quo vadis
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RE: Institutional and Sports culture in the ACC
(04-05-2018 08:58 AM)Hokie Mark Wrote: (04-05-2018 08:25 AM)quo vadis Wrote: (04-05-2018 07:46 AM)OrangeDude Wrote: In response to the first bolded statement, I agree with it, mostly. The ACC was never a powerhouse football conference throughout its history. Doesn't mean it won't be in the future. The pieces are now there with FSU, Clemson, Miami, VT, Louisville, and GT to get there.
I agree with this. I think that the ACC FrankenMonster is in excellent football shape, better than it ever has been.
Historically, from the 1950s through the 1980s, the ACC was pretty weak in football, with Maryland or Clemson occasionally having a nationally relevant team. Once FSU joined, FSU continued to be a national power, but the ACC was FSU and the 11 (or however many) dwarves.
But as you say, the pieces are now all in place, and we got a taste of that in 2016, when the ACC was the best football conference, maybe for the first time ever, with 9 bowl wins including the national title.
Even this past year, a disappointing bowl season masked what was still a good overall year for the ACC, with Clemson and Miami ranked in the top 10 all year, and VT and NC State also ranked. And that's a year when FSU was no good, which isn't likely to happen in the future much.
Beyond the top, though, the ACC's bottom has also improved. In my lifetime, i don't ever think that Wake, Duke, and UVA have ever been collectively better.
The ACC does have all the pieces in place to be one of the top 3 football conferences, sky is the limit.
The ACC is likely to be the MOST consistent Power conference in terms of being top 3 on the field/court in football and basketball over the next 10-15 years.
You were ALMOST complimentary... but for the "Frankenmonster" name-calling. Look, no one I know is saying the ACC is the most well-blended conference or anything like that, but it isn't as bad a fit as you seem to think, nor is it just a bunch of Big East teams grafted onto the old ACC tree. There are historical linkages which go back much further.
Before the ACC was ever formed, all of it's founding members were in the Southern Conference -- PLUS Virginia Tech (and WVU for that matter). Prior to the SEC splitting off of that same source, all SEC and all ACC founding members were together -- and that included Georgia Tech.
Beside the ACC and Big East, there was the old Metro Conference. It's members included Georgia Tech, Florida State, Virginia Tech and Louisville.
I remember the old metro conference, USF was a part of one iteration of it, we were in it with VT for a few years. It too was a frankenmonster, LOL. Though not much of a monster. It was 7-8 athletic programs that had one thing in common - we didn't fit anywhere else so needed each other. All over the southern map, rimming it, like the AAC is these days. That's not to say the hoops competition wasn't fun, it was.
The ACC is a grafted together monster. It's like that Star Trek movie, the first one that sucks, where they find out that the tiny probe from 20 years earlier is now this immense machine because it floated around the universe picking up pieces of things and adding them to itself. It's a productive of selective adaptation over the past 25 years, as the Carolina core has moved to appease the Football Gods, Television, and the constant pressure from the SEC to the south and the Big East (now B1G) to the north. It's one proactive move was to slay the Big East, which hemmed it in to the north.
You don't feel it so much because your school, VT, truly is at home in the ACC. You're part of that Carolina-Virginia core. It's where you have always felt you belonged - thank God for that governor who strong-armed the ACC into taking you.
But for the FSUs and BCs, the ACC is just a safe portage, a Power place for them to hang out in.
Like i said, in terms of competition, the ACC has never been stronger. Frankenstein was pretty damn strong! Had the PAC succeeded in taking all those Texas schools back in 2011, it would be a grafted monster, and damn strong too.
The ACC will regularly win national titles in hoops and football, heck it's already doing that. The other day we were talking about how the Big 12 hasn't won a hoops title in 10 years or a football title in 12 years. For the ACC, those 'streaks' of not winning are ... 1 year for both! It has all the pieces.
Even though they are welded together with bolts, bailing wire, and duck tape.
(This post was last modified: 04-05-2018 09:17 AM by quo vadis.)
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