More or Less, ACC Lags Behind in Football

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IT WASN'T SUPPOSED to be this way for the ACC.

Three years after completing its expansion to improve its football reputation, there is only one ACC team in this week's AP top 25.

Raise your hand if you thought Wake Forest was the best team in the conference.

OK, No. 20 Wake may not be the ACC's best at year's end, but the league is a dud so far.

What else is new? Clemson's being steamrolled by Alabama in week 1 just falls in line with a sad record against opposing conference's top teams.

How about BCS bowls? The league is a paltry 1-9 all-time — counting a Florida State win over Virginia Tech, then of the Big East.

Tech, a known offender for stinking in bowl games, joined the ACC in 2004 with Miami. Boston College followed a year later.

The idea was the infusion of good teams would lift the mediocre teams and re-energize formerly dominant Florida State. No such luck.

Miami, oh so close to a second straight BCS title in 2002, hasn't won more than six games in three years. Tech has been its solid if unspectacular self, as has BC, which desperately misses Matt Ryan this year.

Meanwhile, Maryland can't beat Middle Tennessee State, and Virginia can't even stay competitive versus USC.

Some of this is cyclical. Miami and Florida State may rise soon. For now, though, the ACC is still very much a basketball conference.

Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images