Chuck Amato was in his first year as head coach at N.C. State. Accustomed to life in Tallahassee, the longtime Florida State assistant expected football to be at the center of the Triangle media universe. In fact, the advent of the 2000 ACC season was greeted with heavy coverage. But, much to Amato’s dismay, a basketball recruiting story insinuated itself prominently into the mix of August stories.

“Why can’t it be time for football?” Amato complained. “Why do all the stories have to be back there in the back section of the newspaper?”

Well, it's time for football again. We are primed to learn if much has really changed for local ACC programs, if “prosperity is just around the corner,” as President Herbert Hoover declared in 1932. (Erroneously, it turned out.)

Media coverage has been supportive -- dutiful, plentiful, and largely worshipful. Just the way Amato liked it. We’ve been treated to the obligatory stories of players shifted from offense to defense, or vice versa; the unsung upperclassman suddenly thrust to the fore; the rookie getting his big chance. We’ve seen an updated version of that hoariest of football photos: looking upward at our hero from ground level, suggesting a giant posed against the backdrop of stadium and limitless sky.

The air of optimism is not unfounded. One Triangle program, North Carolina, appears poised on the brink of success, a contender with Virginia Tech for the top spot in the ACC’s Coastal Division. Another Triangle team, Duke, basks in the hope-filled glow only a coaching change can provide. The third, N.C. State, promises much, but on a trajectory lengthened by an ongoing parade of injuries similar to that once suffered by Wolfpack basketball under Herb Sendek.

Oops. There we go again, digressing to that other sport.

Don’t look for the Triangle’s ACC football trio to barge into bowl contention en masse. The only year all three went to bowl games was 1994; even with 68 bowl berths available this season, the chances are remote each will win enough games to qualify (6 of 12). Duke and N.C. State are in fact projected to finish last in their respective divisions.

There have only been 11 years in which a pair of Triangle schools went to bowls, most recently in 2001, John Bunting’s first season at UNC and Amato’s second of seven at N.C. State. Meanwhile, there were 19 seasons in which no area ACC school got a bowl bid.

Football teams winning more than they lose isn’t all that common in our neighborhood, either. All three programs posted winning marks in 1957, 1963, 1974, 1982, and 1994. That ’94 season was the last in which the Blue Devils finished in the black. There were 11 years in which none of the Triangle football teams were winners, including last season. In fact, over the last four years the locals managed a single winning mark, 7-5 under Amato in 2005.

We probably shouldn’t mention this, but there’s never been an ACC men’s basketball season in which the Blue Devils, Tar Heels, and Wolfpack all suffered losing records. Just once in the ACC’s first 55 years were a pair of Triangle men’s teams overall losers in the same season (Duke and N.C. State in 1995).

As for postseason, since 1975, when the NCAA tournament started allowing multiple entrants from the same conference, two or more Triangle men’s teams were in the field 29 of 34 times. They’ve never been entirely shut out in that modern era, and on 10 occasions all three basketball squads got NCAA bids, most recently from 2004 through 2006.

Then there are those nine national basketball titles captured by UNC (4), Duke (3), and N.C. State (2), compared to one for the remainder of the ACC. Football around here? Not yet.

Sadly, despite plenty of spending on facilities, particularly at Raleigh and Chapel Hill, the failure to enter wholeheartedly into the athletics arms race has hurt area competitiveness at college football’s highest level. This is not necessarily a bad thing, considering how far spectacle and entertainment are from the supposed role of institutions of higher learning. Yet it simply may not be possible to match strides with the likes of Florida State, Miami, or Virginia Tech without pouring money into football.

ACC expansion in 2004 made this largely a moot point. That’s why half of the conference’s coaches were replaced in the last two years, and why even Duke has finally decided to play ball at whatever cost.

Remarkably, this is the first season since 1989 in which all three Triangle schools actually boast head coaches who successfully ran programs prior to arrival – State’s Tom O’Brien at Boston College, UNC’s Butch Davis at Miami, and Duke’s David Cutcliffe at Ole Miss. More often than not, modern athletic directors at those schools gave first chances to career assistants, a cheaper but riskier solution that produced modest results.

Cutcliffe, the newest transplant, will surely benefit from an inherited smattering of gifted skill players, including a sterling pass-catch duo of Thaddeus Lewis and Eron Riley. Duke’s schedule generously provides four consecutive home games to open the season, five in the first six. A pair of early open dates are mixed in, providing time to lick wounds and make adjustments. Gaining a quick dose of confidence could work wonders for the Devils, at least in the short run.

O’Brien is a steady sort, a builder of attitudes and habits. He may be impatient in pursuit of perfection, but he knows better than to hurry. Yet the second-year Wolfpack leader is sufficiently bold to take a plunge into the unknown with 5-11 redshirt freshman Russell Wilson. Prior to the season, a freshman was expected to win the quarterback job, but it was 6-6 Mike Glennon, whose brother starts for the Hokies.

Last season Tar Heel fans watched a redshirt freshman, T.J. Yates, operate at quarterback. The results were both encouraging and confounding. Yates threw for 14 touchdowns and a school-record 2,655 yards, but suffered 18 interceptions, hampered in part by an injury to his throwing shoulder.

Worse, the Heels finished 4-8; six losses came by a touchdown or less, double the number for any other ACC program. Through it all, the team demonstrated considerable athleticism and growing élan, and so enters this season tested and confident.

“I think that coming out with the expectations we have for ourselves, and that you guys have set for us,” senior linebacker Mark Paschal told media members this week, “I think that that’s a good boost, especially for younger guys that don’t quite understand the whole feeling of not being appreciated, and not having that sense where we’re expected to win. I think that that expectation is going to prove very valuable for us.”

A few moments later, Paschal beat a verbal retreat, downplaying any role expactations might play in North Carolina's season. When it comes to athletic etiquette, it's nice to know some things don't change.