Someone Please Rise in the ACC

By moniker  |   Saturday, August 15, 2009  |  Comments( 0 )

College Football
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The master plan has disintegrated. The Atlantic Coast Conference has always been known as a basketball conference. With the on-field play of this past decade, the stereotype has been further cemented, even with the efforts from the ACC’s top brass to make significant improvements. Furthermore, the immediate future seems to lack any optimism for improvement.

Two decades of siphoning off top programs from other leagues was intended to manufacture a football conference that rivaled the SEC and Big XII. However, the ACC has become a curse, where national powerhouses like Miami and Florida State have nosedived into afterthoughts. ‘Miami vs. Florida State’ was to be the crowning event in the league, akin to Michigan and Ohio State.

But the conference is an unspectacular sideshow. The last time an inter-conference top-10 battle took place was…. Boston College and Virginia Tech in 2007. Remember that one? Annual top flight battles, which were supposed to highlight Virginia Tech, Clemson, Florida State and Miami, have become ‘local coverage’ games. Instead, teams like Wake Forest and Boston College have continued to vie for ACC championship games. And last year was the first time an ACC team won a BCS bowl game this decade, with Virginia Tech defeating…. Cincinnati.

Entering the 2009 season, not much has changed. Not one team has an intriguing offense, mainly due to the key issue hampering the conference: lack of elite QBs. Outside of Boston College’s Matt Ryan, the ACC has lacked any hints of dazzling, exciting football generated from the QB. Miami, which was renowned for their QB play is now hampered by the position. Ditto for Florida State, a program associated with big plays and dangerous weapons, has been grounded by many internal issues, including lackluster play by the QB.

This year, the SEC is led by Tim Tebow and Jevon Snead, the Big XII includes such QBs as Colt McCoy and Sam Bradford, while Ohio State has Terrell Pryor. The ACC preseason 1st-team QB is NC State’s junior Russell Wilson. Who?

The ACC has top-flight talent littered throughout the league, where ten first-round draft picks have come from this conference in past two years, with only one originating from a ‘traditional’ power in Kenny Phillips of Miami. In fact, Virginia has produced three of those picks, while Boston College and North Carolina have developed two others. But the lack of any consistent offense, many times painfully lackluster, is exactly why ten of the twelve teams finished either 4-4 or 5-3 in their respective inter-conference records. Can there be any clearer indication of a conference drowning in an unspectacular, mediocre stench?

For a positive spin, if there is a team that has the potential to emerge from the vat of fruitless play, it’s not Miami, Florida State, or Clemson. It’s North Carolina. Butch Davis, the architect of dominating Miami Hurricane teams in the late 90s, has become a magnet for top-flight talent to Chapel Hill. Additionally, Virginia Tech, the league’s only pre-season top-ten member, looks to have their usual physical defense, coupled with hope at QB in Tyrod Taylor.

So, if the traditional powers can finally find consistency, there may be some real intrigue within the ACC, on a national level. But there are enough ifs to wonder when Midnight Madness begins.
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