How the ACC overtook the SEC

[Hedgerunner]

The ACC struck out the last time it seriously made noise to compete in football with the SEC. Knowing football money dictates how economics work in college sports, ACC commissioner John Swofford expanded in 2004-05 to add Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College.

This was a period when the ACC split 36 games against SEC, which was saddled with several NCAA probations, from 1999 to 2003. Arguments got made by coaches and in the media that the ACC had surpassed the SEC and better positioned than its neighbor for the future due to expansion. Florida State's Bobby Bowden even bragged in 2004 that, by adding Miami, "The state of Florida is going to learn about the ACC" and "the stepbrother is down in Gainesville."

Yeah, that didn't happen. The SEC won seven straight national titles with Alabama, Florida, LSU and Auburn. The ACC, which has won only seven football national titles in its history, went 14 years without winning one during its longest drought since 1953-81.

Fast forward to today. The ACC -- not the Big Ten, as I wrote earlier this year -- turned out to be the best conference in 2016 thanks largely to coaches and quarterbacks. The question now: Is the ACC better positioned to sustain success than the last time it surpassed the SEC in football?

"Now we just need to continue that upward trajectory of staying there, and that's hard to do," Swofford said. "But to stay there, you have to get there first."

What changed is Clemson and Florida State became elite at the same time. Dabo Swinney and Jimbo Fisher, two former SEC assistants, brought an SEC mentality to the ACC that upped the ante. Fisher said no to LSU in consecutive years, and Swinney doesn't face his potential Alabama question yet.

At the moment, the SEC is Alabama and Everyone Else. This season was the first in SEC history in which only one team (Alabama) finished with fewer than four losses.

For the first time since 2002, only one SEC team finished in the final top 10 of the AP Top 25. The SEC had five final top-10 teams combined from 2014-16, down from 13 in the previous three seasons.

 

[gocds]

I think you either left out or simply ignored the impact that adding the University of Louisville to the ACC. UofL has been a very positive addition to the ACC and has proved it's worth in the over taking of the $ec as the premiere P5 football conference in the USA. The addition of UofL also stabilized the ACC by giving FSU and Clemson a great reason to ignore calls from the $ec and Big12 as those two schools realized what the value of UofL truly is.

GO CARDS - BEAT EVERYBODY!!! God Bless America!!!

 

[genghis_card]

The article above does not leave out or ignore UofL at all. Hedgerunner copied and pasted only part of it. The entire article does mention Louisville several times, not in a glowing fashion, but we're in the conversation. Had we finished 2016 well that would have changed everything.

Here is the link: http://www.cbssports.com/college-fo...hes-quarterbacks-to-overtake-the-sec-in-2016/

 

[gocds]

The article above does not leave out or ignore UofL at all. Hedgerunner copied and pasted only part of it. The entire article does mention Louisville several times, not in a glowing fashion, but we're in the conversation. Had we finished 2016 well that would have changed everything.

Here is the link: http://www.cbssports.com/college-fo...hes-quarterbacks-to-overtake-the-sec-in-2016/

genghis did I miss something or DID the original OP mention the University of Louisville AT ALL. No it didn't. And after pulling up the article from your post I didn't see a lot of negativity toward UofL. Yep it could have ended better but it did end pretty well overall for the ACC/UofL.

GO CARDS - BEAT EVERYBODY!!! God Bless America!!!

 

[marshall_dillon]

People have been predicting that the ACC would surpass the SEC ever since FSU joined the ACC in 1991. It didn't happen - and keep in mind the SEC was no great shakes in the 1990s with just Alabama, Florida and Tennessee winning titles ... even if 2 of those titles were against FSU with the third against Miami - but soon it died out. Then it was supposed to happen again when Miami, Virginia Tech, Syracuse and BC joined. Except that the 'Canes, VT and Syracuse promptly went out and had their worst stretches in decades - from which Syracuse still hasn't recovered - and BC hasn't been able to keep a coach for more than 4-5 years since then.

