ACC building depth behind Clemson, Florida State

Bobby Petrino has a simple, accurate theory about college football polls.

“I’ve always felt like preseason polls and early season polls are based off how you finish the year and what you have coming back,” the Louisville coach said earlier this week on the ACC coaches teleconference.

That’s both good news and bad news for the ACC, which will likely start the 2016 season with five ranked teams.

It’s good because the ACC has a good chunk of talent back from a relatively successful 2015 season.

It’s bad because the ACC didn’t exactly close out the season with a bang, going 3-5 in bowl play and with Clemson, the league champion, splitting its two games in the College Football Playoff.

Every round of ACC expansion since 2004 has been to upgrade football and finally that appears to have paid off in 2016.

Clemson and Florida State will almost certainly open the season in the top 10, if not top 5; while Louisville, North Carolina and Miami, under new coach Mark Richt, will likely join them in the top 25.

Getting attention and keeping it has been somewhat of a problem for the ACC.

After adding Miami and Virginia Tech in 2004, the ACC had five teams ranked in the AP’s preseason top 25 in both ’04 and ’05.

The league has had that many teams ranked in the preseason only once (in 2010) since then. And has had five teams finish the season ranked in the top 25 only once (in 2005) since the initial round of expansion.

Clemson (No. 2), Florida State (No. 14) and UNC (No. 15) gave the ACC three top 15 teams in the final poll last year. That was the first time since ’04 the ACC had three teams finish the season in the top 15.

That’s a good start, even if you grade a 14-team league on a curve.

As dominant as Clemson and Florida State have been recently in the conference, accounting for the past five league titles and each with a 34-6 conference record since 2011, they have not opened the season ranked together in the top 10 since 1991, which was FSU’s first season in the ACC.

There’s a good argument for Clemson and FSU, in either order, to open the season at No. 1 and No. 2 in the country.

Clemson, 14-1 a year ago, fell short in the College Football Championship game, losing to Alabama by five points, but returns star quarterback Deshaun Watson and will be frightening on offense.

Florida State (10-3) lost to American Athletic Conference upstart Houston in the Peach Bowl but technically returns every starter on offense. Even if coach Jimbo Fisher hasn’t settled on a quarterback.

But the ACC’s problem of late hasn’t been supplying a worthy conference champion. FSU won the national title in 2013 and then made the playoff in 2014. Clemson reached the national title game last year and was the only Power 5 conference team to finish the regular season without a loss.

The problem for the league has been depth beyond Clemson and FSU. That has a chance to change this season with the talent back at UNC (11-3 last year) and Louisville (8-5) and the addition of serious coaching help at Miami, a perennial underachiever since leaving the Big East in 2003.

As much as it helps to start the season in a good position in the polls, where you finish is all that really matters.

The ACC still has to work on sticking the landing.

This story was originally published April 23, 2016 at 1:26 PM with the headline "ACC building depth behind Clemson, Florida State."