It sure didn’t take long for ACC football to get back to what it does best – embarrassing itself.
By the conference’s well-noted low standards, Clemson beating defending national champion Auburn and Miami knocking off then No. 17 Ohio State Sept. 17 constituted a banner day. Considering recent history, the fact that ACC teams accounted for two wins over top-25 opponents in the same weekend was nothing short of miraculous. Throw in Florida State and Maryland nearly taking down top-ranked Oklahoma and No. 18 West Virginia, and for at least a day, the ACC looked deserving of its automatic BCS bid.
That illusion lasted less than a week. The Wolfpack’s disaster Thursday night on ESPN against Cincinnati, a 2010 Big East bottom feeder in the only BCS conference worse than the Pack’s own, embarrassed fans of not only State but of the ACC as a whole. One season removed from division title contention, State was outclassed in every sense of the word by the Bearcats . That should have stood out as the conference’s low point of the season. Instead, it was only the second-worst ACC performance of the weekend.
In hindsight, State’s meltdown was a fitting start to the week for miseries for the ACC.
The Hurricanes followed up the big win over the Buckeyes by falling to Kansas State. The Wildcats are 3-0 and take on No. 15 Baylor Saturday, so there very well may be no shame in Miami’s narrow loss. That doesn’t completely remove the disappointment for a team that had just routed a perennially formidable program like Ohio State just one week earlier.
An ACC team losing to a Big East or Big 12 foe is bad enough, but squads from BCS conferences shouldn’t lose to anyone from Conference USA, which is exactly what Virginia did in a 30-24 loss to Southern Miss.
In case the performances of State, UVA and Miami didn’t quite make clear the sad state of the ACC, Maryland went out and made Temple look like a national title contender in a 38-7 loss. Granted, Temple nearly knocked off Penn State in week three and is probably a lot better than most people think.
However, what happened in College Park was beyond embarrassing. The Terps were blown off their home field by a team that before Saturday was 0-12 all-time against the ACC, with each of the last seven of those losses since 2004 coming by at least three touchdowns, according to ESPN Stats & Information.
Making matters worse, The Terrapins were probably dominated even more thoroughly than the 31-point margin of victory would indicate. Temple outgained Maryland 425-240, led by 28 at halftime and did not allow a score until less than five minutes remained.
Normally, such woes by the ACC aren’t remotely newsworthy. Bad weekends are nothing new in this league, but this past weekend was notable because it erased what hadn’t been associated with the conference in a long time – a short-lived sense of pride. Unfortunately, based on the years leading up to it and the week that followed it, the league’s national success in week three now looks a lot more like an aberration than a turning of the corner.
