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          ACC Blog

          ACC mailbag: Pitt's pass-rush, FSU's secondary, top nonconference games

          • David M. Hale
          Jul 15, 2016, 09:00 AM ET

          ACC Kickoff is less than a week away, which means the season is upon us. But let's get one more mailbag in under the wire ...

          This is tough to peg because, frankly, seasons like Georgia Tech's last year don't happen often. The Yellow Jackets won eight fewer games than the year before. Only three other FBS schools saw a dip half that steep, with only UCF (nine-game decline) worse. You need to go all the way back to the 2010 Texas Longhorns to find a Power 5 program that won at least eight fewer games than it had the previous season. It's virtually unheard of.

          The decline for Tech was threefold: A tougher schedule, a lot of injuries and a regression to the mean.

          It's hard to predict injuries, of course, but if we apply the other logic to the current ACC, the teams that seem the most ripe for a sharp decline probably would be North Carolina and Duke. Both face tougher schedules in 2016 (UNC gets Georgia and FSU, Duke gets Notre Dame and Louisville), and both may have slightly outperformed their talent a year ago.

          Do I expect either team to drop by more than a few wins? Probably not. A bad year at either place might be a decline of three to four wins.

          Week 1, Florida State vs. Ole Miss. This one gets a slight edge among the big ACC-SEC battles in Week 1 because both teams have legitimate playoff aspirations, and a win by either side would go a long way toward building a resume down the road.

          Week 2, Virginia Tech vs. Tennessee. The game will be at Bristol Motor Speedway, and it'll be a major test for the perceived SEC East favorite and a measuring stick for how far Justin Fuente has taken the Hokies in a short time. Penn State at Pitt would be a nice Week 2 alternative, however.

          Week 12, Louisville at Houston. The rivalry games at year's end get more hype, but this is probably the best late-season showdown between two good teams in a nonconference game. Louisville nearly beat Houston last year in a game that was considered a bad loss for the Cardinals but by year's end looked pretty impressive.

          One of the reasons I really like Pitt as a sleeper this year is the strength on both sides of the line. The Panthers may well have the ACC's best offensive line, and if Dewayne Hendrix develops as many think he will, he'll team with Ejuan Price to form a formidable pass-rush. The Tennessee transfer has loads of talent. Given the attention Price will command on the other side of the line, he could have a season like Clemson's Kevin Dodd did in 2015, coming into his own opposite an All-American pass-rusher.

          It's certainly better than the alternative Syracuse has employed the last few years. The scheme helps cover for a talent disparity, and since there aren't many ACC teams running anything similar, it could be a real advantage in terms of game planning. But the longterm key for Dino Babers is his ability to recruit to Syracuse. It's been a long time since Central New York was a place that could get big-time players, and he's got his work cut out for him bridging that talent gap.

          Well, there is free food, so that's nice.

          On the other hand, virtually every second of the event is streamed live, so while it tends to be good for Twitter, it's not exactly a hot bed for good stories anymore. The news gets out too quick, and the crowds are too big to ask a really juicy question you don't want shared with the masses.

          The upside to the event is largely as a showcase for the ACC, but it also provides a good opportunity to spend time with coaches and players in a more relaxed environment than you get throughout the course of a season.

          The folks around Tallahassee have raved about Levonta Taylor so far, but of course, it'll take time for him to get the system down. Still, look no further than Derwin James last year or Jalen Ramsey and Nate Andrews in 2013 for examples of big seasons by true freshmen in the Seminoles secondary.

          Don't be surprised if Taylor is on the field a lot in Week 1, working at either the "star" role or at corner. There's a ton of talent in that FSU secondary, and his progress will just be icing on the cake.

          Agreed, but it's not likely to change in the near future. For teams like Florida State and Clemson that have a predetermined nonconference game that alternates home-and-home each year, it's particularly difficult to move to a nine-game schedule that could, potentially, leave them with just six home games. That's a huge revenue hit that schools will be unlikely to accept.

          In the longterm, things will change as the conference potentially grows again and the new TV contracts come due. In the short term, I'd be surprised if a nine-game schedule gets much traction.