www.avca.org
And Pitt wasn't too far off in coming in at #3. Further to your point.....5 of the top 25 are ACC teams....and 2 more....SMU and Miami....were in the category 'others receiving votes'!
The upper half of the ACC can compete with anyone for sure. I think the issue is that the bottom half of the ACC is still really bad - the Syracuse/Clemson/Virginia Techs of the ACC are worse than what the bottom of the Big 10 looks like. Thats the bigger gap between ACC and Big 10 than the top teams. But 100% the ACC is the clear second best conference over the SEC
Viginia, VaTech, and, of course, Syracuse were the worst in the ACC. If you compare those three to Michigan, Rutgers, and Iowa, the ACC was slightly better.
Syracuse was actually trending up until COVID regulations impacted their international athletes. Notre Dame has also been awful after a pretty strong run. The ACC would look better if those two weren't so bad.
That's such a weird argument. You don't judge an entire conference by it's basement.
My point is that those were fairly competitive P5 teams not very long ago. The ACC would appear a lot stronger if those teams were as good as they were just 3-5 years ago. It isn't like they have been in the basement forever.
The "appearance" of strength of the conference is just made up nonsense. We keep hearing about how the SEC is really good but nobody has witnessed them do anything collectively to prove it. Meanwhile the ACC had two final four teams just two years ago and has three of the top six ranked teams. Whatever Syracuse is doing doesn't matter any more than whatever it is that Michigan is doing.
