Sunday Morning Quarterback has published his predictions for this year's Coastal Division race, and surprisingly has the Miami Hurricanes out in front. Now, I'm all in favor of the transformative power of a new coach, but the new sheriff in town was last year's defensive coordinator. And yes the defense was good, but this is still a team that only beat Duke by five and Nevada by one in a bowl game. There's a big question mark at quarterback, and a schedule heavy on back-to-back brutal games. I'm not sure I'd have the confidence to put them in the top spot. I'll stick with the conventional wisdom for now.
The North Carolina prognosis is unsurprisingly unfavorable:
Justify Thyself: Davis has to assume the position for a year or two and let his little Tar Heels learn the hard way how to compete. Expect a lot of admirable efforts, a couple scares against the certifiably terrible offenses of the ACC, but very few wins. Still better than Duke.
I'm always excessively bullish about Heel's football, but I'd put the baseline at four (and Duke won't be the easiest win in the ACC) and a six-win season not out of the question. We'll see when I start running through all the games.