If you were out of town yesterday, or for some other reason missed the disaster that was the ACC's opening weekend, you missed a heck of a day. And I mean that in the worst way possible.
Well, wait, Clemson did beat Middle Tennessee State. North Carolina took care of business against The Citadel. Boston College looked good against Northeastern. Georgia Tech beat a Jacksonville State team missing their star QB, Ryan Perrilloux. And...wait, no, those were the only positives from the weekend. If you didn't notice, there was only one Division I team in that bunch; all the others were Division I-AA, or FCS. Yes, the ACC had one win against FBS teams.
Virginia Tech lost by ten in their make or break game against Alabama. Of course, Maryland got destroyed by Cal. Wake Forest didn't look good against Baylor, who - while improving from laughingstock status- isn't even a .500 team yet. North Carolina State Wolfpack lost an ugly game against South Carolina, in which star QB and the ACC's biggest hope for making noise, Russell Wilson, played terribly. Worst of all, Virginia and Duke both lost to FCS teams - Virginia to William and Mary and Duke to Richmond, giving the CAA a 2-1 lead in the ACC-CAA Challenge; a lead Maryland has to make up against James Madison next week.
Miami and Florida State play each other Monday in a game that some team has to win. Unfortunately, it doesn't impact the ACC's image either way.
Remember all those pundits that said that the ACC is a bad league this year? Looks like they were right. The Big 12 had only one out of conference loss, and that was Sam Bradford-less Oklahoma's thriller against BYU. The Big Ten's one loss was to Missouri. The SEC went undefeated. Only Washington and Oregon lost for the Pac-10 (usually seen as the closest comparison for the ACC), both in close, hard-fought games against top 15 opponents. Even the Big East, long considered the laughingstock of the BCS, only lost once - to Minnesota, who made a bowl last year - and took care of petty FCS teams.
For the longest time, the ACC has been a solid conference with a lot of parity and good teams, but that never have the great team. That will probably be the case again this year, with one slight adjustment. As The Washington Times says, "ACC parity still exists - unfortunately, they're all bad now, instead of above average."