Right now, yes, the ACC is better than the SEC. Big deal when Alabama was the only team in the SEC to lose fewer than 4 games. Which means that the ACC surpassing the SEC was less a matter of the ACC getting better than it was the SEC getting a lot worse, as bad as it was when Spurrier was embarrassing the SEC in the 1990s, or during the brief period in the early 00s when it looked like Richt and UGA were going to become the class of the conference before Saban exposed him as a fraud in 2003. What is going on in the SEC: UGA and LSU allowed Richt and Miles to hang around too long, Florida and Auburn have glorified OCs who are great at Xs and Os but can't recruit or run programs in McElwain and Malzahn, Tennessee has hired 2 bad coaches in a row, and Texas A&M and Mizzou are having the issues transitioning from the Big 12 to a deeper, more talented league that everyone predicted they would. This won't last. Richt, Miles and the Mizzou coach have already been replaced. Malzahn and the A&M coach will be replaced after this season, and McElwain will be replaced after 2018, and the Tennessee coach - who only saved his job by beating UGA and UF this year - will be by then also. Not all their replacements will be good, but really only 2-3 of those hires "need" to pan out, which means that the new coaches at UGA and LSU may be enough already.

To give an example of how hollow the accomplishment of being better than the SEC this year is: the 2013 ACC and 2014 ACC were better than the 2016 ACC! In 2013, FSU went 14-0 and had the Heisman winner. Clemson went 11-2, losing only to FSU and #10 South Carolina, and beat Ohio State in the Orange Bowl. Duke went 10-4 and Miami went 9-4 (losses were to FSU, Duke, VT in Blacksburg, 12-1 Louisville). 2014 didn't have individual teams as strong as FSU and Clemson but there was more depth: FSU, Clemson, Louisville, Georgia Tech and Duke all won 9 games. Tech HAMMERED Mississippi State and Dak Prescott in the Orange Bowl, Clemson crushed Oklahoma in the Russell Athletics Bowl.

Basically, in order for the ACC to maintain their superiority: A) FSU and Clemson have to maintain their current excellence ... and truthfully both teams have to play up to their talent on defense. B) Miami, Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech have to play better to form the next tier. If not them, then someone from amongst Pitt, Syracuse and the North Carolina schools. (But it would honestly be better if it were Miami and the two Techs because those are the schools that have the ability to maintain a football tradition. Well maybe not Tech since Johnson is there running that offense and not even trying to be competitive in recruiting, so let's swap them out for Syracuse or Pitt.). I am a believer in Virginia Tech since it appears that they have the guy who was really behind TCU's great run in Fuente. But Miami? Please. Like Mark Richt is going to do any better there than he did at UGA, where he had an entire state to himself, a much larger alumni base, and much better support in terms of facilities and resources. Despite their spurts of success in the 80s, 90s and 00s, Miami is actually the worst job of the big 3 in Florida by far. The alumni base is small ... and half of it is based in the northeast. And they can't spend anywhere near enough to keep up with the big state programs. The fan base? Prefers the beach. They are no longer able to keep the best south Florida talent at home, and the advantage that they used to have running pro style schemes has long evaporated. They might actually be better off with the spread, but anyone who even speaks of such things in Coral Gables would get fired in 5 minutes. Not saying that it is impossible to win big at Miami, just that you would have to be a Saban or Meyer (or at least a Dabo!) to do so and Richt isn't that guy ... if he was he would have won 2 or 3 titles at UGA and would either still be there or in the NFL.

Not saying that it can't happen. But rather, the chances of some 2 or 3 from among Florida/Tennessee/UGA/Auburn/Texas A&M/LSU getting their heads screwed on right at the same time is more likely.

 

[Mayoman]

Wow, a lotta words for nothing but excuses and sour grapes.

The ACC has already hired the coaches that will continue the upward movement of the ACC.....the SEC will be chasing that tail going round and round for the forseeable future.

I know it is hard for an SEC follower to grasp or admit inferior status.....time to get used to it.