ACC teams have two years to gain respect

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Thu Jun 28 14:22:31 GMT-04:00 2012

The news that the power brokers in college football have finally agreed on a college football playoff has dominated the airwaves, headlines, message boards and chat rooms across the country this week.

Clemson fans haven’t been any different, and the major topic of discussion has been about where the ACC stands in the format that will begin in 2014, and by means of extension, what the news means for the Clemson Tigers.

Through late spring and early summer, Clemson fans have debated a potential move to the Big 12 and if such a move would be keep the Tigers in the forefront of national discussions. Many believed – and still believe – that staying in the Atlantic Coast Conference signals a death knell for the program’s national prominence.

However, ACC Commissioner John Swofford was a part of the committee - It was Swofford and SEC Commissioner Mike Slive that pushed for a plus-one format four years ago, only to be rejected - and it is now reasonably assured that the ACC is a part of the five conferences that stand to gain the most from the playoff – the SEC, the ACC, the Pac-12, the Big 12 and the Big 10. The big loser – at least at this point – appears to the Big East.

Many feared that the ACC would be left out of the National Championship discussions, but the conference will most certainly have – as we all have become so fond of saying – a “seat at the table.”

Swofford said that the conference gained ground with the announcement – but also said that the teams still have to produce on the field.

“What it does for the ACC is what it does for every team in our division,” Swofford said this week. “It gives four teams – rather than two – the opportunity to play on the field for the National Championship. So that access is there for all of us if you have a team that’s good enough.”

The problem has been that there hasn’t been a team that’s good enough over the last decade-plus.

In the history of the final BCS standings, the ACC has had two teams finish in the top five: No. 3 Virginia Tech (11-2) in 2007, and No. 2 Florida State in 2000.

I have written all of the above to finally get to a point – please bear with me – and that point is that the teams in the Atlantic Coast Conference now have a two-year window to become relevant nationally. You could almost call it a two-year audition, a chance to prove that the best teams in the conference belong in the national conversation.

It was announced that there will be a selection committee formed that will pick the four teams that will participate in the playoff, and no matter who is on that selection committee, things need to change for the teams in the conference - Horrific out of conference losses have to stop; Winning more BCS games in the final two years of that flawed system is a must; and the unfathomable losses to the weaker teams in the conference must end.

Clemson has a shot this year with out of conference games against Auburn and South Carolina that bookend the regular season. Florida St. had some scheduling issues and now has just one solid out of conference opponent – Florida.

We all know how much SEC schools like to chant their conference affiliation during sporting events, and we have even seen where some schools almost claim a conference member’s national championship as their own.

That practice has been ridiculed. It has been made fun of.

And now – GULP – the schools in the ACC need to do the same. No, not chanting “ACC” every chance they get, that practice is still ludicrous, but pulling for the other schools in the conference when they play out of the league. Last year, I was the biggest Oklahoma fan on the planet when the Sooners played at FSU. Heck, most Clemson fans I know don’t even pull for the ACC schools in the NCAA Tournament.

However, the schools within the conference all need each other to start doing well on the national stage. Florida St. needs for Clemson to beat South Carolina and Auburn this season. Clemson needs for Boston College to beat Notre Dame. ACC schools need to be very vocal in their support of N.C. State when they play Tennessee the night before Clemson plays Auburn in Atlanta. It would be nice to see Virginia knock off Penn St. and Duke knock off Stanford.

And finally, we all know that if teams want to make that four team playoff, they either need to be undefeated or have just one loss. And that one loss needs to be to another really good team. No more losses by 30 to a conference member that struggles to finish at .500. No more excuses. No more losses to FCS teams early in the season.

In order to find a one-loss team in the ACC, you have to go all the way back to Maryland in 2001. The ACC has gone an entire decade without producing a one-loss team heading into the bowl season, while the SEC has had 12 undefeated or one-loss teams during that span.

In short, Atlantic Coast Conference teams have two seasons to prove that being included in the discussions – having that seat at the table – was a wise move. That’s two short years to gain respect nationally, not only with the media but with whoever is going to be on that selection committee. And it starts in the first game of the season.