ACC FOOTBALL-THAT'S A WRAP

The year in ACC football began with a record 12 ACC players selected in the first round of the 2006 NFL draft, amid predictions the ACC had become the dominant defensive conference in America, if not the number one conference in America.  But the season did not live up to the hype.

Long time national powers Florida State and Miami barely won half their games. Clemson started strong but fizzled. Virginia Tech finished strong but could not overcome a slow beginning. Not one ACC school waged a serious challenge for the national title. In fact, only three ACC teams finished in the AP Top 25, and not one made the top 15. The league's championship game matched two small private schools, Wake Forest and Georgia Tech, who barely attracted half a house to see their field goal battle at Alltel Stadium. Even the post-season bowls, usually a source of ACC supremacy, produced just four wins and four losses. To be sure, the performance of league champion Wake Forest, picked last in  the pre-season, ranks as one of the top achievements in the ACC's 54 years of football. But of the other 11 assorted fans bases in the league, only two or three seemed satisfied with the 2006 campaign.

Some schools didn't wait for 2006 to end before making changes. North Carolina dismissed John Bunting at mid-season, which gave the school a head start on hiring Butch Davis as his replacement. NC State turned out Chuck Amato, and lured Boston College mentor Tom O'Brien to West Raleigh. BC replaced O'Brien with NFL assistant Jeff Jagodzinski. Miami fired Larry Coker, despite a career 59-15 record, and promoted assistant Randy Shannon.

These coaches have, in turn, brought more new coaching talent to the ACC. Davis hired nationally known recruiter John Blake, whom Carolina's new leader once coached in high school. O'Brien apparently has settled on Mike Archer, who has previously helped mold defenses at LSU, Virginia, and Kentucky,  as his defensive coordinator. Jagodzinski brought in former ECU coach Steve Logan to supervise talented Matt Ryan and the BC offense. Add to that Bobby Bowden's move to hire the highly regarded LSU coordinator Jimbo Fisher to energize the Seminoles' struggling offense, and we're looking at some explosive changes in ACC football. As Davis put it: "the air is going to be filled with footballs."

And in 2007 the ACC won't lose 12 of its best players-mostly defensive players-to the NFL. Almost four years have passed since the league's leadership added Big East mainstays Miami, BC, and Virginia Tech. Maybe 2007 will be the kind of season the league's leadership envisioned when it voted to expand.