A Look Back: The ACC.

For a refresher on what I thought I knew about the ACC coming into the season click here, here and here.

The fact of the matter is that, even though I watch a lot of Football, and I do mean a lot. I don’t see that many ACC games. Part of the problem lies in my location. Being in Ohio means that I am forced to watch Big 11 Football on the ABC, ESPN family of Networks. Being in Cincinnati means that if I am not watching the Big 11 on ABC or ESPN I am watching the Big East. No complaints there. So any observations that come to pass below are inherently limited, so take all this with a grain of salt. If you find fault with my opinion, speak your piece, varying opinions are important in the blog sphere.

The biggest surprise of the year was the sudden emergence of the Virginia Cavilers. Going into the season I was fairly high on the Cav, and I thought that they would turn in an impressive season. And then they lost to Wyoming. At that point all of the good feelings and fuzziness that I had built towards UVA was vanquished in an instant. No matter. Jameel Sewell came up huge for the offense. But the unquestioned star of the team was Chris Long, he of Howie Long’s loins. I had the chance to watch them play twice, against Maryland and Virginia Tech, and Long simply blew me away with his natural ability, but more with his technique which is simply flawless at this level. The man came up with 75 tackles, 19 TFL’s and 14 sacks, from the Defensive End, in a 3-4 scheme. Thats pretty much unheard of in that defense. The rest of the UVA team? Not so impressive on offense, but man is that a good sound defense.

Speaking of defensive linemen. Marvin Austin. Wow is that kid impressive. You look at the stat line for the year, 26 tackles, 6 TFL and 4 sacks and it doesn’t look all that impressive. But it is when you consider that he is a freshman, neigh over 18 years old, stepping into a BCS conference and starting from day one in the most physically demanding position in the game, defensive tackle, and then he had a legitimate impact. This is a kid who is going to be scary good next year, after a year in the gym. Three years down the line he could very well have a Glenn Dorsey like impact on game, the kid is that good.

There will be no further mention of Miami or Florida State in this post. I was high on both of them and figured that they would both turn in good seasons. And I am an idiot for thinking so, moving on.

Cullen Harper is the closest thing Clemson has to a Heisman Trophy contender coming into next season. I am serious he was damn near flawless all year long. He was so good in fact that I heard nary a whisper from the Tiger faithful about local prep hero Willy Korn all season long. Just look at the stat line. James Davis and CJ Spiller were under utilized all season long, both of their numbers took a tremendous drop from last year. Now that is not all on the shoulders of Davis and Spiller, it has been proven that they are tremendous talents, but there is a little more too the story than that. The offensive line was no where near as good as the 2006 unit of Nathan Bennett, Dustin and Roman Fry. Barry Richardson was back this year, and he was very studley, but his counterparts did not measure anywhere near as high as Richardson on the stud scale. As an all too predictable result the running game took a step back in production compared to 2006. But there is something else to consider. Last year the Clemson strategy was really simple run the damn ball and play defense, and it worked really well, and that was the strategy was employed against FSU when the run pass ratio was 57/43. However, as the season wore on, and the capabilities of Harper became apparent the formula changed. The Tigers continued to play defense at a very high level, but the offensive part of the equation changed, and the offense became far more balanced, the end of the year ratio was 52/48.

Way to go Duke, you beat Northwestern and stopped your 1A losing streak in September. Of course you started a new 1A losing streak promptly, a streak that is approaching double digits now.

A final thought. While most of the country is taking the miserable season of the Big 11 and using it to expound upon the perceived weakness and inferiority of the Big 11, and while that is fun, and an incensed Big 11 fan is one of the more entertaining objects of observation. The dismal season of the ACC on the whole has been, by and large, ignored. If there is a greater collection of consistently underachieving programs in the country I’d like to see it. Miami, Florida State and Clemson are million dollar programs, problem is that they all have 10 cent heads. North Carolina State has had talent in the past, boatloads of it, but never had any discipline to mold it. Enter Tom O’Brien who was supposed to inject the much needed discipline, the result? 1-11. Not a good initial return on investment. In time the conference will grow into a true Football power. The question is how long will that take?