There was this old joke about ACC football, and, well, I don't remember exactly how it goes, but this was the punch line: ACC football.
You ACC grads, remember when autumn meant sweaters, leaves and turning your class ring face down? It's not ancient history. As recently as five years ago, ACC football basically meant Clemson and seven ducks a-quackin'. Before that, it basically meant Maryland and seven ducks a-quackin'. Always, it basically meant Dean Smith marking time.
But now -- Holy coach K! -- the ACC belongs in any discussion of the country's best football conferences.
"Top three, easy," said Beano Cook, the football guru. "The Pac-10 is the best this year, the SEC is the best year in and year out, and the ACC is right behind them."
Remarkable? Astounding? Ridiculous?
"If you told me in 1980 that either the Berlin Wall would come down or the quality of ACC football would go up, I probably would have picked the ACC, but not by much," Cook said. "I mean, it wasn't very good. And now the ACC is much better than the Big 10. People would have called you crazy for saying that."
Certainly, the decline of the Big Ten, Southwest and Big Eight has helped. Those conferences used to win national titles, and now they don't scare a soul. The Big East might be tougher than those three, for crying out loud, and it just started playing football.
But the ACC's elevated standing is not just the result of other people's business. It's the result of better coaching and, as our outgoing president would say, the Florida State thing.
"Getting Florida State in there is like getting Bogart to play in your movie," Cook said. "It's the bold stroke. Right away, you know you're going to be pretty good."
Florida State doesn't really fit into the league academically or geographically, but ACC commissioner Gene Corrigan pushed for it because suddenly every league was expanding to get a larger wedge of the ripe apple that is TV money, and the ACC didn't want to get left out.
Some athletic directors in the league were against it, but they're probably not as upset now that their schools are getting something like $100,000 every time the Seminoles play on television, which is just about every weekend.
The Seminoles are so good they're too big even for the upgraded ACC. As one player said after winning the ACC title: "I guess this'll do until we beat Miami."
