ACC Football Week 2: Staff Predictions

When Carolina had a tough time putting down a rebuilding Georgia Tech team last year, and that team subsequently ended N.C. State’s chances at going to a bowl game, it was tough not to notice that the Yellow Jackets were scrappy. On paper, their game against Florida State appeared to be a mismatch, and once the Seminoles got out to a 13-0 lead it seemed to be confirmed.

However, the Yellow Jackets kept chipping away and showed the benefit of having a second year learning a new system and coach versus Florida State who was trying to adjust to a new head man. The Yellow Jackets pulled off the 16-13 upset, and the ACC world was mildly stunned.

Well, two staffers here weren’t

Yes, Evan and Yours Truly called the upset, and as a result managed to get off to a 7-0 start on the season. I’m crowing now because there’s no where to go but down, especially as I’ve never done particularly well in these things. That game was a big difference, as we all guessed every other game correctly...except Max trying to grab the UAB upset.

Still, two games isn’t a lot of ground to make up, and as more conference games start to pile up it should be tougher to go all chalk. This week’s slate, in particular, provided a lot more matchups that could be toss ups, so let’s see what the crowd decided to do this week:

So a little disagreement here and there, more than last week anyway. As to be expected with a 17 vs 18 matchup, the crew was fairly split on the Hurricanes/Cardinals matchup, and we don’t quite know what to make of a team that was blown out by Clemson versus a team that has yet to play a game. Chad and Jake are trying to sneak a Georgia Tech upset in there, Jacob thinks that Syracuse will sneak up on an overconfident Pitt, while Jake and Douglas don’t believe in how Duke was able to hang with Notre Dame for a while last week.

Evan and I, meanwhile, agreed on everything so we’ll see if we can run the record to 15-0. What do you all think? Feel free to make your predictions in the comments, and we’ll check in next week.