The framework of ACC expectations for North Carolina football as this season approaches looks different in comparison to a year ago.
Whether the Tar Heels are underrated enough to satisfy coach Mack Brown’s liking remains to be seen.
UNC has been picked to finish third in the league’s Coastal Division in a preseason poll of media voters, behind Miami and Pittsburgh. The results were announced Tuesday.
Miami received 98 out of 164 first-place votes in the predicted order of finish for the Coastal, checking in as the division favorite ahead of runner-up Pitt (38 first-place votes) and North Carolina (18 first-place votes). Virginia, Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech and Duke followed in the voting.
Clemson was selected to claim both the Atlantic Division and the ACC title. The Tigers topped the voting in the Atlantic ahead of NC State, Wake Forest, Louisville, Florida State, Boston College and Syracuse.
Brown was asked last week during the ACC Kickoff preseason event in Charlotte if his Tar Heels perhaps are “being criminally underrated” entering this season.
“I love it because we were criminally overrated last year,” Brown said. “So I tried to get us to be the 130th team (in the country) with the expectation this year, but we’re a little bit higher than that.”
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UNC players report Thursday for preseason training camp, ahead of the team’s first practice Friday. North Carolina opens the season Aug. 27 against Florida A&M.
The Tar Heels were the runaway choice to win the Coastal Division last season, piling up 109 out of 147 first-place votes in the ACC predicted order of finish for 2021. Sam Howell, the team’s former star quarterback now in the NFL, was named the league’s Preseason Player of the Year, too, during the lead-up to last season.
But North Carolina fell short of those expectations, plagued by inconsistencies on its way to a disappointing 6-7 record. The Tar Heels suffered deflating late-season losses at nationally ranked Pitt and rival NC State, before getting flattened by South Carolina in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl.
“What last year’s team did really went unnoticed, the positive things they did,” Brown said last week. “They beat Miami for a third time in a row. They beat Duke for a third time in a row. They beat a top 10 Wake Forest team.
“There are a lot of great things we did, but what we didn’t do is we weren’t consistent, and that’s my fault. The team, they take on the personality of the head coach, and if your team is playing inconsistently, that meant I coached them inconsistently, and I hate that. It just makes me sick when our team doesn’t play with passion every week. (But) that’s what I’ve seen these guys do every day of spring practice. That’s why I’m so much more excited about where we are.”
ACC football preseason poll
(164 total votes)
Overall champion
- Clemson - 103
- NC State - 38
- Miami - 8
- Wake Forest - 4
- Pitt – 3
- Virginia - 3
- Florida State - 2
- North Carolina - 2
- Boston College - 1
Atlantic Division
(First-place votes in parenthesis)
- Clemson (111) - 1,080
- NC State (44) - 959
- Wake Forest (6) - 783
- Louisville - 591
- Florida State (2) - 509
- Boston College (1) - 469
- Syracuse - 201
Coastal Division
(First-place votes in parenthesis)
- Miami (98) – 1,036
- Pitt (38) - 911
- North Carolina (18) - 823
- Virginia (6) - 667
- Virginia Tech (3) - 592
- Georgia Tech (1) - 343
- Duke - 220
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Adam Smith is a sports reporter for the Burlington Times-News and USA TODAY Network. You can reach him by email at asmith@thetimesnews.com or @adam_smithTN on Twitter.
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This article originally appeared on Times-News: UNC football picked 3rd in ACC’s Coastal Division. Is it underrated enough for Mack Brown?
