The ACC shows the nation nothing

Wow! The ACC may be worse than originally feared. And gee, I thought the league would be lackluster at best. I may have overestimated.

Atlantic Coast Conference football is being blasted from coast to coast after week No. 1 of the season. And with good reason. Some national pundits are saying the ACC may not even be among the six best conferences in college football. What do you think? Could that be right?

It's only the first week, but it's not good when your alleged best team, the Clemson Tigers, get ripped on a neutral site by Alabama, the preseason pick for third in the SEC West. It was a statement game for the Tigers, but they rolled over for Alabama like a big ol’ lazy Persian cat. The Tide smacked Clemson in the face from the very outset, and all the Tigers could do was crumble like a summer sand castle. No fight at all offensively or defensively, sending the usually obnoxious Clemson fans quietly scurrying to an early exit.

"Let's see how we do at the end of the year," says Coach Tommy Bowden, a man who has lost a few key games in his day. "We played one game and it was a big game. We got a few big games left."

Yeah, but in preseason Clemson was talking national championship. That's way lost now. Even if they rip up on their less-than-admired ACC brethren the rest of the way, national respect is gone.

And if the Tigers didn't make the ACC look bad enough, how about Virginia Tech? The Hokies –the defending league champion and the pick to win the Coastal Division – got a taste of its own special-team medicine in losing to East Carolina 27-22. Granted that East Carolina's pretty good, but Virginia Tech showed the offensive imagination of a snail in losing a nine-point, fourth-quarter lead. Virginia Tech looked awful in both the running and passing games, and even their vaunted special teams game let them down when the Pirates blocked the punt to win the game. The Hokies preseason top-20 ranking was built on the past, not 2008.

Throw in powerful Southern California coming across country and humiliating Virginia 52-7 and N.C. State's 34-0 thrashing at the hands of South Carolina, and the ACC basically showed absolutely nothing against quality opponents. (Yes, I know Wake Forest won at Baylor, but the Bears are hardly quality and are picked to finish last in the Big 12 South.)

My pick to win the ACC's Coastal Division was Carolina. I sat in Kenan Stadium on Saturday night for what seemed like forever, and I didn't see a championship team hold off McNeese State 35-27. It took a record-setting, super-human 397 all-purpose yards from senior Brandon Tate to save the Tar Heels. I know McNeese State lost just one game last season, but they are indeed what is now known as a Football Championship Subdivision team (I still prefer 1-AA) – and if Carolina can't dominate them, how can they win the Coastal?

Coach Butch Davis sure wasn't impressed.

"We didn't accomplish very much offensively or defensively," said the second-year coach. "We didn't establish anything."

Oh, and the Coastal Division can be won because who the heck else is going to win it? If ever there was anything up for grabs, it is that division title.

To show just how bad it was this first week, the aerial team that UNC hired to parachute the game ball into Kenan Stadium somehow messed that up, landing instead in Durham at Duke's Wallace Wade Stadium. The startled players who were warming up scattered like the Martians were coming.

And speaking of Duke, hooray for the Devils. They actually won one. They actually won one at home, and they actually had a crowd over 30,000. Sure it was James Madison they beat, but I'm telling you that in years past, this was a game the Blue Duke's probably would have lost. It will take more than beating James Madison to convince me, but coach David Cutcliffe has given that program a spark and belief that has been long missing. He has brought hope to Duke football, and what is anything without hope? Now if they just don't mess it up Saturday against Northwestern, the one team they beat last year. ...

Oh, and here's a prediction: N.C. State over William & Mary. Enjoy, Pack fans. If the South Carolina game is any indication, it could be a long season.

But then again, it was only the first week. Having no super team could mean a super fight for the ACC title. Everybody could be involved, and that will be fun for us who follow the conference.