ACC coaches had to answer question after question at the conference’s media day about how far behind the ACC has fallen to the rest of the BCS conferences.
They gave the generic answers like “We just have to start winning big games,” and the rest of the usual coach-speak. But they didn’t mention how bad it has really gotten.
The numbers aren’t pretty. The league champion hasn’t won a bowl game since Florida State’s national championship win in 1999, and the ACC champion has been particularly dismal as of late.
Virginia Tech and Wake Forest lost games to Kansas and Louisville respectively in the past two Orange Bowls — teams that some fans questioned being BCS-eligible in the first place.
And when is the last time you remember an ACC team pushing for a national title? It’d have to be that same FSU team that won it all in 1999.
But in the past three seasons, no other conference has had as many NFL Draft picks as the ACC. So what gives?
College football has undertaken some monumental changes in the past few years. Besides the shenanigans of the BCS selection process each year, the style of successful teams has shifted.
Take a look at the SEC, the universally regarded top conference in football. Urban Meyer’s spread attack that he brought to Florida forced the SEC to evolve. The Gators won a national championship and forced the rest of the conference to develop the fastest defenses in the nation.
LSU’s Les Miles gladly accepted the challenge and put the country’s best and quickest defense on the field last year on the Tigers’ route to its own national championship.
One of last year’s biggest developments was the high-flying spread passing offenses of Missouri and Kansas — 2007’s biggest surprises. Both teams will ride experienced quarterbacks this season, expecting the same success this year on offense.
Mike Leach and the Texas Tech offense have been treated like a cute puppy for the past several years — fun to look at but nobody actually feared the Red Raiders. That will change this year with quarterback Graham Harrell and Michael Crabtree leading what could be the nation’s highest scoring offense.
Even in the usually backwards Big 10, upstart Illinois crashed the traditional Ohio State-Michigan party with its own spread attack. The Fighting Illini brought down Ohio State and earned themselves a trip to the Rose Bowl.
And in the Pac-10, Pete Carroll has instilled an atmosphere at USC unlike any other in college football. The now celebrity coach has produced such a fun-loving but disciplined environment that USC has its choice of recruits, consistently ranking as one of the most talented teams in the country.
The common theme in each of these conferences is a coach or set of teams that have broken from the mold of its conference and tried something new. Jim Grobe has found success with his option attack at Wake Forest, but the option can get a team only so far. Even still, Paul Johnson will look for similar success with his own option offense at Georgia Tech.
Though ACC coaches won’t admit it, it will take more than just a win or two over another conference for the ACC to assert itself once again. It will take a complete mindset change.
Take Tommy Tuberville and Auburn for instance. Tuberville, knowing the game has changed, hired Tony Franklin from Troy University, to instill the spread offense at Auburn.
“We were looking for a change,” Tuberville told SEC media in July.
It’s time for ACC coaches to do the same.
