2025 The State of the ACC: Expertise Growth

It is a three-part sequence of posts on The State of the ACC in 2025

In half one of the sequence, I introduced up the soccer query: is it the Jimmy’s and Joe’s or X’s and O’s? At the highschool degree, having sufficient Jimmy’s is nice sufficient to win a state championship, improvement be damned.

On the faculty degree, nevertheless, gamers should be developed each on the observe discipline and within the weight room. As City Meyer famously mentioned upon his hiring at OSU, ”(The power coach is) a very powerful rent I made on this teaching workers.”

That rent was Mickey Marotti who now has 4 Nationwide Championship rings from two totally different applications (Florida Gators, Ohio State Buckeyes) and has labored with faculty soccer teaching legends at Notre Dame, OSU, Florida and West Virginia.

As you’ll be able to see within the picture above, improvement is someplace within the 20-30% vary for turning potential into actuality. “Your potential goes to get me fired,” is a quote many coaches have used however one that’s normally attributed to Air Raid Godfather and former Kentucky Wildcats head coach Hal Mumme.

Bruce Thorson-Imagn Photos

The faculties which might be all the time on the potential doesn’t imply actuality checklist are: Florida, Miami and Texas A&M. They’re joined these days by USC, Auburn, and Oklahoma. These are the Blue Chip Ratio groups which have the expertise degree to win however by no means flip that into precise victories. LSU may be part of that checklist quickly below Brian Kelly, too.

As Miami followers discovered in 2024, a rattling good quarterback pickup within the switch portal can change issues for an offense. Oklahoma has acquired John Mateer whereas every of those applications is making some kind of change. TAMU employed Tommy Moffitt, the long-time LSU power coach with three championship rings and ties to Miami (1998-1999) and the Peyton Manning Period Tennessee Volunteers.

Whereas Mike Elko and the Aggies centered on improvement, USC and Lincoln Riley have centered on expertise acquisition as a substitute. We’ll see which plan works out the most effective in 2025.

Growth is difficult to inform as the colleges don’t launch correct data (see: Virginia Tech’s 40 instances for the reason that 90’s). You get the annual report of some participant placing on 10 kilos (RB) or shedding 20 kilos (OL) of fats, the depth of the low season program and the power coach being an animal (Aaron Feld), and of course- guys are flying across the Greentree observe fields.

With a lot false information piling up on Bruce Feldman’s Freaks Record or message board rumors of 200-meter sprint instances, the most effective technique I’ve provide you with for improvement is evaluating Blue Chip Ratios to NFL Draft picks totals. I don’t have a cute formulation however the group with the best BCR ought to have the best variety of draft picks come April.

The NFL Draft

With that being mentioned, the groups with the most drafted gamers ought to be Ohio State, Alabama, Georgia, Texas A&M, Oregon, and Clemson. LSU, Oklahoma and Notre Dame ought to be up there as effectively. Within the ACC, Clemson and Miami ought to prepared the ground in draft picks primarily based on the BCR’s from 2022-2024.

2023-2024 Picks

Per Ourlads, UGA at the moment has 18 gamers on NFL rosters that have been drafted in 2023 and 2024. Alabama has 20 gamers, TAMU has seven, Oregon hits the checklist with 13, LSU has 12, whereas Notre Dame has 10.

Photograph by Grant Halverson/Getty Photos

Clemson has a dozen gamers on NFL rosters proper now chosen within the ‘23 and ‘24 drafts. Miami at the moment has seven. The UNC Tar heels have six gamers that match our filter, whereas Louisville additionally has seven gamers who qualify. These 4 applications have been essentially the most proficient per BCR over the previous 4 seasons.

SMU then again has one participant within the NFL that matches our standards, whereas Florida State has 11. Level confirmed that Miami and Texas A&M have been utter failures relating to turning 4 and 5 star highschool prospects into NFL draft picks.

2025’s Prospects

What occurs April 24-26 will actually inform us what the NFL thinks of Mario Cristobal’s capability to develop expertise. QB Cam Ward will probably be a primary spherical (presumably 1st total) choice within the 2025 NFL Draft. After Ward, Miami goes to depend on TE Elijah Arroyo as their different top-100 draft prospect.

Photograph by David Rosenblum/Icon Sportswire by way of Getty Photos

On the subject of the top-100 gamers within the upcoming NFL Draft per NFLDraftBuzz and different ACC groups; Clemson, UNC and Louisville all have one participant match the mildew. Clemson with LB Barrett Carter, UNC has RB Omarion Hampton, and Louisville has DE Ashton Gillotte. FSU, who fell simply exterior of the BCR of 50%, has solely one top-100 prospect within the ‘25 NFL Draft.

On the subject of the P4 prime Blue Chip applications, UGA has 4 top-100’s, LSU has 4, TAMU has three, Bama has three, OSU has eight (and no.101 in Will Howard), Oregon has 4, and ND has two. ACC runner-up SMU has ZERO top-100 prospects for the upcoming NFL Draft. SMU HC Rhett Lashlee actually turned hen poop into hen salad in ‘24.

The Wrap

The Mario Cristobal Period began off with a whimper. After a shedding season he’s now managed to compile a 22-16 document whereas going .500 within the ACC at 12-12. His predecessor, Manny Diaz (now Duke HC), had a 21-15 document and 16-9 posting within the ACC. Diaz additionally produced eight drafted gamers over his three 12 months run at Miami.

With the executive and monetary backing that Cristobal has at Miami there’s no excuse to not churn out one other 10+ win season at Miami in ‘25. The group has the general expertise per the Blue Chip Ratio, the event has clearly been missing below Cristobal relating to churning out NFL gamers.

Photograph by Abbie Parr/Getty Photos

However that’s all the time been a knock on Cristobal- he places up the one large draftee (Justin Herbert, Penei Sewell, Kayvon Thibodeaux) after which a sequence of seventh spherical picks- together with when he was the top coach at Oregon. Till Ward, Miami has didn’t have a 1st spherical choice in two years below Cristobal.

The belief check comes within the 2026 NFL Draft the place Cristobal’s first recruiting class could have performed 4 seasons below him in Coral Gables. If Miami comes away with one 1st spherical choose (a fifth 12 months QB on his third college) in 4 seasons then it’s protected to say the event piece has been enormously missing at The U. Hopefully for all concerned Francis Mauigoa can flip into one other 1st spherical OL for Cristobal and Alex Mirabal.