Name: Atlantic Coast Conference

Teams: 12

Motto: "Who will win?  Your guess is as good as ours."

2008 Bowl Record: 4-6

Some might say: "The mediocre records can be explained by the high degree of competition within the conference."

We say: "All of these teams suck equally."

Burning Questions for '09:

• Will Virginia Tech be anywhere near as good as the pundits think they will?
• Will anyone finish with a conference record better than 5-3?
• Will fans attend any games?

We're starting off these conference previews with perhaps our least favorite conference.  Now, being a Penn State blog and having a natural hatred for Pitt, you might think we would put the Big East at the bottom of the heap.  While we do think the Big East is awful, pretty much everyone else does too, and you never see it get much cred.  Therefore, it's pretty accurately rated, so why heap on the criticism?  But with the ACC, there are some idiots out there (read: every dude with a pre-season poll and a major-media soapbox) who still think there are good teams in the ACC.  Here is our rebuttal:

There aren't.

If we were running college football, believe us, we would make a lot of changes to the current system.  But outside of installing a playoff, probably the most important change is to make sure that no ACC teams are ranked inside the Top 15 in the preseason polls.  Every year, some ACC squad gets hyped up, only to fall on its collective face.  Last year's case was the Clemson Tigers, who came into their opener last year against Alabama ranked #9 in the nation and sporting a rushing attack that was supposed to be unbelievable good.  Well, as we all know, Alabama smoked the Tigers and held them to ZERO (0) rushing yards for the game.  So much for that.

And of course, this year is no different.  Virginia Tech has been consistently ranked in the Top 10 of many preseason polls.  Why?  We don't know.  Smart college football fans know that preseason polls mean absolutely nothing.  But still, this is annoying.  If we could just push the ACC teams outside of the Top 15 to start, the world would be that much better.

Another change we would make would be to implement an ACC/Big11Ten challenge for football, much like the version we see every year in basketball.  The Big11Ten gets beat down by the ACC annually on the court, so it's time we give them some payback on the gridiron.  Now that you know our thoughts on the ACC, here's our season preview.

Coastal Division- Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, UNC, Miami, Virginia, Duke

Honestly, we could pick anyone to win this division and come up with a convincing argument for them. Some people think it's good that virtually anyone (except Duke) could win the ACC. We would agree, except those people usually forget to point out that the parity arrives from a lack of talent.

But if there's one thing we've learned from watching college football all our lives, it's that most of the time, the pundits are wrong. That's precisely the reason we're not picking Virginia Tech to win this division. We find Frank Beamer to be an overrated coach, and his teams often follow suit. Can he put together a solid defense and outstanding special teams every year? Absolutely. But he tends to have a little trouble with the offense, and Tyrod Taylor isn't going to help much in that department. We know peewee quarterbacks that are more consistent.

If you don't want to run an offense, come to the Big11Ten.

UNC is always an interesting program, as it seems to be constantly trying to remove itself from the basketball team's huge shadow. But the Tar Heels are apparently bringing in a highly-touted recruiting class, so maybe they can step up this year. They'll need to, as the Tar Heels must replace wide receivers Hakeem Nicks and Brandon Tate, both of whom were selected in the draft. We think it might take a while for returning QB T.J. Yates to get comfortable with the new receiving corp.

Now for Miami. Has any school fallen further faster than Miami, after having maybe one of the greatest teams of all time in 2001? Having gone to a school with a big-time program that also went through a rough patch, we feel the pain of Miami fans. But the rebuilding process has to be getting a little old in Coral Gables. The Canes should absolutely no problem recruiting top-end talent, given their respective locations. We're pretty sure that we could persuade a star high school player to go to Miami. Miami (and probably Florida State) should be at the top of this conference perennially. Perhaps it's just the stink of the rest of the conference that brings the Canes down.

Out of all the teams in the division, and probably the whole conference, we were probably most impressed with Georgia Tech last season. They employed their patented “no-passing-at-all-costs, super-high-octane-option-extraordinaire” offense last season to beat in-state rival Georgia for the first time in something like 50 years. Is the rushing attack always going to work? No, but at least this team knows what its good at and sticks to its guns. With reigning ACC player of the year returning after a 1400-yard rushing campaign, big things could be in store for the Yellow Jackets.

The Pick: We don't think much of Virginia or Duke either, so the pick is...

Atlantic Division- BC, Florida State, Maryland, Wake Forest, Clemson, NC State

On the other hand of the “pundits are always wrong” theory, a lot of writers are saying Boston College is in for a rough season, and we find it hard to argue. Their coach, Jeff Jagodzinski, got canned last year for interviewing with the Jets, they lost two defensive lineman (B.J. Raji and Ron Brace) to the NFL draft and the quarterback position is shaky at best. But what's a rough season in the ACC, 4-4 instead of 5-3?

Much of what we said about Miami in the Coastal preview could be repeated for Florida State. There are a lot of questions surrounding this program, especially with the NCAA trying to take wins away from Bobby Bowden. We imagine there are a lot of questions specifically about Bowden swirling around Tallahassee, much in the same way they were in State College in 2004. Bowden is still getting some top recruits, but they haven't translated to a lot of success on the field in recent years. Can QB Christian Ponder hold things together on offense? With FSU quarterbacks lately, you can never really tell, but Ponder will have five returning O-lineman to work behind.

Can this guy win the ACC? Eh, why not.

The rest of this division is sort of a toss-up.  Clemson and Wake Forest have both lost a ton of starters (Clemson lost 13 overall, including QB Cullen Harper and RB James Davis, Wake loses nine starters on defense) and might have a tough time at the start of the season.  Clemson also had a terrible offensive line last year, and even if they improve, we think the Tigers have too much to overcome.  As for Maryland, if we had one word to describe them, it would "meh".  Every season they seem to win a game they're supposed to lose, but they also lose a couple they seemingly should win.

If there's one dark-horse candidate in the division, it's NC State.  They have a blossoming star in sophomore QB Russell Wilson, who was the first freshman quarterback ever to be named first-team All-ACC, as he accounted for 21 TDs for the Wolfpack last season.  If Wilson and the rest of the team keep progressing, NC State will be right there with Florida State contending for the division title.

The pick: We love an underdog story...

In case you had forgotten, much like the SEC and Big 12, the ACC has a conference game.  This year's game will be held on December 5th at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, and the 2,500 or so fans in attendance will be treated to a hard-hitting battle between two league underdogs who battled through their respective schedules to finish 5-3 and win a bevy of tiebreakers.  And based on nothing but a gut feeling (this is a hypothetical game, afterall), we like the Wolfpack in this one.  We'll see you in the BCS, battling an equally boring opponent.

The champ:

Comments (0)

Name

Email

Website

Title

Comment

smaller | bigger

Subscribe via email (registered users only)

Add Comment