NCAAF
Happy Friday and welcome back to another edition of our ACC Mailbag with The Athletic’s Brendan Marks, Manny Navarro and Grace Raynor. Due to the large number of questions (about 70 total!), we are breaking it up into two parts. Today’s mailbag will focus on the ACC’s 18 teams on the field and their outlook for 2024. Monday’s mailbag will get into conference realignment and NIL.
Advertisement
As always, thank you for your questions.
Editor’s Note: Questions have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
How competitive will the new members of the conference be this season? — Noah S.
The ACC is up to 17 teams for football, thanks to the additions of SMU, Cal and Stanford. None of the three will be instant contenders in the conference race and none exactly bolster the ACC from a competitive or optics standpoint. But they shouldn’t be cellar-dwellers either. Making a bowl and finishing in the middle of the pack is attainable.
Stanford and Cal will be better prepared for the level of competition, having previously competed at the Power 5 level. The Golden Bears return quarterback Fernando Mendoza — potentially a fun, under-the-radar player to watch — after he threw for 1,708 yards with 14 touchdowns and 10 interceptions as a redshirt freshman last season. And Stanford is recruiting well under new coach Troy Taylor; the Cardinal’s 2024 class ranked No. 30 and included two top-250 prospects. That’s all positive, but Cal still hasn’t had a winning season since 2019, and Stanford finished with the nation’s No. 91 offense and No. 132 defense a year ago. That’s why I don’t think I’ll be surprised if we look up at the end of the year and SMU has had the most success among the newcomers.
Rhett Lashlee inherited a quality program from Sonny Dykes when he returned to SMU as the head coach after the 2021 season and has kept the Mustangs among the top offensive teams in college football. Yes, the defenses SMU will see in the ACC will be tougher than the ones the Mustangs faced in the AAC, but Lashlee has made it a point to beef up his roster with plenty of Power 5 talent. SMU has signed 50-plus transfers since Lashlee took over, with more than 40 coming from the Power 5 level. Starting quarterback Preston Stone and leading rusher Jaylan Knighton are back after the Mustangs went 11-3 a season ago. Something tells me SMU, which has a manageable schedule, will be ready for 2024. — Raynor
Advertisement
Here’s a fun one: With NCAA 2025 releasing soon for consoles, what do you think the Hurricanes will be rated? Who do you think will be the highest rated on offense and defense? — Trell V.
I love this question so much. First off, I’m a 45-year-old NCAA Football video game recovering addict. I spent way too much time in my 20s and early 30s playing it. I feel like I have to declare that. Secondly, if you want to go down the rabbit hole of NCAA player ratings, I invite you to take a deep dive into this Madden Ratings website.
To answer your question, I think, on paper, Miami and Florida State are the two best teams in the league and will be ranked in the top 25. Clemson and Louisville are right on their heels and will likely be ranked or receiving votes. So, I’d guess Miami will probably receive a team ranking between 92-94.
For some background, Miami’s team rankings in the last four official iterations of the game (2011-14) were 92 (2010 season), 94 (2011 season), 91 (2012 season) and 90 (2013 season). Miami went 7-6, 6-6, 7-5 and 9-4 during those seasons. Those teams featured 28 NFL Draft picks, including guys like Duke Johnson, Travis Benjamin, Sean Spence, Lamar Miller, Olivier Vernon, Denzel Perryman and Ray-Ray Armstrong.
As for player rankings, I surfed through some Hurricanes greats of the past and just wanted to share what some notable players were graded in those games:
In my opinion, this Miami team probably has about 10 guys (not including freshmen) who I think are future NFL Draft picks and potential candidates for high individual rankings. They are quarterback Cam Ward, running backs Damien Martinez and Mark Fletcher, receiver Xavier Restrepo, offensive linemen Jalen Rivers, Anez Cooper and Francis Mauigoa, defensive lineman Rueben Bain, linebacker Francisco Mauigoa and cornerback Damari Brown. Ward and Bain have to be the two highest-rated on offense and defense. — Navarro
Advertisement
How excited for our new coach and new QB Maalik Murphy should us Duke fans get? — Christopher M.
I’ll start with Murphy, the highest-rated Duke quarterback prospect of the rankings era. Murphy was the No. 12 QB and No. 179 overall player in the 2022 recruiting class in the 247Sports Composite. So how excited should Duke fans be? Out of 10, I’d say seven or eight. Murphy started two games last season as a redshirt freshman and did enough — passing for a combined 418 yards and three touchdowns — to keep Texas undefeated. But remember: He was throwing to three NFL-caliber pass catchers (Xavier Worthy, Adonai Mitchell and Ja’Tavion Sanders) and handing it off to the first running back picked in last week’s NFL Draft (Jonathon Brooks). That is, uh … a markedly better cast of skill-position players than Murphy has at his disposal in Durham. He also still threw three interceptions in those two starts. On a related note, early word out of Duke’s spring practices has been that Murphy has an absolute cannon of arm — see: his deep ball highlights last season — but is still a work in progress in the accuracy department. The kid clearly has incredible talent, but give him a few games to work out some kinks as a starter.
