Even amidst a poor performance (2-5 so far) in this year's bowl games, ACC football quietly is doing some positive things.

One big example: For one of the few times in its history, the league is attracting proven Division I-A coaches on the gridiron and retaining those who find a significant level of success.

“It’s a good sign,” ACC commissioner John Swofford said. “It’s what we like to see.”

Consider these developments from the past two months.

Clemson's Tommy Bowden, North Carolina's Butch Davis and Wake Forest's Jim Grobe all stayed in the ACC despite serious interest from Arkansas of the SEC. (Bowden and Grobe received very lucrative, public contract offers from the Razorbacks. Davis, an Arkansas alum, turned away inquiries from intermediaries during the 2007 season.) All three men also are examples of the ACC attracting candidates who had proven themselves as head coaches — Bowden at Tulane, Davis at Miami, Grobe at Ohio — prior to joining the conference.

More recently, some key assistant coaches chose to stay in the ACC rather than pursue big-money opportunities elsewhere. Clemson offensive coordinator Rob Spence turned away an inquiry from Tennessee. Florida State offensive coordinator Jimbo Fisher, recently named as Bobby Bowden's successor-in-waiting by FSU officials, reportedly turned down an offer to become the head coach at West Virginia.

It hasn't always been that way in the ACC. Mack Brown left UNC for Texas after taking the Tar Heels to back-to-back top-10 finishes in 1996-97. Bobby Ross left Georgia Tech for the NFL in 1992, just one season after leading the Yellow Jackets to a share of the national championship in 1990. Steve Spurrier left Duke for Florida after the Blue Devils earned a share of the ACC championship in 1989. There are other examples from previous years. Brown and Spurrier won national championships at their next stops.

Swofford has been a part of ACC football, in various capacities, since 1969. After almost four decades, first as a player and now as an administrator, he has a unique perspective on the sport in a 55-year-old league that’s known primarily for its basketball prowess.

“We’re proud of the fact that our league has become synonymous with basketball success, and that’s true with both the men and the women,” Swofford said. “We feel like we’re doing the right things in football to where we can reach a similar level of success in that sport as well.”

Just in the last seven seasons, the ACC has captured three national championships in men’s basketball — Duke in 2001, Maryland in 2002, and North Carolina in 2005. The league’s longer-term basketball track record, in terms of NCAA Tournament success and many other measuring sticks, overwhelms that of every other conference in the nation.

Football, to this point, has been a different story. ACC teams rarely finished in the top 10 nationally in the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s. The situation improved in the 1980s and again in the ‘90s, after perennial power FSU joined the league in 1992. Boston College, Miami and Virginia Tech added three more strong gridiron programs with the expansion of the conference in 2004-05.

Still, the ACC has not had a national champion in football since 1999, when FSU won. Unlike the other major conferences, it hasn’t had a team in the national championship game since 2000, when the Seminoles lost to Oklahoma. It also has never placed an at-large team in the Bowl Championship Series.

The continuing disparity between football and basketball has led to some common questions for Swofford, a quarterback and defensive back at North Carolina from 1969-71 and the athletic director at UNC from 1980-97.

Here’s one: Is the ACC trying harder in football now, more than at any other time in the history of the conference?

“I very much agree with that,” Swofford said. “It’s about commitment. That’s what it takes. Whether it be (attracting and retaining quality) coaches, whether it be (upgrading) facilities, that commitment is there.”

Here’s another: Will ACC football ever catch up to ACC basketball?

“We’ve had that tremendous national competitiveness and quality depth in men’s basketball for a long, long time, and still have it and hopefully always will have it,” Swofford said. “The commitment hasn’t wavered at all toward the sport of basketball at our schools throughout the conference. I think we’ve got that opportunity and potential in football now to do the same thing.”

Over the last decade, virtually every ACC school has made significant improvements to its football stadium and/or facilities. Meanwhile, more programs — even traditional cellar-dwellers Duke and Wake Forest — are spending more money to secure and then retain proven coaches.

After the failed tenures of Carl Franks and Ted Roof, first-time head coaches asked to take over one of the most difficult jobs in college football, Duke recently hired former Mississippi coach David Cutcliffe. In six seasons with the Rebels, Cutcliffe posted a 44-29 record and went to five bowl games.

The Blue Devils agreed to pay Cutcliffe an average of $1.3-$1.5 million per year. The latter number is about three times the amount Duke has ever paid its football coach. Multiple sources in the college coaching community said the school also gave Cutcliffe a very large pool of cash to build his staff.

Wake Forest found Grobe, who had turned around a horrible Ohio program in the late 1990s, in time for the 2001 season. As Grobe has emerged as the best football coach in Wake history, the school has kept him happy enough — financially and otherwise — that he’s turned down inquiries from Baylor, Nebraska and Arkansas, among many others. Most recently, Grobe rejected an offer worth more than $2 million per year from the Razorbacks.

The ACC still has a long way to go in football. But it is attracting and retaining proven coaches — see Georgia Tech (Paul Johnson from Navy) and N.C. State (Tom O'Brien from BC) for other recent examples — rather than losing them.

Amidst some bad signs, that's a very good one.

Coming Next: ACC Football, The Bad News