ACC releases media vote ahead of 2026 football season: Miami is the favorite

Miami, which stole Duke’s starting QB in the offseason, is the preseason favorite to win the ACC in 2026, per the consensus of the 188 media members who attended this month’s ACC Football Kickoff.

I’ll note here, as I’ve been doing the past few years – that I wasn’t among the voters, because I find these exercises to be pointless.

But nonetheless, fun to write about, particularly when everybody is really just guessing, with the roster turnover that we see every year now in the NIL/portal era.

That Miami, which snuck into the College Football Playoff last year entirely because Duke upset Virginia in the 2025 ACC Championship Game, then advanced to the national title game before losing to Indiana, is the preseason favorite isn’t out of the realm of the expected.

Clemson, though, at preseason #2, is a friggin’ joke.

Clemson is more likely to get Dabo Swinney fired in late October than it is make it to Charlotte in December.

The other joke: one media “professional” gave Stanford a first-place vote.

The other 187 media folks think so much of Stanford that the Cardinal was slotted 17th, and dead-last, in the preseason rendering.

And you wondered why I don’t vote in these things.

2026 ACC Football preseason rankings

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1. Miami (165) – 3159
2. SMU (6) – 2794
3. Louisville (4) – 2569
4. Clemson (7) – 2520
5. Georgia Tech (2) – 2006
6. Virginia – 1981
7. NC State – 1964
8. Virginia Tech – 1962
9. Pitt – 1740
10. Duke – 1452
11. Florida State (3) – 1439
12. California – 1392
13. Wake Forest – 1103
14. Syracuse – 878
15. North Carolina – 831
16. Boston College – 491
17. Stanford (1) – 483

First-place votes in parentheses
188 media voters