The ACC: Week 5

[Wander]

A year ago, the ACC won the national title AND won a second BCS bowls -- something that had only been done once before in the BCS era.

The SEC won the title and another BCS bowl in 2007, 2008, and 2010.

So yes, I do believe what we're seeing is a "sudden weakness." The ACC may or may not have been a weakly 5-6 years ago (even 3-4 years ago), but last year it was a giant and through the early part of this year, it looked good. The last two weeks are a big -- and sudden -- dropoff.

It depends on what scale we're talking about "very good" and "weak." If we're comparing the ACC to all college football conferences, then sure, it's rarely if ever been worse than a non-power conference, which is something that does occasionally happen to say the SEC in basketball. I think most people are implicitly making comparisons to the SEC, Big 12, Pac 12, and Big 10 though (of course the Big East was once a BCS conference too). Even last year, which you rightly point out as the ACC's best year in a long time, the conference was much worse than the SEC and the Pac 12, and arguably a little worse than the Big 12. So the ACC's best year is 3rd or 4th amongst the 5 that people are usually interested in talking about... every other year it's 4th or 5th out of these 5. Maybe it's not a fair to just judge the conference in comparison to those other 4, but on that scale the past two weeks are pretty par for the course for the ACC.

[YmoBeThere]

I will confess I am biased as my other alma mater is in the SEC and had a good couple year run...but it appears that they are dropping back down again as a large turnover in players(only 11 returning starters) and a departed coach(along with some recruiting commitments) shift the makeup of the team. As part of the SEC, I do use that shield at times in the conference discussions. The more distressing thing was this weekend's loss to the that team from the Bluegrass State. A team we had defeated handily the prior 3 meetings. So, I would definitely agree with Wander that the scope of comparison are the Power 5 conferences. I don't think OF suggested otherwise, but the point bears emphasis in any analysis.

[Wander]

I will confess I am biased as my other alma mater is in the SEC and had a good couple year run...but it appears that they are dropping back down again as a large turnover in players(only 11 returning starters) and a departed coach(along with some recruiting commitments) shift the makeup of the team. As part of the SEC, I do use that shield at times in the conference discussions. The more distressing thing was this weekend's loss to the that team from the Bluegrass State. A team we had defeated handily the prior 3 meetings. So, I would definitely agree with Wander that the scope of comparison are the Power 5 conferences. I don't think OF suggested otherwise, but the point bears emphasis in any analysis.

I didn't realize how long a losing streak Kentucky had in the SEC. Eek.

[YmoBeThere]

I didn't realize how long a losing streak Kentucky had in the SEC. Eek.

I certainly wish they would not have "busted their slump" against us(Vandy).