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Here is your week 5 BlogPoll results.
Results for Week 4
SB Nation BlogPoll College Football Rankings 2011
Only two ACC teams cracked the Top 25 this week -- Florida State is up to 3 while Clemson drops 6 to no. 16. That's the same number of teams as from the Big East -- Louisville at no. 18 and Rutgers at no. 23 -- despite having four more programs.
But really, the ACC has no one to blame but themselves for the lack of representation in the recent polls. Georgia Tech was close in the preseason but we had to go and play the Coastal Division title game on the first weekend of the year. N.C. State was a fringe Top 25 team to start the season and they dropped to Tennessee in Atlanta. Virginia Tech was close but then they went ahead and lost to Pittsburgh. Badly. Clemson was a top 10 program until they fell to another top 10 program in Tallahassee.
The reason 1/2 of the Big 12 is ranked, for instance, is a combination of schedule timing, soft non-conference scheduling and taking care of business on the field. Still don't understand why the ACC puts league games so early in the year, guaranteeing early season losses.
Things could be much different if the ACC had saved intra-divisional showdowns between division title contenders -- Georgia Tech vs. Virginia Tech, Florida State vs. Clemson -- for later in the year. Front load the schedule with non-conference games and it's not hard to think 2-3 more ACC teams would still be ranked and being discussed more than they are just five weeks into the season.
In the battle of perception, ACC football is clearly losing. Lots of self-inflicted wounds -- both scheduling and performance related -- many of which could have been avoided with some more creative, early season scheduling.