ESPN is a running joke nowadays. They jumped the shark years ago when they got in bed with the SEC. It's so bad their stats tell lies as bad as their talking heads, which brings me to ESPN's Football Power Index Stats (FPI) for the ACC. How on earth did they come up with these numbers to make these rankings?
Pre season ACC rankings according to ESPN FPI.
— College Football Live (@CollegeFBonX) July 2, 2025
What do you think of this ranking? pic.twitter.com/lZgaxw7HBW
They have the Miami Hurricanes projected to win 9.7 games! Clemson projects to win 9.7 games. SMU projects to win 8.5. Virginia Tech projects to win 7.9. Georgia Tech projects to win 7.5, and FSU projects to win 6.0.
How on earth do they have Miami and Clemson neck-and-neck? Did they see Virginia Tech last year?
Clemson has odds on Fanduel favoring over 9.5 wins in 2025, and Miami has odds favoring them winning fewer than 9.5. The win totals for Virginia Tech favor them to win fewer than 6.5 games.
Georgia Tech and FSU have win totals of 7.5 on FanDuel. Boston College has win totals favoring the under on 5.5 on Fanduel, yet ESPN has them going 6-6?
ESPN has Louisville winning 6.7 games, but FanDuel has their win total at 8.5 games and juiced to the over.
Duke and Syracuse won 10 games last year but ESPN has them towards the bottom of the ACC in 2025. I think those teams will fall back to earth also, but I don't understand why they would have Virginia Tech that high.
I promise you the oddsmakers have better numbers and algorithms than ESPN. It's what they do for a living, but it's ironic they can hit a few of these right on the head, but miss the mark big-time on some of these other teams.
When it comes to overall talent, Clemson, FSU, Miami, SMU, and Louisville have more than the rest of these teams. When the games on the schedule get played factor into it, and returning talent, etc. However, it seems ESPN's advanced stats get worse and worse every year.