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NC State is No. 36 in 2023 preseason FPI

Sounds good; let’s go with this.

COLLEGE FOOTBALL: APR 08 NC State Spring Game Photo by Nicholas Faulkner/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

ESPN released its early 2023 FPI projections for college football this week, so between that and SP+, we have a couple data points for what the computatin’ machines think about the ACC. I think SP+ is the better evaluator, but FPI is more optimistic on the Wolfpack.

Here’s the comparison between the two for the entire ACC:

2023 ACC Projections

Team Preseason FPI Preseason SP+
Team Preseason FPI Preseason SP+
Clemson 8 12
FSU 14 11
UNC 25 28
Miami 29 42
Syracuse 34 59
Pitt 35 40
NC State 36 46
Louisville 46 36
Wake Forest 47 52
Duke 53 56
Virginia Tech 63 69
Georgia Tech 65 70
UVA 72 76
Boston College 74 72

FPI and SP+ both project the same modest improvement for NC State this fall, basically: SP+ had NC State at 49 after 2022, while FPI had State at 39. SP+ expects NC State’s offense to bounce back considerably, and while FPI isn’t broken down in the same way, I’m guessing the same is true for that metric. FPI also gives NC State a healthy 88.9% chance of getting bowl eligible.

There’s a lot of general agreement between these projections across the league, though for some reason FPI absolutely loves Syracuse—and SP+ is finally insisting to Miami that it needs to show us rather than tell us. Both agree that Clemson and FSU are the two best teams in the league, and I’ll be really surprised if that doesn’t end up the case.