.
Now, head coach Dave Clawson will have to deal with losing Newman by way of transfer to Georgia, and the Deacs will be without their dynamic receiving duo of Scotty Washington and Sage Surratt.
Wake has handled attrition in stride over the last three seasons, by this time it feels different. They are without their All-American level QB and receivers, lose their starting running back, lose a chunk of the offensive line, both starting corners, and their defensive stud at linebacker.
This team regressed after starting 7-1 last season, and losing the majority of its production on both sides of the ball doesn’t lend to a quick start in Winston Salem.
9. Virginia
Bronco Mendenhall deserves all the credit in the world for what he has done in his short time in Charlottesville. But 2020 may be his greatest challenge yet.
On the heels of a Coastal championship and an Orange Bowl bid in 2019, expectations are on the rise, but there is some important turnover for the Cavaliers.
Virginia loses electric quarterback Bryce Perkins, and without do-it-all weapon Joe Reed, the Wahoos are in danger of becoming extremely vanilla on offense.
Of course, the UVA defense returns a great deal of experience, and under Mendenhall, they never figure to see too much fall-off on that side of the ball.
The question, however, will become whether or not this version of Virginia’s offense will put up enough points to live up to the expectations Mendenhall has now established. If it can, they will quickly make an ascent on this list- Especially given some of the defensive liabilities around the league.