ACC has yet to live up to ‘big stage’

ACC has yet to live up to ‘big stage’

Greensboro — If there is one thing we know about college football, it is that usually the numbers do not lie.
And when it comes to judging the success of the ACC’s most recent expansion, which will enter its fifth season in 2008, there are some numbers that this league cannot escape:

on college football’s biggest stage and that came when Florida State beat Virginia Tech, which then was not a league member, in the Sugar Bowl for the 1999 national championship. The ACC has lost nine straight BCS games.
• 2-17: The ACC’s record against non-conference teams ranked in the Top 10 over the past four years.
• 9-31: The ACC’s record against non-conference teams ranked in the Top 25 the past four years.
• 0: The number of times the ACC has received an at-large bid to a BCS game.
“The numbers are what they are and it’s up to us to start winning these games against top opponents,” N.C. State coach Tom O’Brien said. “People are going to criticize us but until we start winning we really don’t have a leg to stand on.”
The critics have been quick to call the addition of Miami, Virginia Tech, and Boston College an abject failure just four years in. They point to the demise of the programs at Florida State (14-12 the past two seasons) and Miami (12-13 the past two seasons), which were supposed to keep the ACC in the national-championship picture on an annual basis. They point to the inability to sell out the first three ACC championship games, which has been moved from Jacksonville to Tampa for 2008 and 2009 before going to Charlotte in 2010 and 2011.