The timeless mantra we’ve all heard is that defense wins championships. The ’Noles look mighty powerful this year because of their outstanding defense. It’s been a pretty lengthy road back for FSU since the dominant Bobby Bowden-led years of the 1990s.
Edsall comes to College Park after building the program at the University of Connecticut basically from the ground up. He was the 2010 Big East Coach of the Year and looks to assert a Terps team that has an excellent underclassmen quarterback, but not much else.
Cutcliffe has made some progress with the Blue Devils, though with a team that went 3-9 last year, progress is a relative term.
The Cavaliers had some good years in the middle of the last decade, but they’ve had a bowl-less drought since 2007. Coach London is now in his second year in a bid to bring UVa back to respectability in the conference.
With Coach Johnson’s gameplan, which bucks convention but at the same time is tried, tested and true, he has a reputation of out-performing expectations.
When one thinks about top-shelf ACC programs, Boston College may not be the first team to come to mind, yet the Eagles have been surprisingly consistent over the years.
Between unsavory academic behavior and improper dealings with student-athletes hiring agents, it has been a shaky boat recently in Chapel Hill.
Edsall comes to College Park after building the program at the University of Connecticut basically from the ground up. He was the 2010 Big East Coach of the Year and looks to assert a Terps team that has an excellent underclassmen quarterback, but not much else.
Things came together quite nicely for the Wolfpack in 2010; the Atlantic division title in the ACC was within their sights until near the end of the regular season, and a victory over West Virginia in the Champs Sports Bowl had NC State finishing at #25 – the first time the team has finished ranked since 2002.
Clemson football has developed a deep-seated reputation for under-performance. The Tigers routinely have elite athletes that are funneled to the professional ranks, yet it never seems to translate in the win column.
“The U” was once a proud, self-proclaimed football factory perennially among the country’s elite. Much like Miami’s in-state rival Florida State, history hasn’t been so kind in recent years.
Tech really is one of the steadiest programs you’ll find in college football. The Hokies have gone 49-11 in conference play since they joined the ACC in 2004, and have appeared in four of the six ACC title games.
It has been quite a long time since Florida State was the dominant force in the college football landscape, but we could finally be heading for some late 1990s déjà vu.
