CHARLOTTE — ACC coaches are confident they’re in the best football league in America.
Just ask them.
They’ll tell you they are, and they’ll back it up with more than statistics. Some, like Boston College’s Steve Addazio, will tell you they have a qualified opinion because they’ve coached in just about all of the Power 5 leagues.
True, the ACC is riding a tremendous decade of achievement. A year ago, it tied its benchmark by sending 11 teams into the postseason and posted six wins — both marks tied for the best of any league.
True also, Clemson got two of the wins and its second national championship in three years.
Arguably, it’s the Tigers and everybody else in this league. Clemson really is in such a position with all aspects of its program, in particular what happens on the field.
But all 14 ACC teams have been to a bowl in the last three years. It’s more than just Clemson ruling the Atlantic Division and the balanced Coastal getting the label of chaos.
There’s excitement throughout the extra-large ACC footprint this fall, and not just because it will finally beam a league network. On Tobacco Road alone, Mack Brown is back at Carolina, the national champs are coming to Chapel Hill and Raleigh, Duke plays both Alabama and Notre Dame, and Wake Forest has kind of quietly won three straight bowl games for the first time in school history, an SEC foe among its slain victims.
NFL scouts have taken notice, too. N.C. State has had 11 players taken in the last two drafts, including seven in the spring, and Duke was home of the first quarterback taken this year.
Who do we keep an eye on this year? First is the East Bladen product, Larrell Murchison, who has a chance to rocket up the draft boards. Guys with his size, strength and agility on the defensive front are coveted.
Elsewhere, anybody for the Tigers but especially quarterback Trevor Lawrence and running back Travis Etienne, the latter of which was the league’s Player of the Year in 2018. Boston College’s A.J. Dillon has run for 2,697 yards; he’ll soon do it for pay on Sundays, maybe even as just the eighth 4,000-yard rusher in league history.
And watch anybody returning a punt. The ACC had 18 last year; only State, Duke, Virginia and Georgia Tech didn’t take one to the house.
Once upon a time, it was hard to find an ACC team on television. Cable changed all that, but even the prime network spots are now regularly filled by this league, even if a good chunk of it is from 21st century expansion.
Who ever heard of Miami playing Florida on Aug. 24? Yep, they will, essentially a week before everyone else cranks up. The aforementioned Duke-Bama game is this year’s Chick-fil-A tilt in Atlanta on Labor Day weekend, when Florida State takes a Saturday night primetime slot against Boise State and Louisville welcomes Notre Dame that Monday night.
ACC teams will have spotlight games all season, right through the title game in Charlotte on the first Saturday in December.
Sure, it’s the Tigers and then everybody else. But oh the fun in seeing them all trying to remain unscathed just to take a shot at the champs.