PINEHURST, N.C. -- David Cutcliffe might not launch the resurgence, but the Duke football coach believes he'll be witness to it.
At the ACC football kickoff, Cutcliffe invited reporters to join him in checking out the overall league talent up-close this season and said there a lot of impressive players.
"I'm saying, ‘OK, guys, go back in and put your Steelers uniforms on, because that's who you really are,'" Cutcliffe said. "There's some good-looking football teams in the ACC."
The two-day media event did not pass without its annual rituals -- the media golf tournament, the preseason poll and the bluster that it's time for the league to win more non-conference games and produce a national championship contender.
Commissioner John Swofford allotted time in his opening remarks for a declaration that he's tired of getting pushed around. The question begs again, though: Will it happen?
"I think it'll all work out, because I think the programs are all getting better," Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer said.
Swofford said the depth was probably the strongest it has ever been. Four teams finished in the final Associated Press poll. However, the highest-ranked team was Virginia Tech at No. 16. The Hokies began last season with losses to Boise State and James Madison, won 11 in a row to win the ACC and were flattened by Stanford in the Orange Bowl. It was the 10th time in the past 11 years that the ACC champion lost its BSC bowl game.
The ACC is 12-22 in the past five years in bowl games against schools from automatic-qualifier conferences. Since 2000, ACC teams are 34-85 against non-conference opponents ranked in the top 25. The league last played for the national title when Florida State lost to Oklahoma in the 2001 Orange Bowl.
In the face of this, coaches and players stand resolute. Cutcliffe insists that the talent level in the ACC renders a rise to the top inevitable. The NFL took 35 ACC players in the April draft, second to the SEC's 38. Since a 51-player haul in 2006, the ACC has averaged 32.6 players selected, second-most behind the SEC's 39.8.
"I'm a football coach that's coached forever in the SEC," said Cutcliffe, who spent 25 years at Tennessee and Ole Miss, and helped the Volunteers win the 1998 national title. "I know what talent looks like. We're really good."
Cutcliffe believes the ACC has a hump to get over, though. He said teams need more depth and have to have more confidence (or "swag," as he put it). A day after his commissioner spoke of the need to balance winning with academics and NCAA rules compliance, Cutcliffe acknowledged an unhealthy obsession with winning is necessary, too.
"We're not very far away," he said. "People think that's just coach talk, but we're not."
Again, hopes fall upon Virginia Tech and the long-rumored return of Florida State. Beamer said Monday that the pieces are in place for a national title run. The Seminoles, who ended their six-game losing streak to Florida last November and beat South Carolina in the Chick-fil-A Bowl, return 16 starters and are a heavy favorite to win the ACC.
"I think it's something you have to embrace," FSU coach Jimbo Fisher said of carrying the ACC banner. "We want to play those big games."
The Seminoles will have an opportunity soon. On Sept. 17, they'll be one of five ACC teams playing against automatic-qualifier conferences -- Oklahoma-Florida State, Auburn-Clemson, Ohio State-Miami, West Virginia-Maryland and Kansas-Georgia Tech. All five ACC teams lost thse games last year, but will all play them at home this season.
Said Beamer, "We've got to win our share of those ballgames."
No one needs to ask what will happen if they don't.
