Athlon Sports & Life, best known for its college football and basketball preview magazines, released its ranking of the best coaching tandems in the ACC. The publication ranked the 14 member schools who compete in the ACC as full members in both football and men’s basketball. The coaches at Duke–David Cutcliffe (football) and Mike Krzyzewski (men’s basketball)–were awarded the top spot. The honor is nothing new for the pair, who have earned the No. 1 spot in Athlon’s rankings every year since 2013. Louisville’s combination of Bobby Petrino (football) and Rick Pitino (men’s basketball) finished second in the poll, just ahead of North Carolina. Roy Williams (basketball) and Larry Fedora (football) had the Tar Heels in third place in the poll, their highest ranking ever. The Heels moved up from fourth place in the 2016 rankings and fifth the year before.Wake Forest’s football coach Dave Clawson and basketball coach Danny Manning finished in twelfth place in the rankings. That’s the highest for Wake since Clawson and Manning’s predecessors, Jim Grobe and Jeff Bzdelik respectively placed the Deacs in eleventh back in 2013. Since then, Wake has finished 15th, 15th and 14th (Notre Dame was included in the rankings until this season.) NC State, who fired basketball coach Mark Gottfried last week and is conducting a search for his replacement, finished 13th, ahead of last-place Boston College. State hit a high point of ninth place in the 2013 poll and has been in twelfth or 13th ever since.
