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The good news for the ACC? It will pick up its first victory over a Bowl Championship Series team tonight.
The bad news?
That’s only because conference foes Florida State and Miami are playing each other.
The Labor Day matchup of two traditional-but-now-treading-water powers will cap off a disastrous opening week for the conference, and there’s little doubt that the nationally televised game (8 p.m., ESPN) will at some point turn into an open discussion of the league’s struggles for all to hear.
Taken individually, the league’s losses in its first four games against BCS teams don’t seem like the end of the world: Virginia Tech losing a competitive game to a fellow top-10 team in Alabama; Maryland being blown out on the road by a borderline top-10 Cal team with revenge on its mind; and N.C. State and Wake Forest losing tight home games to moderately capable opponents from cream-of-the-crop conferences.
But put them all together, then throw in losses for Duke and Virginia to Football Championship Subdivision teams Richmond and William & Mary — two of the three losses suffered by FBS teams against FCS teams out of the nearly 40 played — and it’s too much to ignore.
The conference had nearly as rocky a start last season but bounced back to send a record 10 teams to bowls (all but aforementioned Duke and Virginia) and got an overdue BCS victory from Virginia Tech in the Orange Bowl.
Still, the moderately encouraging finish wasn’t enough to shake the perception cast early, even with a final mark of 37-11 in nonconference games and an (admittedly bogus) No. 1 ranking as a conference in the end-of-season Sagarin ratings.
In some ways, it’s a fine line between being blasted in the court of public opinion and simply being ignored. If Ohio State hadn’t broken up a Navy two-point conversion, Iowa hadn’t blocked two Northern Iowa field goals and Indiana hadn’t held on against Eastern Kentucky, the Big Ten could be in the crosshairs — especially if Virginia Tech had held on and N.C. State had caught just one of those passes in a pair of nationally televised games.
Based on how things went perception-wise following the ACC’s poor start a year ago, there’s only one thing that could possibly get the conference out of the hole it’s dug: the emergence of a legitimate national championship contender.
Georgia Tech could be that team, Virginia Tech possibly could bounce back and become that team, or maybe even the survivor of tonight’s Sunshine State showdown could put something together. And hey, North Carolina is 1-0.
But realistically, that’s asking a whole lot from a conference that doesn’t seem to have a whole lot to give — through one week, at least.
