College football's regular season is only one-third complete, but the ACC already is running out of time to make a positive impression.

Just two weeks into the 2007 season, the ACC was in damage-control mode — again. Many of the scores in non-conference games were downright embarrassing.

Louisiana State 48, Virginia Tech 7. Oklahoma 51, Miami 13. Wyoming 23, Virginia 3. Connecticut 45, Duke 14.

Through four weeks, the ACC was 4-6 against the other five BCS conferences, plus Notre Dame. The wins: Duke (Northwestern), Florida State (Colorado), Georgia Tech (Notre Dame) and Miami (Texas A&M). The losses: Wake Forest (Nebraska), Virginia Tech (LSU), Miami (Oklahoma), Maryland (West Virginia), Duke (UConn) and UNC (South Florida).

Unless the ACC can add a couple of important items to its resume, its football image in the post-expansion era will continue to be one of style over substance.

1. A national title contender.

Florida State filled this role for the ACC from its first season (1992) in the league through one year beyond its national championship in 1999. The 2000 Seminoles were the last in an amazing run of 14 consecutive FSU teams that finished with top-five national rankings.

Since then, Virginia Tech has been the only ACC team to finish in the top 10 of the final Associated Press poll. The Hokies were No. 10 in 2004 and No. 7 in 2005. Tech again was expected to be the class of the ACC this fall, but the Hokies were annihilated at LSU.

That result begged the obvious question: If the best team in the ACC loses by 41 points, even to an outstanding opponent, how good could the league possibly be?

The ACC has not been in the national title picture in November or December since 2000. That’s an extremely long drought for one of the six leagues with a guaranteed slot in the lucrative BCS.

“What we haven’t had is a team in the national championship game," ACC commissioner John Swofford said recently. "That helps perception more than anything else.”

Boston College and Clemson have impressive 4-0 starts this fall, so perhaps there is another Wake Forest-like dream season brewing. But Virginia Tech’s ugly loss to LSU likely left the Hokies with an impossible climb, and traditional powers FSU and Miami have fallen on hard times.

2. More BCS-level victories.

Everyone agrees that this is one fair way to compare conferences. Sometimes the details are important, but generally speaking even the raw BCS-vs.-BCS data says something — good or bad — about everyone, every year.

“Any time you play outside the conference, it gives you an idea of how you stack up nationally,” Georgia Tech coach Chan Gailey said. “It’s always important to play well in those out-of-conference games because we seem to beat each other up in the conference.”

Unfortunately for the ACC, the numbers haven’t been very pretty lately. Here are the non-conference BCS records of the six BCS leagues from the 2006 regular season: SEC 10-6, Big East 11-7, Big Ten 7-7, Pac-10 6-7, Big 12 3-8 and ACC 4-12. In all-time BCS bowls, the ACC is an equally disappointing 1-8, again the worst record among the major conferences.

“I don’t think you can (judge) it on one weekend, or one year, even,” Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer said. “Year-in and year-out, you kind of look, and I firmly believe, from what I know about the ACC — if  you look at it over the long haul — this is a great league, a quality league. We’ll get our share of wins.”

There are more chances at redemption this weekend, when Maryland travels to Rutgers, and Florida State battles Alabama in Jacksonville, Fla. There are a few more opportunities down the road. On Nov. 24, to close the regular season, Clemson will visit South Carolina, Georgia Tech will host Georgia, and Florida State will travel to Florida.

Clearly, though, the clock is ticking.