With the 2017 college football season rapidly approaching, we gathered a few of our contributors here at SOTU to do a preseason poll for the ACC.

The voters were: Cam Underwood, Carter Balderson, Grant Misemer, Matt Washington, Mat Scholtec, Kev Robins (prior to his departure from the site), Justin Dottavio, Charlie Strauzer, Stefan Adams, and John Reynolds.

Without further ado, here are the poll results (first place votes in parenthesis)

Atlantic Division

1. Florida State Seminoles - 68 points (8)
2. Clemson Tigers - 60 points (2)
3. Louisville Cardinals - 48 points
4. North Carolina State Wolfpack - 42 points
5. Syracuse Orange - 27 points
6. Wake Forest Demon Deacons - 22 points
7. Boston College Eagles - 13 points

Of our 10 person panel, FSU and Clemson got all the votes for the Atlantic Division championship. It’s pretty clear to see from the voting that those 2 teams are thought to be a cut above the rest of the Division, with Louisville and NCSU squarely in tier 2, then the rest.

Coastal Division

1. Miami Hurricanes - 70 points (10)
2. Virginia Tech Hokies - 58 points
3. Pittsburgh Panthers - 46 points
4. Georgia Tech Yellowjackets - 38 points
5. North Carolina Tar Heels - 34 points
6. Duke Blue Devils - 22 points
7. Virginia Cavaliers - 12 points

Most polls I’ve seen have the Canes as the Coastal Division favorites, and it is no surprise that we here at SOTU agree with that thought. I wasn’t expecting 100% of the 1st place votes to go for the Canes, but I can’t say I disagree. The clear 2nd place team are the Hokies, so that November 4th game between Miami and VT will be huge. Pittsburgh had the highest variance, earning both 2nd and 6th place votes in our poll.

ACC Championship

If you go by the votes (which, yanno, we are), the matchups predicted in the ACC Championship game are

Miami v. FSU (8 votes) and Miami v. Clemson (2 votes).

As for who wins the ACC Championship game, it broke down like this:

Florida State over Miami (8 votes)

Clemson over Miami (2 votes)

So, basically, the voting panel feels very confident that Miami will appear in their first ACC Championship Game since joining the conference, but think it may take another year or more to secure Canes’ first ACC Championship.

That’s the way our group of pollsters at SOTU sees the ACC this season. Agree? Disagree? Hop in the comments and give us your takes.

Go Canes