Maybe for the Terrapin football team’s sake, it’s a good thing it played Florida International last week and not West Virginia.
Because the ACC sure took an old-fashioned whooping on Saturday.
LSU 48, Virginia Tech 7.
Oklahoma 51, Miami 13.
Nebraska 20, Wake Forest 17.
Through two weeks, ACC teams have played quite a few non-conference games. As a whole, the conference is 0-4 against teams from BCS conferences (although Georgia Tech did beat Notre Dame, an independent team). That doesn’t even include Virginia’s loss to Wyoming, North Carolina falling to East Carolina and N.C. State’s loss to Central Florida.
So what the heck has happened to the ACC, which is just 9-7 in non-conference games this season and doesn’t have a team ranked in the top 10?
“I think it’s too early to tell,” wide receiver Danny Oquendo said. “First two games anything can happen. Look at Michigan.”
Yes, Michigan is tumbling, and the Big Ten does not appear to be as good as was thought before the season started. But the Big Ten isn’t playing as poorly as the ACC has so far this season.
Meanwhile, as the ACC falls, the Big East is rising.
Tonight, the Terps will represent the ACC in a primetime showdown with No. 4 West Virginia, the Big East’s top-ranked team. A win and the Terps regain some credibility for the conference, as well as some national respect for themselves. A loss, and it makes the ACC’s record 0-5 against power-conference teams.
“We’re gonna go out there and do our part to make our conference as strong as possible, and that’s all we can really do,” junior linebacker Erin Henderson said. “I can’t really say [whether the ACC is] having a down year or if anybody else is just that good. Any given Saturday or any given Thursday anything can happen, so that’s why you go out there and play the game.”
Nationally, the ACC is not highly regarded like the other BCS conferences. But to the Terps, that is meaningless, especially when they look at tonight’s game.
“We don’t necessarily look at it in that big of a scope,” senior defensive lineman Dre Moore said. “We’re just kinda focused on getting ourselves back to the top of the ACC.”
ACC coaches defended the conference in the offseason, pointing out the parity that took over last season.
But it’d be hard to rank the ACC in the top tier of college football, given the results over the past two weeks.
“It’s still early,” coach Ralph Friedgen said. “There’s a lot of things that can happen.”
It is only the third week of the college football season, and the ACC has plenty of big non-conference games left. In the next two and a half weeks Florida State plays Colorado and Alabama; Miami has Texas A&M; North Carolina plays South Florida; N.C. State gets Louisville; and Virginia squares off against Pittsburgh.
There are two non-ACC games against teams from a BCS conference on the Terps’ schedule this season – tonight and Sept. 29 at Rutgers.
“I feel like [the conference has] been disrespected a lot this year, saying we’re not as good as we have been,” senior safety J.J. Justice said. “But I feel like, top to bottom, we’re one of the best conferences in the country. Every game that we play with each other is a dogfight basically, so I feel that in some ways, it will be some redemption for the whole ACC. But I haven’t really been thinking about that. I’m worried about us. I wanna win the game for us.”
The Big East will showcase its top talent tonight at Byrd Stadium, but there are a number of teams that would hold top billing if they were in the ACC. The Mountaineers, No. 9 Louisville and No. 13 Rutgers have given new life to a conference that was in the dumps when Virginia Tech and Miami left after the 2003 season. Even South Florida, which upset Auburn on the road this past weekend, is rapidly on the rise.
In comparison, No. 15-ranked Georgia Tech is the ACC’s top team.
The ACC was never a huge football power conference, but it sure had credibility. So far this season, that has been as far from the case as possible.
A Terp win tonight, and that could change in a big way.
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