NC State is No. 36 in 2023 preseason FPI

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:

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.