Yesterday we had the Athlon All-ACC pre-season teams.
Today we take a look at Phil Steele’s pre-season All-ACC teams.
Clemson remains one of the ACC’s most talented teams, but they used to dominate these lists. Maybe they will by the end of the season, but the Tigers just had 1 player on 1st team All-ACC offense, and just 1 player on the 1st team All-ACC defense, and only 5 total players through the first two teams on both sides of the ball.
For comparison, Miami had 10 players on the 1st and 2nd teams. That was double Clemson and Florida State. Are the Canes the most talented team in the ACC? Athlon is also quite high Miami talent-wise.
What else struck me about Steele’s list?
Virginia Tech has a 2nd team All-ACC QB and 2 team All-ACC defensive linemen. Your team is really good at QB and on the defensive line, that’s a recipe for success. You can also draw that conclusion from the Athlon list.
Pitt with just 1 player through the first three All-ACC teams? Pat Narduzzi had things humming in 2021 and 2022 at Pitt, but this has to be concerning for Panther fans—Stanford with just 1 too through three teams as well. Stanford might be great at multiple sports, but it appears football in 2024 could have a real problem in the ACC.
