Clemson ranked and not UNC?

By Jeff Gravley
Nov 18, 2009

comments

Three new teams enter my AP football poll this week. North Carolina (23rd) , Clemson (24th) and Stanford (15th).

Of the 60 voters across the country, there are far more who believe that Clemson deserves to be ranked more than North Carolina. The Tigers have 442 total points to the Tar Heels 144. Rutgers claimed the 25th ranking with 145 points.

Why is Clemson ranked 18th and UNC 26th?

Both beat Miami. Both lost to Georgia Tech. Both have a bad loss. (UNC to Virginia and Clemson lost to Maryland.) Clemson beat Florida State while the Tar Heels didn't but North Carolina won at Virginia Tech and Clemson doesn't play them.

The Tigers early season loss to TCU is looking like one of those "good" losses to a team that is now ranked 4th.

I gave UNC the nod one spot ahead of Clemson because of their recent wins over ranked Virginia Tech and Miami.

I'm in the minority having Texas number 1. Only 9 other voters agree. I did move Florida up to 2nd after their road win at South Carolina. TCU moves up 2 slots to 4th after blowing out Utah.

Stanford goes from unranked to 15th in my poll for that wood-shed beating they gave to Southern Cal.

Pretty interesting that one of the Stanford losses was at Wake Forest. THE lone loss for 8th ranked Pittsburgh was at N.C. State. You may see that in the ACC marketing notes this week.

So here's my latest AP vote...

1-Texas
2-Florida
3-Alabama
4-TCU
5-Boise State
6-Cincinnati
7-Ohio State
8-Georgia Tech
9-Pittsburgh
10-LSU
11-Oregon
12-Penn State
13-Oklahoma State
14-Wisconsin
15-Stanford
16-Virginia Tech
17-Houston
18-Iowa
19-Utah
20-BYU
21-Miami
22-USC
23-North Carolina
24-Clemson
25-Oregon State

Most Recent Comments

RE: Clemson ranked and not UNC?

Let's see, the Heels win at VT, handily smack the Hurricanes at home, all three have the same record and Jeff and the rest of the world rank BOTH of them way ahead of the Heels. Sure, that makes sense. I'm not saying that the Heels are necessarily top 20, but they are sure as heck better than those other teams.

RE: Clemson ranked and not UNC ?

Clemson who? What have they done?

RE: Clemson ranked and not UNC ?

The question in my mind when ranking teams is who would win between UNC and Clemson? I personally think it is a toss-up between UNC's great defense and Clemson's C.J. Spiller who is tremendous. I'm a believer in the old saying that great defense wins championships, however, Clemson will be the only one of these two teams playing for a championship so I give the nod to Clemson.

RE: Clemson ranked and not UNC ?

The offense really isn't bad. They're not spectacular, but the important thing the last few weeks is they haven't been committing turnovers. With the dominant D, the Heels have definitely earned their ranking this time around.

RE: Clemson ranked and not UNC ?

Really raj? How many points did the offense score against FSU, VT, and Duke? Actually for that matter, the offense put up more than 10 this past week against Miami.

WRAL Sports Fan

Jeff Gravley