Identifying the state of ACC football really means identifying the national perception of the conference. We are not trying to determine, practically speaking, how good the ACC actually is in comparison to other conferences. You may rightly ask why not. The simple answer is that this is college football, and as much as I love to watch and follow the sport, college football doesn’t do a very good job keeping up with which teams and conferences are actually the best.
As just one example of this problem, consider the 2009 Sugar Bowl. Utah came in undefeated and soundly beat 12-1 Alabama, champions of the SEC West and the heavy favorite to overwhelm the Utes. For the record, count me among the people who believe the Crimson Tide may have been a tad flat, considering that they led the Florida Gators entering the 4th quarter of the SEC title game, and if they had won they would have been playing Oklahoma for the national title. That game dashed their national title hopes, and, many feel, destroyed their drive and desire. Thus, as the story goes, they showed up and got beat by a clearly inferior team. That Sugar Bowl goes down in the history books as a 31-17 victory for Utah, but, so far as I can tell, gave the Mountain West Conference zero added credibility. The SEC’s second best team, despite losing by 14 points, is still much better than the MWC champion.
Obviously, the above account is clearly unfair to Utah, but it is equally accurate to what happened. The fact that the patent unfairness does not bother most of the college football world bothers me very much. Utah had no control over Alabama’s motivation. They simply won all their games, showed up to play their biggest game of the season, and won it convincingly. Utah stormed out to a 21-0 lead. Alabama came back to make it 21-17, aided by a punt return TD. Utah then showed its determination, shutting Alabama out the rest of the way and scoring ten more points to seal the victory. It should also be noted that many analysts consider special teams touchdowns, and similar plays like fumble recoveries or interceptions returned for touchdowns, to be fluke plays that typically make the final score not as representative of the game as it could have been. Thus, many may argue that Utah deserved to win by more than 14 points.
I do not think anyone would argue that this situation is fair to Utah. However, many may argue that the public opinion that Alabama was nevertheless better than Utah is correct. That argument is perfectly logical. There is every reason to believe that Alabama was flat. They were so close to the national title and that goal was now impossible. They were playing a team that does not play in a BCS conference, and everyone expected Alabama to win easily. I myself think that Alabama was flat. For the record I do not necessarily think that means they were the better team. I do not know what would happen if those two teams had showed up with equal motivation, ready to play, as they would have if college football ended its season with a playoff the way every other major sport does.
The main point of all this discussion is to expose a very big flaw in the way the college football world thinks. There is absolutely no reason to play that Sugar Bowl. Think about it. If Utah wins, then Alabama was flat, and lost even though they were better. If Alabama wins, then that just proves they were better. In terms of public perception, and the perception of the national media (which are largely one and the same anyway), Utah cannot prove anything no matter what happens. If I were a fan of the Mountain West Conference, I would probably be unable to discuss this topic without foaming at the mouth.
In theory, it is possible for a conference like the Mountain West Conference to change this perception, but it takes years. In fact, they have been doing it for years now, but change comes slowly. TCU went undefeated with several quality wins last season and didn’t even get any real consideration. Instead they got a game against fellow undefeated and underappreciated Boise St., which they lost. Did that give Boise St. any real credit as possibly the best team in the country? Nope, even though the Broncos soundly beat Oregon, the Pac-10 champion, earlier in the season.
The big problem that all of this analysis exposes is the double standard at work here. TCU beat Clemson 14-10 at Clemson last year. That game just showed that the ACC is not that good. If Alabama had beaten Clemson at Clemson 14-10, that game would be on their resume as a “solid road win at a BCS conference division champion” when they were promoting the national title game. To a certain extent, no matter what happens, the story changes to support the current beliefs of the national media and public perception.
In some cases, if the story doesn’t support the facts, it is simply ignored completely. Consider the 2008 season, during which the ACC played 10 games against the SEC. The ACC won 6. Was there any serious discussion of the two conferences and which is better? No, of course not, the SEC was better. What largely controlled that perception was two things. First, the general assumption that the SEC is better every year. Second, Alabama’s dismantling of Clemson in the season opener. Alabama was picked 4th or 5th in the SEC, and Clemson was the runaway favorite in the ACC. Did it matter that Alabama led national preseason #1 Georgia 31-0 at halftime only a few weeks later in Athens? No. Did anybody revisit the Alabama – Clemson game after Alabama finished 8-0 in the SEC and Clemson finished 4-4 in the ACC? No. Is that fair? No.
