Over the last few years, the Atlantic Coast Conference has undoubtedly been perceived as a conference on the decline, at least in the public eye.
While this may not be fair to a conference that is arguably the most balanced in the country from top to bottom, the reality is, if your conference lacks a top-tier program—and the ACC does at the moment—it won’t gain much nationwide credibility.
When you look at the power conferences across the country, each one has what Orange Bowl CEO Eric Poms referred to as “brand teams” at last weekend’s ACC media kickoff.
The Pac-10 has USC.
The Big XII has Texas and Oklahoma.
The SEC has Florida, Alabama and LSU.
And the Big Ten has Ohio State, Penn State and Michigan.
In the ACC, those “brands” are Florida State and Miami, and it shouldn’t be considered a coincidence that their respective falls to mediocrity in recent years have coincided with the average stigma associated with the ACC and the dwindling attendances at the Orange Bowl.
During the media kickoff, it became more apparent to me when I heard ACC commissioner John Swofford address the media and when I had a productive, half-hour talk with Poms that both the ACC and Orange Bowl wouldn’t just prefer Florida State and Miami return to their once-dominant days—they need them to return there. Whether he meant to or not, Swofford acknowledged this when addressing members of the media at the kickoff event.
“When [Florida State and Miami] are strong,” Swofford said, “our league is perceived as stronger as a whole.”
Swofford and the rest of the ACC gave reason to believe that FSU and Miami were going to be the forces they were in the ’90s and the early part of the 2000s when they expanded the league to 12 teams prior to the start of the 2005 season and created a conference championship game—an assumption that simply blew up in their face.
The Seminoles and Hurricanes are in separate divisions within the ACC and are the only two schools in the conference located in Florida, so why put the conference championship game for the first five years of its existence in the Sunshine State?
The answer, at least to me, is that the ACC went all-in, gambling on Florida State and Miami meeting each year in the championship game and the game selling out within a couple hours of tickets going on sale. At the very least, the conference expected one of the two schools to play in the championship game, and that has only happened once with Florida State playing in the inaugural ACC championship game in 2005, which—surprise, surprise—has been the only sellout crowd the conference has seen for its conference title game.
No wonder the game has been moved to Charlotte, where it is guaranteed to be played for the next two seasons and makes the most sense, geographically, when one looks at the respective locations of each ACC school.
The Orange Bowl, on the other hand, found itself in a similar situation when they agreed to become the official bowl partner of the ACC champion in 2006. Poms insisted that Florida State and Miami didn’t play a big factor into the Orange Bowl’s decision to partner up with the ACC, but I’m going out on a limb and calling his bluff.
Is it logical to believe Pom’s claim? It most certainly is.
The Orange Bowl has had a long, rich tradition with the ACC, and perhaps they just wanted to rekindle that flame by accepting the ACC champion on an annual basis.
Despite this, however, I find it hard to believe given the timing of the agreement.
The Orange Bowl had a sellout crowd watch Florida State take Penn State into triple-overtime in their 2006 game, so why wouldn’t they assume the ’Noles or ’Canes would continue to be strong and pack the stadium the first week of January every year?
When I asked Poms if he preferred to see Florida State or Miami in the Orange Bowl every year, he said it really doesn’t matter, and that he enjoys hosting the ACC representative—regardless of who it is.
While the latter may be true, the former isn’t—that it does matter. Just look at the small crowds for Virginia Tech-Cincinnati and Georgia Tech-Iowa the last two seasons. Had Florida State or Miami won the league and played in those games, attendance would have been off the charts given the Seminoles’ outstanding fanbase throughout the state, and the fact that the Orange Bowl is played at Miami’s home field (Sun Life Stadium).
With all due respect to the other schools in the ACC, you just can’t provide what Florida State and Miami have to offer the conference. If the ACC wants to stake its claim as a powerhouse conference and the Orange Bowl as a legitimate BCS bowl, it needs its brand names to take their games to a higher level.
I know I’ll have my fingers crossed for that to happen this season, and I have good reason to believe Swofford and Poms will have theirs crossed as well.