Yesterday Patrick Hite at ACC Nation wrote a column about the ACC's perception throughout the country. For once someone wasn't trying to tear down the ACC or trying to defend it. The column had a very different purpose.

"The conference will never be a consistent threat to win a national title and I’m OK with that," wrote Hite. "Teams should embrace an ACC title and, if things fall into place they may earn a shot at a national championship. If things don’t fall into place, which happens more often than not, the ACC title is still pretty special."

I was caught of guard by this a little bit and had to stop and think about it. Should I just enjoy the ACC schedule and the possibilty of an ACC Championship and not worry about the rest of the nation and what they think?

Hite is absolutely right about how special an ACC Championship is. Wake fans only have to look back two years to remember, and I know that no one really cares that the rest of the country called it a down year in the ACC.

Still, it's frustrating to watch ACC football week-in and week-out and not feel like it gets the credit it deserves. There are a lot of talented teams and just because Florida State and Miami aren't the best schools in the conference right now doesn't mean the conference is awful as a whole.

I think I both agree and disagree with Hite's point at the same time.

I agree that an ACC Championship is special no matter what the conference looks like that year. If you listen to most players and coaches at the begining of the season they aren't talking about how they want to win a National Championship, they're talking about how they want to win the conference.

Ultimately, though, it is impossible for me to not want to come to the ACC's defense becaues I don't think the rest of the nation's criticism of the ACC is fair. All I ever hear is that the ACC can't be good because Miami and FSU aren't good. Why do those schools have to be the best schools in the conference? How long until it isn't a sign of a weak conference to have Wake Forest or Boston College be one of the best teams?

I love ACC football; it's fun to watch, fun to cover, and there is some great talent. If I thought the ACC was significantly worse than the other BCS conferences then criticism from others wouldn't bother me, but because I find the criticisms of the ACC unfair, I can't help but be annoyed by it.

Obviously it wouldn't hurt for the conference to win a few more bowl games, too. But is that all it's going to take? A national title? Even just a BCS win? Let me know what you think.

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I'm guessing this will be the last post to talk about Skip Prosser for awhile, but this video from MyFox WGHP from the Quad at midnight is a must see for any Wake fan. It's great to see what went on, plus it's a well edited piece. The bells at the end had me tearing up. Over at ESPN.com Andy Katz talks about Skip, Dino Gaudio, and the program as a whole one year later.

Speaking of ESPN, ACC bowl projections from Heather Dinnich - Wake to the Gator Bowl, which sounds about right if there's no ACC Championship game for the Deacs. Hopefully there is...

ACC coaches rankings with Grobe at the top, although I'm not sure I'm in too much agreement with the list as a whole.

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Late last night Kansas State pulled off a historical upset over previously undefeated Kansas. K State, who had lost 24 straight games to Kansas on their home floor prior to last night, finally broke that streak and improved to a perfect 5-0 in the Big 12.

Highly touted freshman Michael Beasley, who scored a game high 24 points and made all four of his 3-point attempts, was the biggest star of the game. There is no doubt that Beasley will make a very good NBA player, most likely sooner rather than later.

Birkel from ACC BasketBlog saw the game as well and made a very interesting observation. He says that future 5-star recruits should learn from Beasley’s example. For top recruits, “if you go somewhere where not much is expected and the overall competition in a conference is decent but not great, you can become a legend.”

It is an interesting and compelling argument, and although there is certainly some support for it, I’m not entirely convinced. Beasley is a pretty good example, and currently O.J. Mayo at USC might be another who could fall into this category, but would these guys be incapable of making a splash at an ACC school other than Duke or Carolina?

Assuming Boston College loses tonight there are seven three-loss teams in the ACC all essentially tied for third place behind Duke and Carolina. The way I see things, if Michael Beasley was on one of those seven teams then that team would likely be the best team in the conference.

If this season continues the way it has for Kansas State Beasley will be a hero in Manhattan, Kansas for many years to come, but I don’t see why he couldn’t do the exact same thing in Blacksburg, Virginia or Clemson, South Carolina.

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Criticism of the Atlantic Coast Conference has been rampant the last couple of days in response to Virginia Tech’s loss to Kansas which marked the seventh straight loss of an ACC representative in the Orange Bowl. But is this criticism deserved?

Overall records for ACC teams have been almost identical to records of the other major conferences. This year, for example (and these records include bowl games), the ACC had two teams win 10 or more games and three more that won nine. Only the Big 12 and SEC had more than two teams with 10 wins and every BCS conference had exactly five teams with nine or more wins, except for the Big East with four. On the other end of the spectrum every BCS conference has one team with three or fewer wins except for the Big 12 with two and the Pac-10 with none.

