I got an email from a reader about a USA Today column on ACC Football that was obviously published just because they don’t have much else going on right now for their college sports guys.
The column was from Eddie Timanus, whose bio lists him as a Heisman elector who had a five-game winning streak on “Jeopardy!” and was a $50,000 winner on “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?”
The premise: ranking the football programs in the ACC, from 1-17.
The goal: to piss people off.
From the column:
Any effort to rank programs will be somewhat arbitrary, depending upon which factors a particular pundit chooses to emphasize. As such, this list will almost certainly spark disagreement. But fans love debates almost as much as they like watching the games themselves.
Editors love debates, because they love clicks; fans click because they think people who write these dumb columns are jerkoffs.
Knowing the motivation, I don’t care so much that Timanus went with Clemson, Florida State and Miami at 1, 2 and 3.
That much is obvious.
Virginia, though, at #15?
“There’ve been a few good moments for the Cavaliers,” Timanus wrote, listing the 1995 win over a #2 ranked Florida State team and last year’s run to the ACC title game.
There’s more to UVA Football than that, obviously.
Three weeks at #1 in 1990, for starters.
A ton of guys from the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s who made their mark in the NFL – Pro Football Hall of Fame safety Ronde Barber, College Football Hall of Famers Jim Dombrowski, Herman Moore and Anthony Poindexter, 10,000-yard running backs Tiki Barber and Thomas Jones, 2010 Pro Bowl MVP Matt Schaub, multiple-time NFL Pro Bowlers Patrick Kerney and D’Brickashaw Ferguson, two-time Super Bowl champs James Farrior, Chris Long and Heath Miller.
Timanus ranks Virginia Tech at #6, based on the program being “New Year’s Day bowl regulars around the turn of the century under long-time coach Frank Beamer.”
Yeah, and since Beamer was forced out in 2015, Tech has gone 63-63 overall, 41-40 in the ACC.
Wonder what Virginia’s record is in that span?
Hmmm … 58-64 overall, 35-46 in the ACC.
Here’s a fun one – take out 2016 and 2017, when Justin Fuente was coasting on the fumes of the Beamer era, and Bronco Mendenhall was having to rebuild from the stench of Mike London, and the records are:
- Virginia Tech: 44-55 overall, 30-35 in the ACC.
- Virginia: 50-47 overall, 31-34 in the ACC.
One of those is ranked sixth, the other is 15th.
The one ranked sixth couldn’t even afford HVAC in its indoor practice facility until earlier this year.
Pretty much everybody after 1, 2 and 3 is a question mark.
Pitt’s success is in the 1970s with Tony Dorsett and Dan Marino, decades before the school was in the ACC.
Ditto for Syracuse – awesome, Jim Brown played there, in the 1950s.
Stanford at #10? They play home games in a 90 percent empty stadium.
Boston F’n College at #12? Because of a Doug Flutie Hail Mary in 1984?
Timanus, a Northern Virginia alum/Wake Forest grad, put his alma mater at #14, which suggests to us that, just maybe, he got a thin envelope back from the admissions office at UVA in the spring of 1986.
The ACC, in general, is bereft of football tradition.
Virginia is no more bereft that anyone else outside the top three.
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Chris Graham
