ESPN’s Bill Connelly released a 2026 ACC college football preview covering a number of different topics, including what he sees as the five best games in the conference during the upcoming campaign.

Connelly used his SP+ rating system, which is meant to be a predictive comparison of teams, as one of the factors in determining the top five games.

“Here are the five conference games that feature (a) the highest combined SP+ ratings for both teams and (b) a projected scoring margin under eight points,” Connelly wrote.

Three Clemson games made Connelly’s top five, including the matchup against Miami.

On Oct. 3 at Memorial Stadium in Clemson, the Tigers – a seven-time College Football Playoff participant (and two-time CFP champion) – will host the Hurricanes, who are coming off an appearance in last season’s CFP national championship game.

The all-time series between Clemson and Miami is tied at 7-7, but the Tigers own a 6-3 advantage in the series since Miami joined the ACC prior to the 2004 season. The Hurricanes won the most recent meeting — a 28-20, double-overtime victory at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Fla., on Oct. 21, 2023.

“After last season’s epic skepticism, SP+ is actually more optimistic about Clemson’s potential this season than most prognosticators seem to be,” Connelly wrote. “And after a Week 1 trip to LSU comes this huge game. If the Tigers are to produce a redemption arc in 2026, we’ll likely know it after Week 5.”

The second Clemson game listed among Connelly’s top five conference games is the contest pitting Dabo Swinney’s Tigers against Virginia Tech and new Hokies head coach James Franklin on Oct. 24.

It will mark Virginia Tech’s first trip to Clemson since 2012. Clemson is 6-0 against Virginia Tech during Swinney’s head coaching tenure dating to his first matchups with the Hokies in 2011 when Clemson secured two victories against highly ranked Virginia Tech squads, one on the road and one in the 2011 ACC Championship Game.

“Franklin’s first Tech team gets this far into the season before playing a projected top-30 team,” Connelly wrote. “That offers the Hokies quite a bit of runway to figure things out, and it could make this game awfully important.”

The other Clemson game in Connelly’s top five is the trip to Tallahassee to play Florida State on Oct. 31.

The Tigers will seek to extend their current road winning streak at Doak Campbell Stadium to five games. A victory in the Halloween contest would make Clemson only the third program ever to win five or more consecutive road games at Florida State.

Clemson is 9-1 in its last 10 games overall against the Seminoles, including its 4-0 mark in Tallahassee in that span.

“Clemson is evidently the ACC’s hinge team — either the Tigers will make a run back to the ACC title game, or they’ll help to determine who does instead,” Connelly wrote. “And if you told me right now that FSU was going to produce a top-20-caliber surge or finish under .500 for a third straight season, I’d believe you.”

In his ACC preview, Connelly also weighed in on whether Clemson can bounce back in 2026 after finishing a disappointing 7-6 last season.

His SP+ rating system projects Clemson (12.7 SP+) to be 23rd nationally in SP+ and second in the ACC behind Miami (20.9).

Connelly put Clemson in the tier of “conference title (and, therefore, CFP) contenders,” along with Miami, Louisville and SMU.

“Making predictions is evidently a closest-to-the-pin contest. I was, for all intents and purposes, the resident Clemson skeptic last year, too concerned about (a) not enough big plays on offense, (b) far too many big plays allowed on defense and (c) the major turnovers luck the Tigers enjoyed in 2024 to consider them genuine national title contenders. When they indeed bombed from preseason No. 4 to 7-6, I got a lot of pats on the back for a great prediction,” Connelly wrote.

“I was still mostly wrong, though: I still thought the Tigers would be a top-15 team and ACC favorite. Even from a skeptic’s perspective, Clemson was shockingly poor. The offense suffered a lot of injuries — especially at receiver and on the offensive line — but rarely looked threatening even when mostly healthy. And despite some elite individual talent, the Tigers failed to crack the defensive SP+ top 20 for the third straight season. Whatever their ceiling actually was as a team, they got nowhere close to it and suffered their worst season since 2010.”

Connelly says Swinney is now facing “one of the biggest resets of his career” coming off the 7-6 season in 2025 that marked the second-worst record in Swinney’s full 17 seasons as head coach.

“Swinney is now dealing with one of the biggest resets of his career, with a new offensive coordinator, seven new offensive starters and a defense that lost three top-50 NFL draft picks,” Connelly wrote.

“Honestly, a reset probably isn’t the worst thing after the disappointment of 2025,” Connelly added. “While Clemson is projected just 23rd overall, with an average projected win total of 7.9 — not exactly rampant optimism — the Tigers are also projected second in the league and have a chance at a 5-2 start (or better) with five of their first seven games coming at home.”