Certainly those numbers indicate the ACC isn’t significantly better or worse than any other BCS conference. Since the expansion to 12 teams in 2005 the ACC has ranked second, fourth, and this season fifth (pre-bowls, so it will probably end up sixth with the abysmal bowl record) in the Sagarin conference rankings. The top teams in the conference may not often finish in the top five like the top teams in other conferences, but to finish that highly in the Sagarin the ACC has to have strong teams finishing in the middle of the conference. The ACC has obviously been in decline, but to say “You’d be hard pressed to prove that [any BCS conference] comes close” to being worse than the ACC seems like a stretch.

If the primary reasons for saying the ACC is so awful are its bowl records the last few years then I have a question: Why do people put so much stock in the bowls? I understand the temptation to ascribe them great importance; they are games played against a good (or at least above average) opponent from another conference—something most teams haven’t had since September—so they should be a good measuring stick for comparing teams.

But if bowl games are really so important then Oklahoma is one of the worst football programs in the nation, having lost four straight BCS bowl games (two Fiestas, one Sugar, and one Orange). Yet no one says Oklahoma is a bad football program, so why would anyone say the ACC is a bad football conference? Notre Dame hasn’t won a bowl game since the 1993 Cotton Bowl but until this awful season no one would call it a bad program.

Bowl games are not good measures of teams or conferences. Really they’re just glorified exhibition games. No other major sport, either amateur or professional, requires teams to take a month off before playing their most important game of the season. After such a long break the rust is obvious; consider the numerous penalties, mistakes, and “what the heck was that?” type of plays seen in these games. The only way for this to change is to play the games closer to the end of the season. The obvious solution is a playoff, but that dead horse needs no more beating right now.

If, back on December 9 (or 16th if you prefer), the nine Big East teams had been matched up against the top nine ACC teams the ACC would have won at least six of the games. West Virginia would beat Virginia Tech, UConn vs Boston College would be a good game and maybe the Big East steals one or two others. How can anyone say the Big East would fare any better than that? Against other conferences the ACC probably loses more than they win or maybe splits, but that still doesn’t make it the worst conference in the nation.

West Virginia was certainly a great football team this season, but they beat Big East co-champion UConn 66-21 the last week of the season. How is that an indication of a strong conference?

It would be foolish for me to argue that the ACC is the best there is. Clearly the conference has struggled recently with the demise of Miami and Florida State, but that doesn't mean it doesn't deserve to go to a BCS bowl. Last season Wake led Lousiville 13-10 with 13 minutes left in the game. The year before that it took Penn State three overtimes to beat Florida State by three. This season Virginia Tech only lost by three as well, so it isn't like the ACC is consistently being blown out in these games.

Even for all of its bowl losses the ACC is not a bad conference and its regular season numbers prove it. I'm confident that no team in the nation goes in to a BCS bowl (or any other bowl for that matter) against an ACC team expecting to waltz out with an easy victory. It's too strong of a conference for that.

Your Turn
Do you think bowl records should make or break the reputation of a conference to the extent that they do? Just how strong is the ACC? Let me know so we can discuss it.

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Could a bye week have come at a better time? With all the upsets on Saturday I'm pretty glad we don't have to play Duke until next week. Considering our track record against them, and how unpredictable yesterday turned out to be, the bye appears to have come at a good time (not to mention the time it gives Riley, etc).

Kudos to South Florida, Colorado, Auburn, Kansas State, Maryland, Georgia Tech, Illinois, and Florida State; all of whom upset teams in the top 25. I don't know the last time that many teams were upset, but I'm guessing it's pretty rare.

Particular congratulations to Maryland and Florida State for representing the conference well against solid opponents from BCS conferences. Maryland's victory has to make you feel even better about last weeks win, and FSU's win makes me even more excited but nervous about their trip to Winston.

I had some other stuff going on this weekend and did not get to catch much on TV besides Auburn upsetting Florida and a little bit of the Falcons/Texans game this afternoon (yuck), but overall it seems to have been a pretty exciting sports weekend. Hopefully the Deacs got well rested and are prepared to take care of business next weekend!

I'm not going to spend any significant time on these, but CSTV posted a couple of articles this weekend about our field hockey and volleyball teams, and Monday's Journal has an article about women's soccer tying Virginia on Sunday.

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