It’s a parity party in ACC

Clemson coach Dabo Swinney breathed a big sigh of relief when his Tigers remained unbeaten — barely — in a come-from-behind victory over Syracuse.

The winning touchdown in a 27-23 triumph just over a week ago was scored with less than a minute to play — in Death Valley, no less — before more than 80,000 rabid fans. And it came against a team that has won just one Atlantic Coast Conference road game in three seasons under Dino Babers.

This season is shaping up to be one of even greater parity in the ACC.

Only three teams are ranked — No. 4 Clemson (6-0), No. 16 Miami (5-1) and No. 20 North Carolina State (5-0) — after Virginia Tech (3-2, 2-0) got bounced from the rankings for a second time following a home loss to No. 5 Notre Dame.

Just two teams — Louisville (2-4, 0-3) in the Atlantic Division and North Carolina (1-3, 1-1) in the Coastal — have losing overall records.

It all seems to set up a race to the conference title game filled with tension, especially with Duke, Boston College and Syracuse having shown some early season spunk and Clemson (6-0, 3-0) playing with inexperienced quarterbacks.

The Tigers still have to play N.C. State, Florida State, Duke and BC in their quest for another berth in the College Football Playoff.

“The past two years alone we had 21 bowl teams. So, I mean, that’s pretty amazing,” Swinney said. “That’s a lot of teams that are winning, and so that means to me that anybody can beat anybody on any given day in this league.”

Led by senior quarterback Ryan Finley (330.4 yards per game), the Wolfpack are 5-0 for the first time since 2002 and only the sixth time in nearly a century. N.C. State boosted its winning streak to seven straight after barely holding off BC 28-23 at home on Saturday. And the Eagles (4-2, 1-1) were missing star tailback AJ Dillon, the ACC’s leading rusher who was out with an ankle injury.

Miami (5-1, 2-0) has won five in a row after losing its season opener to LSU, while Florida State (3-3, 1-3) has struggled under first-year coach Willie Taggart. Still, against the Hurricanes’ second-ranked defense, FSU built a 27-7 lead late in the third quarter Saturday on the road, then had a fourth-quarter touchdown nullified by penalty and lost 28-27.

“This parity in this league, I told our team, ‘Welcome to the next seven games you’re going to play,’” Duke coach David Cutcliffe said after his Blue Devils dropped their ACC opener to Virginia Tech. “Every ACC game is going to be the same. It’s going to require that you play as well as you can