Saw this article on thestate.com and decided it was worthy to be posted here today. Do read it….it discusses the state of the ACC from a competitive standpoint.
“THAT CLEMSON’S GAME against Wake Forest on Saturday has championship implications tells you everything you need to know about the state of ACC football.
It is pretty sorry.
Boston College struggles to defeat Central Michigan and Brigham Young. Duke is shut out by Division I-AA Richmond. Florida State squeaks by Troy. Maryland barely beats Florida International. Miami is trounced by Louisville and hangs on to defeat Houston. North Carolina defeats I-AA Furman by a point. North Carolina State loses to Akron and Southern Mississippi. Virginia falls to Western Michigan.
The big-time wins outside the conference? This will be a short paragraph. Wake Forest won at Mississippi, which is 1-4. If you need more evidence that the league is wallowing in mediocrity, consider that No. 15 Clemson is the ACC’s highest-ranked team. Not since the final regular-season poll of the 2002 season has the ACC not had a team ranked 15th or higher.
Tommy Bowden says it is too early to make judgments about the conference. “I think the proper evaluation can be after the season,” Bowden said Tuesday. “I think it is awfully early to start evaluating the strength of conferences right now. After four games there are some conferences that are showing more strength and have got more teams in the top 20, top 10 or top 25.”
Actually, with the season approaching the halfway point, there is no better time to evaluate a conference’s strength. Most nonconference games have been played, so we should have a good idea of how a league stacks up in head-to-head competition against other leagues.
Jeff Sagarin makes a living ranking these kinds of things for USA Today. Who knows if his rankings have merit, but they probably are as accurate as any other such listings. Sagarin has the ACC ranked fifth, behind the Pacific-10, Big Ten, Southeastern and Big 12. Fifth does not sound bad until you consider that only the Big East among Bowl Championship Series conferences is ranked lower.
The ACC’s fall has been substantial considering Sagarin ranked the league No. 1 following the 2005 season. Next, in order, were the Pacific-10, Big 12, Big Ten and SEC.
So what happened?
“It’s going to be interesting to see how it (plays) out toward the end,” Bowden says. “It’s always going to go in cycles anyway.”
The down cycle for the ACC probably can be attributed to two major factors. First, the league lost an unusually high number of players to the National Football League. Also, the league’s three perennial powers — Florida State, Miami and Virginia Tech — appear to have fallen off.
The NFL took 12 players from the ACC in the first round of the 2006 draft, including four off the Florida State roster. All total, 51 players from the ACC were selected by NFL teams. That is an average of more than four star players per team that left the league.
For whatever reason, Florida State, Miami and Virginia Tech appear to have become middle-of-the-ACC-pack teams in the same season. Florida State is ranked 17th, and Virginia Tech is 21st. Miami is unranked.
“With none of those three being (ranked high), I think it gives the perception that it’s a down year,” Bowden says. “Maybe by the end of the year somebody else might jump up there, or one of those three might end up there.”
Clemson probably stands the best chance among ACC teams of jumping into the top 10 because the Tigers appear to be the league’s strongest team. Georgia Tech, which is ranked 18th, might be next. Florida State could end up highly ranked because it has a favorable schedule remaining.
Boston College is 4-1 but is likely to stumble once or twice the rest of the way. That leaves Wake Forest, which at 5-0 is off to its best start since 1987. Wake Forest’s record and Clemson’s strong showing to start the season make Saturday’s showdown in Winston-Salem, N.C., a game that could go a long way in determining the ACC’s Atlantic Division championship.
While that speaks well for Wake Forest and Clemson, it does not say a lot about the league and its overall strength, or lack thereof, this season.” written by Ron Morris
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