The ACC is the Second Best Conference in the Land

Well, we already know they're the second best in basketball; nobody's going to dispute that. I'm talking about football, because I have something to prove here.

The ACC is better than every conference in college football except for the Big 12.

I've been told the Pac 10, the SEC, the Big 10 and the Mountain West are all equal to, if not better than, the ACC.

Jeff Sagarin disagrees. If you don't know who Jeff Sagarin is, he is one of the most respected sports analysts of our time. He is usually uncanny with his rankings.

SI.com's Bill Trocchi disagrees. He's been the SEC's biggest supporter all year. It's not like he's an ACC homer; these were his week 1 rankings. He saw what happened this weekend though.

CBS Sports disagrees. The average ranking of ACC teams? 41. The average ranking of SEC teams? 44.75. The average ranking of Big 10 teams? 46.36. Pac 10? 57.7. Mountain West? 60.1. (The Big 12 incidentally? 45.25. Maybe Sagarin is onto something.)

But why should I let all the experts who know twice as much about college football as any of us make up your mind for you? That just wouldn't be like me. Here are my reasons as to why the ACC is the second best college football conference.

1. The bottom four teams in the ACC are twice as good as the next best "bottom four" in the country. The ACC has 10 bowl-eligible teams, two more than the next guy, the SEC. Of the two non-bowl eligible ACC teams, UVA was one win away and Duke was two. UVA, like NCST and so many other ACC schools, got off to a terrible start. Everyone remembers that 52-7 waxing by USC. They rebounded, though, to save their season and their coach's job. What other team in the country has a losing record, but has two wins against ranked opponents? Meanwhile, Duke continued to be the ACC bottom feeder, going 1-7 in conference. Duke is getting better, though, as evidenced by their victories over bowl-eligible Navy and Vanderbilt (who, by the way, finished 5th in the SEC). They are vastly superior to, say, Iowa State, Mississippi State, Indiana, Washington and San Diego State.

Bottom line: If NC ST, Clemson, UVA, and Duke played Tennessee, Arkansas, Auburn and MS ST, respectively, there's a good chance the ACC might come out with a four game sweep.

2. Outside of your top 2 teams, the ACC will beat you in almost every single matchup. What I mean by that is this.

Everyone knows nobody in the ACC will be playing in the national championship. The ACC doesn't have a Florida, Alabama, USC, Penn State, Ohio State, Utah or TCU. We will readily admit that. Give everyone a +2 in their match-ups against the ACC. I mean, after all, would a USC-BC game even be fun to watch? No. So all four of the leagues we're debating here (SEC, Pac-10, MWC, Big-10), with the exception of the Pac-10, whom VT would beat, can give themselves a +2.

You want to debate number 3 now? GT just beat Georgia. They would drub Michigan State, whose best out of conference win was against Notre Dame, of all teams. BYU wouldn't stand a chance; the only two good teams they've played all year have killed them. Oregon State? I have my doubts, but I suppose they would be the only ones out of this list to do it.

Number 4? Florida State, who just was walloped by Florida. Florida's one loss ironically came to the number 4 team in the SEC, Ole Miss, who I will admit would beat FSU. Mississippi played some real tough games this year. Their only real non-conference game was against Wake, who they lost to, but FSU lost to them, too. Outside of that, tell me FSU would not absolutely trample Cal (who lost to Maryland), Air Force (who lost to Navy) and Northwestern (who lost to Indiana).

Number 5? I'll take UNC over Vanderbilt (0-2 vs. the ACC), Iowa, Colorado State (would Colorado State get a first down in that game?) and Arizona any day. The closest of the bunch would be Arizona.

I would go on with 6 and so forth, but I think you got my drift.

3. The ACC is young. The league's best quarterback (Russell Wilson of NC ST) is a freshman. The league's three best running backs - as voted on by the Atlantic Coast Sports Media Association - are Jonathan Dwyer, Da'Rel Scott and Darren Evans. Dwyer and Scott are sophomores; Evans is a freshman. You can see it from all over, and it explains a lot about the ACC. At the beginning of the year, the ACC was terrible. As the season progressed, though, the young guys obviously got more experience, and every team in the league dramatically improved.

I could get into records against non-conference BCS opponents (ACC's 15-9 vs. SEC's 6-9), but I think I made my point. When you watched two ACC teams play each other, you never knew what was going to happen. You can't say that about any other conference in the land.