To be fair, conference strength is usually judged by strength at the top, and in 2008 Alabama and Florida were better than anyone in the ACC. However, I suspect that most pundits would have also said the SEC was still better than the ACC in 2008 even if you remove Alabama and Florida and compare the “bottom ten” of the SEC against the ACC. Most fans across the country would probably say the same thing. And yet, we have objective evidence that nothing could be further from the truth. Consider the 7 games played between those teams and their respective conference records:
(5-3) Georgia Tech defeats (6-2) Georgia AT Georgia
(5-3) Georgia Tech routs (2-6) Miss. St AT Georgia Tech
(4-4) Clemson soundly defeats (4-4) South Carolina AT Clemson
(4-4) Wake Forest defeats (5-3) Ole Miss AT Wake Forest
(4-4) Wake Forest soundly defeats (4-4) Vanderbilt AT Wake Forest
(1-7) Duke defeats (4-4) Vanderbilt AT Vanderbilt
You will note that all of those are ACC wins. In most of them, the ACC team had a conference record that was worse than or equal to the SEC team. The SEC did win one though.
(4-4) South Carolina routs (4-4) NC State AT South Carolina.
When it comes to the national media and public perception, the only facts that count are those that support the established order, at least until enough facts pile up that they are impossible to ignore. The bad news is that it is that perception that controls the relative positions of the major conferences and by extension, the top teams who are vying for the top two spots in the final BCS standings.
The bad news for the ACC is that we are considered to be the 4th or 5th best conference in the country, and some would argue that we are worse than the Big East and even the Mountain West. The worse news for the ACC is that we did some damage to our conference reputation last year. The worst news, I am afraid, is that more damage is coming.
First, lets look at what damage we did last year. We did have some good out of conference wins last year, like Miami over Oklahoma and FSU routing BYU. However, any good publicity that would have brought was probably overshadowed by Virginia Tech losing the opener to Alabama. That is not really fair, because VT played Alabama a better game than most of the SEC, including Florida. But that is life. Even if that game did not overshadow our good wins, the end of the season definitely did. Clemson and Georgia Tech really did a number on the ACC’s reputation by winning their respective divisions and then losing to their out of conference rivals. The bowl games just added insult to injury. Miami lost to Wisconsin and looked terrible. Georgia Tech lost to Iowa and looked terrible. UNC lost to Pitt. Boston College lot to USC. True, Virginia Tech routed Tennessee, and Clemson and Florida State picked up solid wins, but only the VT win was really impressive, and it does not overcome the losses, particularly Miami and Georgia Tech.
All of that damage creates an uphill battle for us as a conference to earn some respect back, which is essential to getting serious national title consideration for the ACC champion. The good news is that we have plenty of games that will give us a chance to make statements on the national stage. The bad news is we will likely need a good showing in ¾ of them if we are to overcome the faceplant the conference is going to suffer on Labor Day weekend.
Let me explain. First of all, we have three games that will be watched by a largely national audience. UNC plays LSU Saturday night, and then Labor day is all ACC with Maryland Navy at 4 pm and Virginia Tech Boise St at 8 pm. Navy against Maryland is far from a big game, but it is always embarrassing to lose to a service academy, and it will be sandwiched between what are easily the two biggest opening weekend games in the country. And the ACC will fall flat on its face in both, in my opinion.
I have spent all summer thinking UNC would beat LSU, if only barely. I thought that because UNC was supposed to have an unbelievably good defense, and because Butch Davis, unlike Les Miles, is not an idiot. Yes, I know that Les Miles won a national title. But I know several LSU fans that agree with me that losing twice with that team was simply inexcusable, even if he did win the national championship. If Nick Saban had still been at LSU, he would have won every game and probably never really been threatened. In other words, Les had a team that was stacked. He is sort of like an ultra aggressive poker player – not very hard to beat, except on those occasional nights when he gets real good cards.
So, even though I try my best to never get my hopes up about UNC football doing anything good for the ACC, I thought they would beat LSU. Even without much of an offense, (I will believe UNC’s offense is no longer terrible when I see it) I STILL thought they would win. And then this scandal broke out and now who knows which of their players will even be allowed to play. Depending on whom you talk to, maybe only 1 or 2 players will be ruled ineligible, or it could be as many as 7 starters on defense. I suppose it could even end up being much ado about nothing, and maybe all of their players will be eligible. However, I had this chalked up as barely a win for the ACC anyway, and given this distraction, and the probably damage it will do to UNC’s lineup, I now think LSU is the safe bet.
Navy beating Maryland really should surprise no one, and should not be embarrassing. Navy’s program is at the point where they would finish, in my opinion, in the top half of pretty much every BCS conference. They will probably win 9 or 10 games this year, against some pretty legit teams, and they (ahem) run the best offensive scheme in college football, so even if Maryland is much improved, I think Navy is just better. Nevertheless, Navy is a service academy and they unfairly get no respect, so this will be a swift kick in the ACC’s collective groin, right before we get laughed out of the first weekend entirely by the game that really will piss me off.
