With just over a week left until the season gets underway, it’s time for preseason polls! We at Orange Fizz are proud to be the Syracuse representative in Apollo Sports’ weekly ACC power rankings. Our rankings ended up pretty similar to the rest of the poll. The only team that we ranked multiple spots off of the group was Syracuse who we put at 9th in the conference. This is yet another example of people not believing in the ‘Cuse after SU was ranked 12th in the conference’s official preseason poll.
Here is the rankings that we submitted on August 3rd:
1) Florida State
2) Clemson
3) NC State
4) Miami
5) Virginia Tech
6) Louisville
7) SMU
8) North Carolina
9) Syracuse
10) Georgia Tech
11) Cal
12) Duke
13) Pitt
14) Boston College
15) Virginia
16) Wake Forest
17) Stanford
There’s a couple of things that stand out about the poll looking back at it a few weeks after submitting. First off, its yet another reminder that outside of the 315, no one respects Syracuse. Just 3/31 of the voters in the Apollo poll had the Orange in the top eight. Only four others had the Orange picked 9th like us, meaning that more than two-thirds of the voters have the Orange finishing in the double digits in the ACC. If the ‘Cuse can live up to expectations, it’ll be a big surprise for the rest of the conference.
The other big thing that jumps off the page when looking at this poll is simply how little of the top teams in the conference SU plays. We’ve been talking all year about how easy this schedule is for the Orange and it hasn’t gotten any harder during the offseason. We have the Orange picked 9th in the conference yet still, they only play three teams in ACC play who are picked above them. Just one of those games is on the road. The path is absolutely there for Syracuse to turn lots of heads this season.