As for Manny Diaz, he maybe doesn’t have the same outgoing, gregarious personality as Mike Elko, but his three seasons leading Miami are better than you remember. Diaz went 21-15 (finishing in the Top 25 once) and fielded an elite defense; that’s been his career calling card, and it fits well with Duke’s culture and recent on-field success. — Marks
Official 😈 @SmvOperator pic.twitter.com/OrX9Xunoz5
— Duke Football (@DukeFOOTBALL) January 6, 2024
So are the Tar Heels going 8-4 or 3-9 this season? I can’t tell because the QB play is a complete unknown. — Raizel A.
Drake Maye was arguably the best quarterback in school history, yet last season, even riding the No. 3 pick in last week’s NFL Draft, UNC went … 8-5. Womp womp. Considering neither Max Johnson nor Conner Harrell is as good as Maye, I’m not super optimistic the Tar Heels can reach that mark this season (even with an incredibly advantageous schedule).
Instead, regardless of who wins that QB battle — I’m still betting on Johnson because of the initial investment — I’m expecting Mack Brown’s team to be as run-first as it has at any point in his second stint in Chapel Hill. Omarion Hampton is one of the best backs in the country, and he’ll be asked to alleviate a lot of pressure for whoever wins the job … or possibly for both players, if Brown decides to go the two-QB route. It’s not inconceivable that UNC starts 4-0 — Minnesota, Charlotte, North Carolina Central and James Madison is not exactly a juggernaut opening slate — in which case, seven or eight wins might be possible. That would be an impressive feat if Brown gets this roster to that point. — Marks
What is the ceiling for Syracuse in Year 1 of Fran Brown? Recruiting looks great, but will this new group of coaches get them to a higher and more consistent level? — Joseph S.
Recruiting at Syracuse does look great. The Orange just signed a top-40 class for the first time of the modern recruiting era and already have 18 commitments in the Class of 2025. There’s a reason Brown is universally lauded for his recruiting abilities, and that’s not going away anytime soon. But you’re right — Syracuse isn’t going to turn the page overnight, starting with the 2024 season. Reasons for optimism: Brown and his staff are getting an experienced quarterback in former Ohio State starter Kyle McCord, and the Orange return star running back LeQuint Allen, who rushed for 1,064 yards in 2023. Leading tackler Marlowe Wax returns, as well, and the schedule sets up nicely for Brown in Year 1. The Orange avoid Clemson, Florida State, Notre Dame and North Carolina.
I’d say the ceiling is eight wins. Ohio, Holy Cross, UNLV, Boston College and UConn should all be manageable. Throw in three more wins among Georgia Tech, Stanford, NC State, Pitt, Virginia Tech, Cal and Miami, and that’d be a nice inaugural year for Brown. — Raynor
Any noticeable impact on ACC schools recruiting in Texas and California with the new schools coming in? – Bryan M.
Last year I wrote a series of stories on recruiting pipelines for all of the power conferences, including the ACC, where I noted how much in-state recruiting was done per school from 2018 through 2023 and which state each school attacked the most for players outside their borders.
Advertisement
After updating these numbers through the 2024 cycle, I can report Florida (20 percent), Georgia (18 percent), North Carolina (12 percent), Virginia (8 percent), Maryland (4 percent) and New Jersey (4 percent) remain the major hubs for where the ACC schools not named SMU, Cal and Stanford have done most of their shopping the last seven cycles.
How much more are the ACC originals recruiting Texas and California? Not significantly. In the 2024 cycle, seven of the 14 originals (Miami, North Carolina, NC State, Pittsburgh, Virginia, Virginia Tech and Wake Forest) didn’t sign a player from either state. The other seven combined to sign 12 (three from California, nine from Texas). From 2018 through 2023, the league averaged about six signees from California and nine from Texas. If you look at the 14 schools’ commitment lists for the 2025 cycle, there isn’t a single pledge from the state of California and there are a total of three from Texas. So, the answer so far is no. — Navarro
(Photos of Fernando Mendoza, Preston Stone, Ashton Daniels: Darren Yamashita, Gregory Fisher, Robert Edwards / USA Today)
Subscribe to The Athletic for in-depth coverage of your favorite players, teams, leagues and clubs. Try a week on us.
