Wake Forest Picked to Finish 9th in ACC Media Preseason Poll

August is officially here and that can only mean one thing—it’s time for football. As such, the Deacs have just begun their fall camp and will play their first game against Elon in just 30 days. That also means it's time for the annual preseason media poll, where we can all overreact and feel disrespected for the sole purpose of giving us something to do until games actually start being played.

Here is the 2023 preseason poll:

1. Clemson (103), 2370

2. Florida State (67), 2304

3. North Carolina (5), 1981

4. NC State (1), 1662

5. Miami, 1553

T6. Duke, 1511

T6. Pitt, 1511

8. Louisville, 1344

9. Wake Forest, 1181

10. Syracuse, 826

11. Virginia Tech, 678

12. Georgia Tech, 633

13. Boston College, 561

14. Virginia, 365

There’s not a lot of surprise here, in my opinion. Clemson is, of course, the heavy favorite to win the conference, as they have basically been for the last decade or so. Florida State is right behind them, riding the hype of their first 10-win season since 2016. The only other 2 teams to receive at least 1 vote to win the conference were North Carolina and NC State, which I’m sure won’t lead to a mass hysteria of “North Carolina bias” claims amongst the other ACC fans. Conspiracy theories aside, Drake Maye and Brennan Armstrong (despite his down season in 2022) are two of the best QBs in the ACC, so it’s not completely out of the question that either could end up on top of the ACC this season.

The Deacs find themselves in 9th place, following Miami, Duke, Pitt, and Louisville. It’s hard to argue with that ranking when the Deacs finished last season 8-5 and lost their dynamic veteran duo of Sam Hartman and AT Perry. New starting QB Mitch Griffis has completed just 12 of his 27 pass attempts for 116 yards, 3 touchdowns, and 1 interception against FBS competition in his career at Wake Forest, so he comes into the 2023 season as a pretty big question mark for the Deacs. Griffis looked really good last season in his only start against VMI, but it’s hard to say how much of that had to do with the opponent being an FCS team that finished the year 1-10. Outside of the turnover at QB, Wake was one of the worst rushing teams in the nation last season and had a defense that ranked in the 90s in total defense. It’s not hard to see why the media isn’t that high on the Deacs this season. Thankfully, proving people wrong seems to be what Dave Clawson does best, so I’m not really concerned about this poll at all.

We’re in the home stretch now.

Go Deacs!