Look, Boise St. is legit. I don’t know how else to say it. How many teams do they have to beat before they get some respect? I am afraid the answer may be “not applicable”, at least until the day comes, if it ever does, when they are in a BCS conference. Or until we get a playoff in college football and they get a real chance to earn it. Anyway, they are really good. Oh, and they have 21 starters back (out of a possible 22) from a team that beat Pac-10 Champion Oregon convincingly, and beat previously unbeaten TCU in the bowl game. So, basically, Virginia Tech will have its hands full.
Now, the part that I find really frustrating is simply this: Why is Virginia Tech the preseason ACC favorite? If the team that is picked to finish 4th or so in the ACC lost to a top five team, even if it is Boise St., that really wouldn’t be that embarrassing. To be fair, Virginia Tech will challenge for the ACC title this year, along with 5 or 6 other ACC teams that, as usual, you really could throw into a hat and just draw a name out and it wouldn’t make much difference. The point is just that Virginia Tech is far from clearly the best team in the ACC, especially early in the year since they are breaking in 7 new starters on defense. And yet the media is going to make us look bad by talking the Hokies up so much in the offseason. This year is not the first time the media has made us look bad in just this manner. They made a mockery out of us, unfairly, in 2008 as well, but that at least made sense leading up to the season opener. I have to confess that I thought Clemson would be real good that year as well. Looking back on it, Alabama trouncing Clemson in the opening game should not have been embarrassing. (Raise your hand if you think an 8-0 team from the SEC beating a 4-4 team from the ACC 34-10 is embarrassing? Particularly when an 8-0 team from the SEC beat a 6-2 team from the SEC 49-10 that same year…)
But talking up Virginia Tech this year is completely unfair to the ACC. I have said it before, but it is worth repeating here. A VT team coached by Beamer, Foster and Stinespring will never be carried by the offense. They have their model of how to play football pretty well set, and it works. Play great defense, control field position and score some points with special teams, and don’t lose the game on offense. And it works. You won’t hear me say a bad thing about that philosophy, other than it can be really boring at times, unless you are a VT fan and you like winning. But come on, is the media serious? All the preseason magazines say don’t worry about the young defense, look at the offense, with Tyrod Taylor, Ryan Williams and Darren Evans. First of all, Tyrod Taylor is a big plus now? I am pretty sure he was no better than a big indifferent last season. Second of all, even if we assume Darren Evans is anywhere near as good as Ryan Williams, (hint: he’s not. PJ Daniels > Darren Evans) someone will have to explain to me why it is so good to have two great running backs. I mean sure, you can rest one, they play a little fresher, if one gets hurt you are ok, etc. But I would take a great receiver and a great running back every time over two great running backs. You can only give the ball to one at a time. Lastly, they lost two starters on the offensive line, which as I recall wasn’t exactly stellar last season.
Let’s review. Quarterback who is a great runner, and can maybe throw ok? Check. TWO “great” (ie one great, one pretty good at best) running backs? Check. Nobody that I have ever heard of at receiver? Check. Question marks on the O line? Check. Sounds like this offense will be unstoppable. Oh and before I forget, it is still being coached by one of the most predictable offensive minds of all time. Remember Atlanta last year? OK, 4th and 2 at GT’s 18 yard line? Let’s line up two tight ends, two running backs, and then toss sweep to Williams, wide side of the field. Yeah! They’ll never see it coming! Whatever you say Stiney. I mean the man took the 2006 Hokies, with Brandon Ore, a pretty good running back, and only three future NFL receivers (Royal, Morgan and Clowney) and made them the 49th best scoring offense in the country. A whopping 25 points per game.
So here is what is going to happen. Virginia Tech starts off the year needing a few games to become a good team, because the offense is not going to carry the team, and the defense will be too young. Guess what? They don’t have it. They lose to a very good Boise St. team. The ACC is for some inexplicable reason embarrassed and largely written off by the media. This judgment is only further confirmed by the media when Virginia Tech ends up in the thick of the ACC race, which they will because Bud Foster is a great defensive coach and he will have the defense playing well by the time they face their toughest ACC opponents in November. The three losses on Labor Day weekend thus make the ACC an afterthought for another year. The only thing that could save us is FSU and Miami having really good years, because they are the only ACC programs that have enough pull with the media to get instant respect with a couple good wins. If they would do that, it would help a little bit, but forgive me if the idea of Miami and FSU being the only ACC teams that matter according to the media doesn’t exactly thrill me. And I bet that neither ex-powerhouse has a really good year anyway.
Well, there you have it. I really hope I am wrong.
Let’s go ACC.
And as always, Go Jackets!
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