After previewing all 14 teams, Bill C. provides some insights on predicted standings.
Each year, SB Nation’s Bill Connelly goes through the exhaustive work of compiling in-depth previews for every team in college football — here’s his Syracuse Orange preview from this year, if you missed it the first time around.
After completing each conference, though, he also ranks all the teams, while providing some additional context (numerical and not) around why things may sort out that way. This year, he picks Syracuse 13th out of the ACC’s 14 squads.
While that may not seem overly optimistic, Bill does believe that every team in the league has top-40 potential, and SU jumping up to his perceived “tier three” largely hinges on the receiving corps. I’m willing to believe the Orange get more out of them than most think this year... though I understand that’s based on some slight homerism and an unhealthy proximity to any and all news about the program at all times.
Whether you agree or not, check out Bill’s full ACC predictions.
After previewing every ACC team for 2018, here’s how I think the conference stacks up (SB Nation)
Let’s call this Tier 3A instead. I think these two teams have almost as much potential as the teams in the loaded Tier 3; the only difference is that there’s maybe not quite as much upside. Syracuse’s Dino Babers needs one more year to get his receiving corps to where it needs to be, and Bronco Mendenhall needs another year to build the depth to sustain UVA’s early-2017 level. But these teams could still get to six or seven wins.
