Carter: Rocky start for new ACC

Around the ACC

By Andrew B. Carter, Rocky Mount Telegram

Maybe the only action worse than the shoddy way the ACC handled expansion is how the new, amazing and powerful super-conference has performed early in the football season.

People who believed the hype – to this point – have been duped, tricked like fair revelers by a crooked carnie on a midway of lies. Hey, son, hand me $3 and I'll give you two basketballs that couldn't be hammered through the hoop.

Or – hey everyone, we're among the best football conferences in the nation even though our record is 0-2 against the conference we pillaged. For all the talk, the new ACC has fizzled like other notable rookies: new Coke, Rick Ankiel in the playoffs, the unitard.

No ACC team has beaten any non-conference opponent in a significant game, and league's display – embarrassing performance followed by embarrassing performance – surely has some observers chuckling.

Like Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese. Granted, after the ACC ripped Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College from his conference, Tranghese could have swapped his office supplies for a bib and a pacifier. The whining, the lawsuit threats and constant criticism made the commissioner appear childish.

He probably won't enjoy the final laugh. But the first? He has to be smiling after his limping, thought-to-be-weak conference is undefeated against the new ACC. Connecticut beat Duke two weeks ago and West Virginia finally discovered victory over Maryland.

The ACC's disappointing performance against the Big East isn't the league's only struggle.

Miami and Florida State played a brooding, prodding game on national television to open the season, neither team matching one another's intensity with quality game play.

That followed another nationally televised debacle – Virginia Tech's loss to Southern California in the first game of the season.

Few prognosticated a Hokies victory, but they should have beaten a USC team that played like it was stuck in Pasadena at last season's Rose Bowl, still celebrating its split national title. Tech had several chances, yet failed to gain a marquee win.

The conference is still searching for one.

Don't look to Raleigh, where N.C. State proved Saturday it might be further away from national prominence than it was during a disappointing 2003. Wolfpack expectations reached Everest proportions before last season, when two quick losses brought the program back to reality.

Even after losing Philip Rivers and Jerricho Cotchery – the two unquestioned leaders of an otherwise mistake-prone and immature offense – fans and team still believed State belonged among the nation's best before this season. They expected the Pack to prove it with a defeat of Ohio State, but State only proved it still uses the same sleepy excuses of last season.

In many ways, the Wolfpack mirrors the new ACC. Before each home game, State enters the field from Carter-Finley Stadium's bowels amid a bunch of smoke and fireworks and noise. The Pack – a gaggle of hyped, primed, jumping players – looks good.

Then the game starts. And you realize, some a bit slower than others, the Pack isn't quite there yet.

Like the ACC.

Against its toughest competition, the league has appeared like N.C. State's game-day entrance – all show, no substance.

The Wolfpack played terrible against a Buckeyes team that merely showed up and waited for the Pack to implode. Maryland packaged a win and delivered it to West Virginia and Clemson lost to suspect Texas A&M.

The best is yet to come, too – basketball season. Longtime rivals Duke and N.C. State will play only once and Virginia Tech and Clemson face one another once – once too many. Who can wait?

A lot of us.

I'll be sure NEVER to post an article like this about the Big East. Cat's Claw would have a stroke and I'd be called every name in the book.

3601 Wrote:I'll be sure NEVER to post an article like this about the Big East. Cat's Claw would have a stroke and I'd be called every name in the book.

For crying out loud you don't see the difference in this? Jackson posted an article ripping the ACC on a Big East board, not an ACC board. What you did, posting the "Mountain West vs Big East" would be the equivalent of Jackson posting his article on the ACC board. See the difference? Jackson kept it on the Big East board, he didn't run over to an ACC board posting negative stuff about the ACC on their board. If you had posted your article on the C-USA board it would be EXACTLY like what Jackson did and Cat's Claw wouldn't have a stroke calling you every name in the book.

Claw:

I know it's more difficult to interpret sarcasm and humor by reading text as opposed to hearing a spoken voice, but your really need to get a better handle on when someone's starting to pull your chain.

I mean no harm. It's an internet message board, for goodness sakes. Truce?

3601 Wrote:Claw:

I know it's more difficult to interpret sarcasm and humor by reading text as opposed to hearing a spoken voice, but your really need to get a better handle on when someone's starting to pull your chain.

I mean no harm.  It's an internet message board, for goodness sakes.  Truce?

Sarcasm or not the bottomline is that your situation and Jackson's were completely different. Besides, since it's just a message board, why get bent out of shape about being "flamed" right? That's the pot calling the kettle black. You say that I'm taking the message board "to seriously", yet you just got into a verbal joust with Louisville fans to the point where it was turning into an argument. You can't have it both ways, criticizing me for taking the internet to seriously and then getting personally insulted by Louisville fans who a message board.

And for the record I don't hate you 3601, I don't think you're a troll, and, most definitely, I don't think you're a bad poster, I think you're a great poster, so there is no need for a truce. There's no bad blood. But still, think about what you're posting when on a "rival" message board, or another message board. That's why I stay away from posting on C-USA and other message boards other then the occasional post in an interesting thread, or on the Smack board.

Now I feel all warm and fuzzy.