Miami and Virginia Tech should both take significant steps forward under new coaching staffs.
The ACC made four changes at head coach this offseason, and all look to be upgrades over the previous hires. Let's take a look at the recruited talent each coach inherits relative to his new school's yearly competition. This is a good way to assess the challenges and expectations a coach will face, as recruiting rankings, while flawed, are as good a mathematical predictor as any in college football.
Miami is the crown jewel of the previously open ACC jobs, and one thing is abundantly clear: It has been recruiting at a level that should result in division and potentially conference titles. Miami has signed 32 four- and five-star prospects in the last four classes (31 percent of total signees), which is the best in the Coastal Division. The Hurricanes went 17-18 in ACC play under Al Golden. Even given the sanctions and the other issues outside of Golden's control, that is seriously underachieving. Mark Richt should be able to have Miami in contention for the Coastal more years than not.
The greater challenge will be taking Miami back to the nationally elite. The surrounding high school talent could not be better. If Miami gets a rejuvenated Richt who makes good hires, and an administration that ponies up the money for assistants, support staff, and gets the facilities situation figured out, it's possible. The Hurricanes have not won 10 games or a conference title in more than a decade, so Miami's fans and administration need to be patient and focus on conference success before thinking about the national scale.
Virginia Tech
Like Miami, the Hokies also underachieved this decade under Frank Beamer. After an incredible (and unsustainable) 53-11 ACC start, the Hokies are now on a 16-16 skid. That's about as bad as Miami was under Al Golden, albeit with fewer blowout losses. Credit Beamer for not trying to hang on far too long and credit AD Whit Babcock for running a focused, driven search and securing Justin Fuente from Memphis. And further credit the Hokies for keeping coordinator Bud Foster, whose defenses slipped much less than the offensive side of the football over the last few seasons.
The Hokies have been the fourth-best recruiting team in the ACC over the last four classes, and getting Fuente's offense in and Scot Loeffler's out should be a huge improvement. In the high scoring environment that is college football, Virginia Tech has lost 13 games in the last four years in which the defense held the opponent to 30 or fewer points in regulation. With a competent offense, the Hokies can probably slash that number in half.
It's worth noting that, in large part thanks to Virginia Tech's success, the "757" area from which so many elite Virginia Tech recruits have come over the years is more hotly contested than ever. And the rest of the ACC is now far better than it was when the Hokies entered the league a decade ago. If Virginia Tech wants to get back to that level, it is going to need to find a way to double the number of elite recruits it signs.
Virginia
I love the hire of Bronco Mendenhall, who proved to be an excellent coach at BYU. But given Virginia's recruiting, asking him to win more than a game or two more per season early on than predecessor Mike London did might be too ambitious. The Cavaliers have signed just 11 blue chips in the last four classes, and it has a weak class coming in for 2016.
With a re-energized Hokies program and Maryland making a number of excellent recruiting hires, who Virginia hires to fill its staff will be of the utmost importance. The Cavaliers will have the money to do so, upping the assistant pool from $2.5M to $3M.
One thing that could help would be to stop scheduling games against opponents like USC, TCU, Oregon, UCLA (twice) and Penn State -- against whom Virginia went 1-5 under Mike London. The ACC is tough enough for a program like UVA without lining up such an unwinnable non-conference slate. All those losses, often in blowout fashion, don't help recruiting. Going to bowl games would.
Syracuse
Syracuse sure is going to be exciting to watch. Dino Babers brings his high-flying, Baylor-esque offense to the Carrier Dome. This is going to be good for ticket sales. But if the Cuse doesn't seriously up its talent level, it might not matter. The Orange are in the much tougher division, with Florida State, Clemson, N.C. State and Louisville ahead, and Boston College on about the same level. The only team Syracuse should be expected to beat more often than not from the Atlantic is Wake Forest.
Syracuse may havea recruiting advantage via market inefficiency thanks to the style of football played in the Northeast. If Babers can capitalize on that and take the Orange to a bowl every other year that would be a huge improvement.