BCSBusters: ACC Report (Week #1)

Week#1 Analysis:

The ACC failed to impress on opening weekend and with Monday’s Bowden Bowl looming, the conference has one last chance to change popular opinion. As a member of the CFA cronies, John Saunders pronounced a year ago this time of year ( I can still hear his voice echoing in the wind - “The ACC is the Best Conference in the land”) that the conference was on the rise. In successive weekends last year after boasting of his opinion on national television, the conference (mainly North Carolina State) suffered embarrassing losses to Akron and Southern Miss in back-to-back weekends. Not to mention Virginia’s close call against Wyoming (13-12).

How bad was it last year for the Conference, considering Virginia Tech, Boston College and Miami bolted affiliations with the Big-East just a couple seasons before? The Big-East absolutely crushed their previous relatives as Louisville, Rutgers, West Virginia and South Florida all beat ACC foes.

As a matter of fact, the Cardinals and Mountaineers beat ACC foes twice, along with Notre Dame and Georgia. The ACC was arguably tied for third best in the East - and there are only four conferences in the East - considering Georgia, South Carlina, Kentucky, Florida, E. Carolina and Southern Mississippi all came out victorious against the ACC.

So, as you can see, I take whatever Saunders and Craig James say with a mouthful of salt because they switch flavors so often you wonder if they are auditioning for a commercial spot with Baskin Robbins (the 33 flavors theme would fit right in). In the last three years alone, both have picked the Big-12 in 2004 & 2005 and the ACC in 2006 as the best conferences in the country, and have been so thoroughly wrong I’m amazed they have kept their jobs (How can anyone question last years analysis of the SEC, Big-East and PAC-10 as being the three best?).  And according to a recent article by Dennis Dodd of CBS-Sportsline, the Big-12 is now 0-17 against ranked teams since 2005!  If I was wrong that many times in the classroom you can bet your bottom dollar I would be sent packing.

About the only thing you can count on from the noise spewing from Saunders and James is how dead wrong they are on an a weekly basis, and how connected they are to the CFA monopoly.

To properly analyze the strength of the ACC, one only needs to look at the overall BCSBusters QOF-Rating (Quality Opponent Factor) which measures the success of a team within a given conference when match-up with an opponent who has gone on to win nine or more in a given season when the two teams competed against one another.

Here is how the actual strength of the ACC ranks when utilizing this component (QOF-Rating):

1. Boston College (6-2) .750

2. Virginia Tech (6-6) .500

3. Miami (5-6) .454

4. Wake Forest (4-7) .363

5. Georgia Tech (4-9) .307

6. Clemson (3-6) .333

7. Florida State (3-7) .300

8. Maryland (2- .200

9. North Carolina (2-14) .125

10. NC-State (1- .111

11. Duke (0-10) .000

12. Virginia (0-10) .000

The conference as a whole is a combined 36-93 in the last three years alone for a QOF-Rating of .279! If your Grey-matter challenged, this means whenever a conference member of the ACC is matched up against another opponent who has won nine games or more (whether it be from a conference member or non-conference member) the ACC has won 27.9 percent of the time. That’s great analysis John! Your brilliance in promoting the ACC is suspect and without any statistics to back it up, especially considering the six-to-seven figure a year job you hold with ABC/ESPN television and the instant access to stats and video you have in front of you. So what was the purpose of such blasphemy in promoting the ACC and Big-12 in recent years?

This past weekend - the 2007 opening Labor Day weekend of the college football season - the ACC went (1-1) against the BCS Conferences and (6-2) against the Non-BCS factor. With key matches looming next weekend against college football’s elite (CFA-Teams), the conference better step up, because Virginia’s 23-3 loss to Wyoming (coming on the heels of last years close 13-12 victory over these same Cowboys, coupled with the Blue-Devils blowout loss to UCONN (45-14) and Maryland’s closer than expected victory over D1-AA Villanova (31-14)) has left the conference with a bit of a black-eye.

@ 9/8

@ 9/8

@ 9/8

My prediction is the conference will be 0-3 given these mega-match-ups coming up in Week #2 as all three are on the road in intimidating arena’s. For complete post game analysis of week #1 and previews of the coming weekend, visit the following link.