ACC football is so bad (besides Clemson) fans are ready for basketball season

Outside of the Clemson Tigers, ACC football has seen their traditional football powers struggle while primary basketball schools have stepped up.

The Duke Blue Devils or Syracuse Orange might be the second best team in the ACC. No, this isn’t a discussion about the college basketball season and where these programs might be seeded when March Madness rolls around. This is ACC football, and things have turned upside down.

College football organizing their conference into power-five and group-of-five has made it easy to view each one through a scope. The creation of the college football playoff has certainly shown the stronger conferences versus the weaker ones.

Coming into this year, the ACC was seen as one of the stronger groups up there with the SEC and Big Ten, compared to the Big-12 and Pac-12. Instead, the conference as a whole hasn’t lived up to the billing thus far in 2018.

Outside of their crown jewel, Clemson, it’s hard to say who has been the second best team in the conference. Before the season began, it would have been easy to point to the likes of Virginia Tech, Florida State and Miami as those programs that shape the conference into what has been a difficult one for the past few years.

Instead, Florida State has gotten off to a tremendously slow start under Willie Taggart, Miami laid an egg against LSU to begin the year and Louisville got blown out at home against Virginia.

Unfortunately, the struggles for the ACC’s perceived elite get even worse.

Virginia Tech suffered the worst loss of all on Saturday. Facing Old Dominion, the Hokies were a big favorite and expected to roll over the Conference USA program. Instead, the Monarchs rolled up 49 points against the No. 13 team in the nation for their biggest win in program history. To put that in perspective, Old Dominion has losses to Liberty and Charlotte already this season.

In other words, it’s Clemson and everyone else right now. This is where the basketball schools are having their say in the ACC season. Duke, Syracuse and Virginia have all had strong starts to the season and are set up for big moments in the near future.

That trio deserves their credit as well. Just because the traditional powers of the conference are struggling doesn’t mean that these programs should be surprised for surprising everyone.

Syracuse and Virginia each have knocked off ACC opponents already with the Orange defeating Florida State and the Cavaliers beating Louisville.

Next week, the Orange have a chance to go for the big upset for a second-straight year. Clemson is in their sights and after defeating the Tigers at the Carrier Dome last season, they’ll have the even tougher challenge on the road.

Regardless of whether or not the Orange win that game, an argument can be made that the schools in this conference that are primary basketball schools are the second and third-best teams right now.

Florida State can’t figure out an identity right now and they struggle to beat programs they shouldn’t have much difficulty with. Louisville is the latest ACC program to get blasted by Alabama in the opening week and have the rest of their season seemingly in a roller coaster as a result. Miami is the enigma in the group, as they’ve rebounded from that opening week loss with three straight wins. However, like an enigma, it’s hard to predict where they will lay that next egg.

The ACC is riding on the strength of Clemson right now, whose hopes are riding on the arm of a freshman quarterback for the moment. That’s a story in itself. After the Tigers, it’s been the basketball programs and not the football schools making an impact in what has become an average conference in 2018.