More than Tide, Hokies, ACC needs a win

It's a situation that Frank Beamer didn't create, and it probably isn't fair that his team is now expected to carry the torch for the entire Atlantic Coast Conference football community. But North Carolina State sure didn't do him any favors when it laid an egg on national television against South Carolina on Thursday night, losing 7-3.

Say what you will about the University of Alabama's 2009-10 opener against Virginia Tech in the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game on Saturday night at the Georgia Dome, but it's one that the ACC desperately wants to win.

No pressure.

"We are all in this thing together," Beamer said earlier this week. "I've said this many times, I think most of these teams are going to be better in the ACC than they were last year. Most of us have our quarterbacks back, and that is important. We are playing with a lot of young people, that is important. So I think most of us are going to be better than we were last year, and if we are those wins will come.

"A win over a great program as good as Alabama would definitely be a big thing for Virginia Tech and the ACC. The other side of it, it doesn't make your season either way. If you beat Alabama you still have games to play, and if you lose to Alabama you still have games to play. You go out there and play the best you can, and hopefully you have some success. You will see how you are as a football team and improve from there."

With both squads ranked in the top 10 of the preseason Associated Press poll, the Crimson Tide fifth and the Hokies seventh, the game is naturally being hyped as the first important step in eventually crowning the national champion. In addition to enjoying a bowl-type atmosphere and the obvious recruiting benefits that go with it, the coaches hope that even with a loss the team can still come back and have a strong season.

Otherwise, it's essentially an elimination game.

"It's a horrible thought, for any team," Coach Nick Saban said.

Beamer told reporters during a conference call that he believed it would be much tougher for Tech to rebound enough to stay in the national title picture than Alabama.

"I think that's one of the advantages of playing in our conference," Saban said.

"I don't know if I agree with his part of it. They have a pretty good schedule this year. They play Nebraska, they play Miami early in the season as well as us. I think any team that has one loss still has a chance to win the national championship and there's evidence that a team with two losses has that potential as well."

However, it's impossible not to consider on what happened here a year ago, when Alabama crushed No. 9 Clemson 34-10. The Tide outgained the Tigers on the ground 239 to 0, and used the victory to springboard a perfect regular season.

"We were whipped pretty bad," said Tommy Bowden, who was fired a month later.

The rest of the ACC appeared to struggle as well. With traditional powerhouses Florida State and Miami unable to challenge for the conference, much less national, title, no team really separated itself from the field. Basically, the conference beat up on itself.

The good side of that parity was that 10 of the 12 schools (an NCAA-record 83.3 percent) received bowl invitations, although in a couple of cases it may have been better off staying home.

By beating Boston College in the ACC Championship Game, Virginia Tech earned the conference's Bowl Championship Series spot and defeated Cincinnati in the Orange Bowl, 20-7.

The only other team to play on New Year's Day, Clemson, lost to Nebraska in the Gator Bowl 26-21; Georgia Tech was crushed by LSU down the street at the Chick-fil-A Bowl, 38-3; and No. 24 Boston College lost the other ACC-SEC matchup, to Vanderbilt in the Music City Bowl, 16-14.

The ACC went 4-6 in bowls, with the other wins coming against Navy, Nevada and Wisconsin. Virginia Tech finished 14th in the final AP poll, while Georgia Tech was No. 22 and Florida State 23rd.

In comparison, Florida won the SEC's third straight national title, and fourth since 2003, while three other teams finished in the top 15. It also bumped the conference's record in BCS games up to 12-5 (the ACC is 2-9).

Last year, the SEC led the nation with 259 former players on NFL opening day rosters, and then had the most draft selections in April with 38 (the ACC was second with 33).

Overall, it has the most bowl game appearances (369) and bowl victories (190). Since 2000, the conference has a non-conference record of 364-129, for a .738 winning percentage. The SEC has led the nation in attendance for 28 consecutive seasons, and the 15-year $3 billon broadcast deal with CBS and ESPN is the envy of collegiate athletics.

It's no wonder Beamer has been downplaying the make-or-break talk.

"I think it's going to have a big impact either way," Tech senior linebacker Cody Grimm said. "I think Coach Beamer doesn't want our emotions to fluctuate too much from the game, because if you win you can come back and have a letdown and all of a sudden you're down for the rest of the season, stuff like that."

However, if Alabama wins big again, no one will be talking about how Beamer with 219 victories (one ahead of Ohio State's Jim Tressel) is in third place among active head coaches behind Penn State's Joe Paterno (383) and Florida State's Bobby Bowden (382); that the Seminoles are scheduled to face 11 opponents who playing in bowl games last year; or that Duke vs. North Carolina might be worth watching in a sport other than basketball.

The stigma will still linger, that the ACC is still down.

"This is a really good football team, coming out of the SEC, I don't think there is any question about the toughness of the Southeastern Conference," Beamer said. "So we got our hands full (Saturday)."