Earlier this week, the ACC's mainstream media met for the ACC Football Kickoff and voted on who they thought would win the conference. Predictably, they chose Florida State and Virginia Tech to meet in the ACC Championship Game and Florida State as league champion.
SB Nation's 12 ACC bloggers have submitted their own ballot for an ACC preseason poll, but we've done ours a bit differently. All 12 teams are represented equally. Twelve teams. Twelve bloggers. Twelve votes.
Below are the list of participants in this little exercise. A huge thank you to all of them for doing this on pretty short notice.
| Atlantic | Blog |
|---|---|
| Boston College | BC Interruption |
| Clemson | Shakin the Southland |
| Florida State | Tomahawk Nation |
| Maryland | Testudo Times |
| NC State | Backing the Pack |
| Wake Forest | Blogger So Dear |
| Coastal | Blog |
| Duke | Duke Basketball Report |
| Georgia Tech | From the Rumble Seat |
| Miami | The Seventh Floor |
| North Carolina | Carolina March |
| Virginia | Streaking the Lawn |
| Virginia Tech | Gobbler Country |
Results after the jump!
| Atlantic | Points | Coastal | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| Florida State (12) | 72 | Virginia Tech (10) | 70 |
| Clemson | 51 | Miami (1) | 51 |
| Boston College | 42 | North Carolina | 49 |
| Maryland | 37 | Georgia Tech (1) | 41 |
| NC State | 36 | Virginia | 26 |
| Wake Forest | 14 | Duke | 15 |
ACC Champions
Florida State - 6
Virginia Tech - 5
Georgia Tech - 1
Note: All votes were cast before the announcement of Butch Davis' firing at North Carolina. Voters were give the opportunity to alter their ballots.
The points scale is what you'd expect it to be: Six points for a first place vote, five for a second, so forth and so on. The predicted standings in the Coastal were identical to the one voted on at the ACC Football Kickoff. However, on the Atlantic side, NC State dropped from third to fifth in the blogger vote.
The vote for the championship was almost 50-50 with the Hokies gathering one fewer than FSU. Only one other team, Georgia Tech, was picked as the ACC champ among our participants. GEE, I WONDER WHO IT WAS???
At the end of the day, the bloggers and mainstream media aren't so different in their preseason assessment of the league. The only real point of contention is the view of NC State. I think the equal representation of the blogger vote is to blame for that. You look at the ACC Football Kickoff vote and I bet you'll find a glut of voters from North Carolina. That could be an explanation for the difference of opinion on the Pack.
There was no dissension about who belonged at the top of the standings as the Noles and Hokies are expected to meet in Charlotte for a second consecutive year. The gap between them and the No. 2 teams in their respective divisions were also similar in both polls.