As usually happens in college football, the season was full of ups and downs for most teams. It was also true for conferences, probably no more so than the ACC. The conference started out of the gate very slow, especially when what was thought to be its premier team - top ten ranked Clemson - got whacked by Alabama on national television. Of course no one knew how good Bama would become. The Hokies didn't help when they lost an out of conference game to East Carolina, especially since the Hokies were expected to win their half of the league.
So early in the season, the league looked easily to be at the bottom of the BCS conferences. Now that we are at the end of the season, that no longer is the case.
I started to crunch some numbers on this, and then I found this Out of Conference '08 Report post over at ACC Football Report. When you look at how the various conferences did collectively in their out of conference games, both against other BCS teams and against all div I-A teams in general, the ACC ranks #2. That's pretty good, considering its ahead of the SEC in both. In fact, the ACC went 3-1 against the SEC on Thanksgiving weekend (wins over USC, UGa, Vandy, loss to Florida).
There is other stats here around how many games on the road and and against non I-A competition, but the net is that the ACC improved significantly over the season and likely (opinion here) ended up being the 2nd best conference (after the Big XII). I admit I sometimes am wary of stats that rely on opponents 'record' because you get the same credit for playing a 10-2 team in a bad conference as you do for playing a 10-2 team in a really good conference.
The ACC is a 'misfit' of sorts due to its lack of premier teams, however its depth and even play through out the league (really few bad teams) created much attrition but also a record 10 bowl bound teams. We'll see how it plays out during bowl week (hopefully ACC fans pony up for tickets and make for good attendance) but I suspect the ACC will do very well.
Go Hokies!!
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