Phil Steele, one of the top authorities in college football, says the ACC is the second toughest conference of the Power Five leagues, behind the SEC.
When the 2016 college football season starts, there are plenty of people who are ready to anoint the SEC champion as the best team in the country, with popular opinion being they are still the toughest conference. As for the number two slot, one of the top experts in the sport thinks it’s another conference from the eastern part of the country that holds that spot.
Phil Steele, who yearly produces his preview guide and is considered one of the best when it comes to college football insights, recently said the ACC is the second toughest conference in the nation. His main reason? The level of expertise coming back to the member schools:
"When I looked at the ACC experience rankings, only one team in the league ranked below No. 80 on the experience chart with seven teams in the top 34 experience wise. The other power 5 conferences all had more teams in the lower half of the rankings than in the upper half."
Steele went further and rated all 10 of the conferences in the FBS level, with the ACC coming out on top and the Group of Five conferences all ranking in spots two through five. The SEC comes in at sixth in experience, followed by the Pac 12, Big 12 and Big Ten (with the Sun Belt coming in last).
Two of the last three seasons, it has been an ACC-SEC battle for the national title — something that might happen for a third time with Florida State and Clemson on one side and Alabama, LSU and Ole Miss on the other. Fans will get a chance to see which conference has early bragging rights in the first weekend of the season with three intra-confernce games involving the leagues (FSU-Ole Miss, Georgia-North Carolina and Clemson-Auburn).
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