A (brief and recent) history of ACC football
[Fan Guide Pt 1] Plus ACC terminology
For the unacquainted, ACC football might seem decent, as the conference has tallied a few recent championships and Heisman winners. But now that y’all are joining, you need to come to terms with the reality: ACC football is a concoction of chaos and ineptitude, usually fun but more often baffling.
With this crash course in history and terminology (and the rest of the four-part fan guide), when you bump into a rival fan at a bar1, you can talk intelligibly about the storied history and recent narratives around the league.
ACC History 101
The good:
3 national titles since 2013, second only to the SEC2
2 Heisman trophy winners in Jameis Winston and Lamar Jackson since 2014
Clemson becoming one of the Goliaths of the sport
The bad:
Everyone is actively trying to implode the conference (?)
Our undefeated conference champion was left out of the playoff last year
See some more pointed examples below
Frank Beamer meme
#goacc
Coastal Chaos
The ACC in a Picture
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here’s this:
And now here’s a thousand more words. No picture better represents ACC football than Frank Beamer’s triumphant meme celebrating a 0-0 tie at the end of regulation. Dubbed “arguably the worst football game ever played,” this game has sparked thought pieces and an oral history and (by my estimation) warranted inclusion in the NCAA 25 video game.
It’s noteworthy that a Power 4 football game could yield 0 points after 60 minutes, but I’ll highlight a different dimension of the picture: the sheer jubilation Beamer shows while watching it all unfold. He’s not confused, disappointed or even angry about the outcome — he’s enthralled. That’s the singular experience of ACC football. There’s plenty of bad college football cross the nation, but the splendor, the wackiness, the shared joy of being an ACC fan is unique. So welcome and enjoy.
ACC Terminology
To round out your education, here’s a crash course in the main ACC lingo:
#goacc: Might appear at first blush as advocacy for the conference, or at worst a benign corporate hashtag. But it’s been co-opted as the rallying cry for distinct ACC weirdness. As Andrea Adelson eloquently summarizes:
Being irrelevant nationally in October? #goacc. Officials suspended for mismanaging a game? #goacc. Losing to an FCS opponent? #goacc.
Coastal Chaos: We’ve since done away with the Coastal and Atlantic divisions3, but Coastal Chaos was the fun, messy and generally inexplicable nature of results from the 7 teams. There are plenty of unique storylines (a few examples below), but I think Coastal Chaos is best summarized by the 7-season stretch from 2013-19 when each of the teams won the Coastal crown, with the prize of getting waxed by FSU or Clemson in the ACC Championship game4.
The Coastal was so iconic that ESPN penned an ode when we scrapped divisions. It’s worth a read.
Circle of Suck: The Circle of Suck (immortalized by this talented MS Paint artist) was when every team in the Coastal beat another to complete an incomprehensible “transitive property” of wins. A special subset of Coastal Chaos. We also had the very real possibility of a 7-way tie at one point.
ACC Network: The league’s TV network. Given that the conference collapsed, I’m assuming the Pac-12 Network was nothing to write home about, and the American Conference didn’t even have its own TV network. So in that sense, the ACC Network is an upgrade for y’all. I’m biased, but I generally enjoy the ACCN’s programming and announcers, and it certainly borrows from ESPN’s cachet. However, don’t mistake it for the prominence of the world wide leader.
As money has replaced geography has college sports’ organizing force, ACCN’s commercials are a tell-tale sign of the ACC’s stature. Get ready for what looks like info-mercials or public access television.
Raycom: Raycom is a not-defunct5 TV station that was a predecessor of sorts for ACCN. While not as noteworthy as some of the other terminology, I think it exemplifies ACC-ness by i) losing the ACC contract, ii) the UNC-NC State brawl6 that serves as the lasting memory and final sign-off of Raycom’s football broadcast
Read the Rest of the Fan Guide
[You are here] Part 1: A (brief and recent) history of ACC football
Part 2: Cliff notes on every ACC team
Part 3: ACC rivalries, ranked
Part 4: Intros to Stanford, Cal and SMU
To get more ACC content, subscribe below. For example, I write a lot about basketball and non-revenue sports, too.
This isn’t going to happen because y’all are across the damn country. This is why realignment is dumb
The SEC has 6 national titles since 2013. The Big 10 has 2 (and we’re not counting UCF’s claim). If you go back to the 2000, the counts are even more staggering for the SEC — SEC (14), ACC (3), Big 10 (3), Big 12 (2), Pac 12 (2), Big East (1)
As with all conference names these days, the Coastal and Atlantic divisions didn’t adhere much to geography
Pitt won the 2021 ACC Championship game, the first time a Coastal team won since VT in 2010
When I originally drafted this post, that read “now-defunct.” Apparently Raycom is still operating? Who knew.