GREENSBORO, N.C. – Duke coach David Cutcliffe did everything but jump on a table and start chanting “ACC! ACC!”
The former Ole Miss coach and longtime Tennessee assistant proclaimed bright days ahead for the conference Monday at the ACC Kickoff.
“I see that over the next 10 years, we’re a league that can explode, truly explode,” Cutcliffe said.
Cutcliffe pegged his aspirations on a few factors, including the addition of Louisville expanding the conference’s recruiting reach, the conference’s footprint (which has the largest population and most television households of any conference in the country), the variety and quality of colleges within the conference and the number of NFL draftees the conference produces annually (second to the SEC three of the past four years). Further, he touted Florida State’s national championship and the 11 bowl teams last season.
He said the ACC can “absolutely” gain equal footing with the SEC, whose teams had won the previous seven national championships prior to the Seminoles.
Cutcliffe was backed up by Clemson coach Dabo Swinney, who likewise said he “absolutely” believed ACC teams could win a string of national titles.
“What the SEC has done, and we haven’t done yet, is the SEC has shown the consistency,” he said. “They’ve put a run together and hopefully the ACC can do the same thing. We’re going to have to go out there and do it two or three years before anybody’s really jumping on the bandwagon fully.”
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