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FSU Football: ESPN writer gives opinion on ‘Noles ACC positional rankings

By Kelvin Hunt

TALLAHASSEE, FL - OCTOBER 01: Florida State Seminoles fans during the game against the North Carolina Tar Heels at Doak Campbell Stadium on October 1, 2016 in Tallahassee, Florida. (Photo by Jeff Gammons/Getty Images)
TALLAHASSEE, FL - OCTOBER 01: Florida State Seminoles fans during the game against the North Carolina Tar Heels at Doak Campbell Stadium on October 1, 2016 in Tallahassee, Florida. (Photo by Jeff Gammons/Getty Images) /
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FSU football is one of the most talented teams in the country, but are they behind the likes of Clemson, Miami and Boston College?

It’s always interesting to read or hear about what others think of FSU football. Some people always seems to rate FSU highly because it’s FSU.

Others always seem to throw shade on FSU because it’s FSU. One of the writers that’s usually even keeled and fair is ESPN’s David Hale.

He recently released his positional rankings per every team in the ACC. I thought some of his FSU rankings were on point and others fairly inaccurate.

Some of his rankings for some of the other ACC teams were all over the place. Let’s take a look at his chart below:

As you can see his averages place FSU behind Clemson, Miami and Boston College. Wait, what? Boston College?

I can believe being behind Clemson but even their numbers are skewed somewhat. There’s no way they have the best QB in the ACC because that’s Ryan Finley at NC State.

Also, there’s no way BC has the best set of defensive backs in the ACC either. I wouldn’t rank Miami’s defensive line or defensive backs as high either.

Here’s where I’d rank FSU’s position rankings in the ACC:

  • QB-3
  • WR-6
  • RB-1
  • O-Line-7
  • D-Line-2
  • LB-10
  • DB-2
  • ST-5
  • Average-4.5

Thoughts

The FSU offensive line and the linebackers are the weakest units on the team no doubt. However, there’s no way the offensive line is the second worst in the ACC.

I’m sure Hale is basing projections off of last year somewhat and we know it was an outlier based on several things. Yes, they allowed the QB to get crushed at times but Deondre Francois got beat even worse in 2016 and the Noles has the No. 2 offense in the country.

The linebackers certainly are a question mark with Dontavious Jackson as the most experienced linebacker with 37 career tackles over two years.

As far as defensive backs go, the Noles only allowed 5.8 ypa last season which was tied for third best in the nation while playing a much tougher schedule than Boston College and others.

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Look, it’s a hard thing to project when someone doesn’t cover every team so I give Hale credit as his projections aren’t terribly off. It’s something I may look at doing to see how much different mine are from his.

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