NC State picked to finish as division runner-up in ACC media poll
Coming off of a 9-3 2021 season highlighted by massive wins over Clemson and UNC, this year’s NC State football program carries an extremely-high level of expectations along with it. The ACC released its projected order of finish Tuesday afternoon, and the Wolfpack is slotted second in the Atlantic Division behind Clemson.
NC State received the second-most first place votes for both the overall title, 38, and the division at 44. A total of 164 media members voted in this poll.
The Tigers are picked to win the conference championship as well with 103 first place votes, with the media voting for them to defeat Miami, the No. 1 team in the coastal at 98 votes. Clemson has been picked to win the conference title for seven of the last eight years. The next-closest team to NC State in the overall championship voting is Miami with eight votes. Wake Forest and Louisville trail the Wolfpack in the division race at third and fourth place respectively.
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Here is the full Atlantic Division poll:
Atlantic Division
(First-place votes in parenthesis)
Clemson (111) – 1,080
NC State (44) – 959
Wake Forest (6) – 783
Louisville – 591
Florida State (2) – 509
Boston College (1) – 469
Syracuse – 201
NC State defeated Clemson at home last year in a dramatic double-overtime thriller, handing the Tigers their second loss of the year. That led to a three-loss season and an uncharacteristic down year for the perennial ACC powerhouse.
Following the release of the conference’s poll, it is clear that the media expect Clemson to return to its usual heights. NC State will face them Oct. 1 on the road in what will be a crucial step towards deciding who represents the Atlantic in Charlotte at the end of the regular season.
Wake Forest, one of the three programs NC State lost to last season, finished third in the polling and received six first-place votes. North Carolina picked up 18 first-place votes in the Coastal Division and finished third.
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Duke is the only program that did not receive a first-place ballot in the division. Miami was picked to represent the Coastal in the December 3 ACC title matchup in Charlotte. The Hurricanes won the division once in 2017, while the media has voted them in first place for the preseason poll on a total of six occasions.
Louisville finished with 591 total points, slotting them fourth in the Atlantic, but they finished with no first-place votes while Boston College and Florida State, two teams that finished behind the Cardinals, did.
Check out the full Coastal Division and Overall Champion polls:
Coastal Division
(First-place votes in parenthesis)
Miami (98) – 1,036
Pitt (38) – 911
North Carolina (18) – 823
Virginia (6) – 667
Virginia Tech (3) – 592
Georgia Tech (1) – 343
Duke – 220
Overall Champion
Clemson – 103
NC State – 38
Miami – 8
Wake Forest – 4
Pitt – 3
Virginia – 3
Florida State – 2
North Carolina – 2
Boston College – 1
