ACC Gaining Traction in Football Rivalry with SEC

Every year it's the same thing. New football season, new talk from ACC teams about measuring themselves against opponents from the SEC. Usually the discussion is quickly dropped after the opening weekend, the results inconclusive or worse from an ACC perspective.

The peculiar friction between the competitive neighbors could be written off to envy on one side in football, or to jealousy on the other side in basketball. You could say it's an echo of historical antagonisms. Perhaps most accurately, any tensions between the Atlantic Coast Conference and the Southeastern Conference reflect a polite, understated but ongoing sibling rivalry.

The roots of difference trace to the fact many of the original members of both leagues belonged to the Southern Conference when it formed in the early 1920s. Then, after barely a decade together, in December 1932, 13 schools left the SoCon to form the SEC.

More than 20 years passed before the ACC did a similar vanishing act in May 1953. The seven original ACC members, joined by Virginia in December 1953, embraced higher admissions standards than did the SEC and the NCAA. Five of the original ACC schools ?” Clemson and four members from North Carolina, Duke among them ?” remain in the conference.

The ACC held to its higher SAT threshold until a 1972 lawsuit caused it to drop back to the national norm. "We still feel like the ACC should lead, rather than follow, NCAA practices in these matters," Duke declared in a league survey.

The eventual retreat was too late for the University of South Carolina. Beset in its coaches' estimation by a recruiting handicap against the SEC due to divergent academic requirements, after years of threats the Gamecocks abandoned the conference in 1971.

The SEC combined its admission edge with a strong cultural commitment to football ?“ revealingly, many of its campuses feature the stadium in a central location compared to the periphery at most ACC schools. Moreover, for whatever reasons its programs historically tend to push NCAA boundaries ?” to put it kindly. This obviously can be advantageous, less so if you're caught breaking rules.

Until a few years ago the SEC was on a run with at least one school on NCAA probation for 25 consecutive seasons. Eleven of its members (not counting recent expansion additions) have been punished for rules violations, most on multiple occasions. Auburn, Mississippi and Mississippi State have been on probation four times each. Six other SEC programs have earned probation three times each since the 1950s, most for football infractions.

Ole Miss and Mississippi State, both currently on probation, are among eight SEC schools that ran afoul of NCAA rules since 2000 (Alabama twice). The ACC long prided itself on its rectitude, doubtless a source of some friction with its southern neighbor. However, its members have been less saintly in recent years, especially as new schools joined the fold. During its history the ACC has cumulatively incurred about half as many probations as the SEC; that includes a pair of punishments meted out to recent additions Miami and Syracuse.

Much like Florida State in 1992, Miami was added to bolster ACC football. The Hurricanes rose to prominence in the sport prior to joining the ACC for the 2004 football season, prowess augmented by actions that earned two NCAA probations. Since becoming an ACC member, the Hurricanes were caught again; their probationary period ended in October. Meanwhile they've struggled to return to football's highest echelon.

Of the ACC's originals, only N.C. State has been hit with probation three times. South Carolina has the distinction of getting hit with NCAA sanctions both as an ACC member in the sixties and in the SEC twice in the past decade.

The SEC enjoyed two further modern advantages, at least where football fortunes are concerned. The conference minimizes the number of sports in which its schools participate. Resources are generally focused on 16 sports per member, about 50 percent fewer than is generally the case in the ACC. Then there's the SEC Network, an ESPN money-machine the ACC will begin emulating in 2019.

Draw your own conclusions about whether these off-field factors have anything to do with on-field prowess. Whatever the truth, the fact remains SEC football has been more prominent than the ACC version virtually since the younger league was inaugurated with Maryland as the 1953 national champion.
Among the power conferences, the ACC has regularly ranked near the bottom in success and acclaim. A respectable six of its teams representing four schools have been national champs in football while league members. But only Florida State, which has half of those titles, has won in this century. The ACC tends to wax and wane in national awareness: from 1961 through 1975 no ACC team even finished ranked in the top 10.

Contrast that record with the SEC, from which six programs emerged with a total of 21 football national championships since 1953. SEC teams routinely crowd the polls. Alabama, victor over Clemson in the College Football Playoff earlier this calendar year, has 11 titles, nearly double the ACC's total. SEC teams have been dominant nationally in recent seasons, winning an unprecedented seven consecutive titles from 2006 through 2012.

Lately ACC football has gained traction on the national stage, thanks to strong NFL drafts, numerous bowl tie-ins and significant postseason victories. Yet, at least until the ESPN hype machine cranks up, the SEC is regarded as clearly superior.

The story is rather different in men's basketball, the sport for which the ACC is most celebrated. ACC teams have long filled the polls, particularly the top 10. For years the conference was considered the standard of measure in the sport, a position it's regained the past two seasons with seven programs reaching the NCAA regional finals.

For a season-long measure, consider the final Associated Press polls over the last 10 years. All but twice (2007 and 2010) the ACC had at least a pair of teams in the top 10. Over the past decade 21 ACC squads made the final top 10 (Duke eight times, UNC six).

The SEC had a total of seven representatives in the top 10 during that same decade, never more than one at a time and three years none at all. The last time the ACC had no teams in the top 10 was the 1960 season, prior to the birth of eight of 15 current league coaches.

Since the ACC's inaugural 1953-54 season its programs have won more NCAA championships (13) than the SEC (8, plus three by Kentucky prior to '54). The diversity of the ACC's top achievers in NCAA play is broader than that of the SEC, which for years was handicapped by state laws and customs precluding many of its teams from competing against integrated schools.

Of course, in comparing the ACC and SEC, if all else fails there's always the tried and true assertion any tension is a figment of fevered media imaginations. These days everybody appears on smiling terms, soon to be siblings in the same lucrative ESPN family. Ultimately that shared interest may only stoke the smoldering competitive fires if the network thinks the rivalry will boost ratings.

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ACC Gaining Traction in Football Rivalry with SEC

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