Miami enters ACC football season as team to beat
Miami leads the ACC title race with Darian Mensah at QB, while SMU and Kevin Jennings remain strong challengers.
- Miami transfer Darian Mensah is ranked as the top quarterback in the ACC preseason rankings.
- The list ranks all 17 quarterbacks in the newly expanded ACC, from seasoned veterans to transfers.
- Many teams, including Miami, Virginia, and Louisville, are turning to transfer quarterbacks to lead their offenses.
While it’s true that a college football team doesn’t necessarily sink or swim because of its starting quarterback, it certainly helps one’s fortunes if there is stability at the most important offensive position.
With the season barely more than a week away from kickoff, we turn the spotlight on the ACC, where matters in fall camps range from seasoned veterans to high-impact transfers and everything in between.
Once again, this exercise is anything but a guarantor of contending for the league title, but it’s a starting point with the time for talking almost over. With all that out of the way, here’s our ranking from first through 17th in the now bicoastal ACC.
1. Darian Mensah, Miami
The Hurricanes again turned to the portal to keep their high-powered offense humming. Mensah, most recently a Duke Blue Devil and before that the starting signal caller at Tulane, is a proven winner who already has an ACC title under his belt. He’ll be under the proverbial microscope, but he’ll have the weapons around him to keep Miami in the playoff hunt.
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2. Kevin Jennings, SMU
Entering his third season as the Mustangs’ full-time starter with 54 career TD passes, Jennings hopes this year to check a couple more boxes on his collegiate resume. Namely, getting the team back to the conference title game as he did in 2024 and win it this time, and then subsequently lead the Ponies deeper into the playoff. He does have 26 career interceptions, in part a function of the team’s pass-heavy system, but he’ll need to cut down on the giveaways.
3. Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele, California
JKS might just be the guy nobody is talking about enough, not just around the ACC but in the entire country. He threw for 3,454 yards and 18 scores as a freshman last year, and new Bears’ coach Tosh Lupoi convinced him to stay in Berkeley. The priority now is to give him better protection and more consistent ground support.
4. Mason Heintschel, Pittsburgh
Heintschel took over as the starter about a month into his freshman season last year and led the Panthers to five consecutive league victories. The gig is all his now as he looks to add to his respectable totals of 2,354 passing yards and 16 TDs.
5. CJ Bailey, N.C. State
If experience matters, the Wolfpack certainly have it. Bailey has amassed over 5,500 career passing yards and 42 TD throws in his two seasons running the attack. His command of the Wolfpack offense isn’t in question, but whether the win total improves largely hinges on the other side of the ball.
He has a lot to live up to on a couple of fronts. His big brother Fernando, whom he backed up at Indiana last season, casts a considerable shadow. Then the younger Mendoza must also fill the shoes of Georgia Tech predecessor Haynes King, who helped raise the Yellow Jackets back into the ACC’s upper tier. Alberto has similar dual-threat capabilities as King, so Tech’s entire playbook should be open to him fairly quickly.
7. Beau Pribula, Virginia
The Cavaliers named Pribula – a transfer from Missouri – as the starter to succeed Chandler Morris. There experienceat the position for coach Tony Elliott with Pribula and Pittsburgh transfer Eli Holstein both having taken first-team snaps, though with mixed results. The good news is the infrastructure is now in place in Charlottesville to maintain production.
8. Christopher Vizzina, Clemson
For better or worse, the Cade Klubnik era at Clemson has come to a close. Vizzina was believed to be the heir apparent after backing up Klubnik for three seasons. But true freshman Tait Reynolds, who enrolled early to go through spring drills, might be too good to keep off the field. The Tigers have been winning with defense of late, but there will be times when points are needed.
9. Ethan Grunkemeyer, Virginia Tech
Grunkemeyer followed new Hokies head man James Franklin to Blacksburg from Penn State. He put up respectable numbers as a rooky in Happy Valley completing 69.1% of his attempts and leading the Lions to the postseason and bowl win after a 3-6 start. But he’ll likely be asked to stretch the field more with fewer ground options.
10. Lincoln Kienholz, Louisville
Cardinals coach Jeff Brohm’s track record of quickly developing transfers is certainly cause for optimism. Kienholz fits the mold of Louisville’s successful signal callers, but the fact remains he took few meaningful snaps at Ohio State. He could easily outperform this projection, but we’ll know more after some live reps.
11. Steve Angeli, Syracuse
The main concern at quarterback for Syracuse is keeping Angeli healthy. He was excellent before he went down last September, with 10 TD passes and just two picks and started the team’s win away at Clemson. The Orange didn’t win any of their eight games after that. Unfortunately his injury was an torn Achilles tendon, which might compromise his long-term mobility.
12. Walker Eget, Duke
Technically, redshirt freshman Dan Mahan is still in the mix according to Blue Devils coach Manny Diaz. But the likely starter will be Eget, plucked via the portal from San Jose State at the 11th hour following Darian Mensah’s messy exit to Miami. He threw for over 3,000 yards with the Spartans last season, though his completion rate was a shade under 60%.
13. Ashton Daniels, Florida State
It’s hardly breaking news that the last two seasons in Tallahassee have not gone well. A lot is riding on Daniels, who was primarily the backup at his most recent stop at Auburn. He does have familiarity with the ACC from his prior stint at Stanford, but most of that 2024 campaign didn’t go especially well for him or the Cardinal. A strong season is needed to take some heat off Seminoles coach Mike Norvell.
14. Gio Lopez, Wake Forest
The Demon Deacons surprised some people in 2025, Jake Dickert’s first season helming the program, so we stipulate this ranking might be too low. Lopez could only do so much in a bad situation at North Carolina, so a fresh start at Wake, where he reunites with his former South Alabama offensive coordinator Rob Ezell, could be beneficial.
15. Davis Warren, Stanford
The Stanford rebuild under new coach Tavita Pritchard will take some time, but Warren’s maturity should help the process in year one. His lone season as the starter at Michigan in 2024 was ended by a knee injury the team’s bowl game, and he saw extremely limited action for the Wolverines in their 2023 championship season.
16. Billy Edwards Jr., North Carolina
The former Wisconsin Badger never got the chance to show what he could do in Madison, as his 2025 season was hampered by a knee injury. He did have some success at his prior stop at Maryland, but his running ability was a big part of his game. Whether he can rescue the Bill Belichick experiment in Chapel Hill remains to be seen.
17. Mason McKenzie, Boston College
To be sure, there is precedent for a QB making the leap from the Division II ranks to a successful career in the Bowl Subdivision (see Chambliss, Trinidad). Eagles fans are hoping for a similar outcome for McKenzie, the former standout at Saginaw Valley State (Mich.) to help BC bounce back from a miserable 2-10 campaign.