By: Kenneth Harrison

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

Once upon a time, the ACC was a premier athletic conference.

Having North Carolina and Duke means the conference has a shot at a national championship almost every year in basketball.

In football, they have a few solid programs. Clemson won a national championship in 1981. Georgia Tech won a share of the national championship with Colorado in 1990. The Yellow Jackets also have claimed three more national championships (1917, 1928, 1952) and three unclaimed national titles (1916, 1951, 1956).

Florida State joined the ACC July 1, 1991 and started playing football in 1992. The Seminoles won or shared a conference championship in their first nine seasons. They also won national championships in 1993, 1999 and 2013.

FSU was a top program in the 90’s and early 2000’s. Their rival, Miami was also an elite team dating back to the 1980’s. The Hurricanes won national championships in 1983, 1987, 1989, 1991 and 2001. They were undefeated before losing the BCS Championship Game in overtime in 2002. UM was an independent before joining the Big East in 1991.

In 2004 they left the Big East for the ACC along with Virginia Tech and Boston College. At the time it looked like the ACC was going to elevate to an elite football conference.

The Hokies played Florida State in the 1999 national title game and they routinely produced NFL talent. Boston College is a solid program that would normally make it to bowl games.

Unfortunately, the only team that lived up to expectations early on was Va Tech. They were the ACC Champs in their first year (2004) and won again in 2007, 2008 and 2010. They defeated Boston College in the conference championship game in 07 and 08.

Miami has never won the ACC since joining. Florida State falling off in the 2000’s and Miami never living up to expectations are the foundation to why they are in jeopardy of shutting down in the near future.

Dabo Swinney took over as the head coach for Clemson during the 2008 season and turned them into a national power. He led the Tigers to their first ACC title in 2011, then again from 2015-20 and 2022. They also won national titles in 2016 and 2018.

Clemson was the only marquee team in the conference for most of this time.

In another round of expansion Syracuse and Pitt joined the ACC in 2013. Notre Dame also joined that year in all sports except football. Louisville joined in 2014. These moves show adding teams just for the sake of it but not actually improving anything. Maryland left the ACC for the Big Ten in 2014.

This season is another round of expansion with SMU, Cal and Stanford joining the conference in all sports starting in 2024. This is another case of adding schools but not gaining any real value. Perhaps it can be looked at as expanding the recruiting footprint to Dallas and northern California at best.

Looking at it honestly, these are teams that do not compete for conference titles and certainly not on a national level. The conference is like a dead man walking at this point.

By comparison, the SEC adds Texas and Oklahoma this season. Two historically great football programs.

As you have heard by now, Clemson and FSU are suing the ACC to leave the conference. It is also reported that UNC wants to leave. This is the last domino to fall in creating super conferences in college sports if any of the current members can escape their contract with the ACC.