The Monday morning after . . . for the sad ACC

To sum up the weekend performance of the ACC, we turn to the insights of longtime football analysts Steely Dan:

William & Mary won't do.

Not when they're supposed to be the cupcake, the mimosa, the first oyster of the late afternoon gliding down your throat.

Note to the conference: No cupcakes for you.

Somehow, the controlled setting designed to make a wounded band of schools feel better about themselves inflicted more damage. Virginia loses to W&M; Duke to Richmond; N.C. State to South Carolina; Maryland to Cal; Va Tech to Bama.

North Carolina did handle the Fighting Burrcuts (GOOD JOB, TAR HEELS!). But in no way shape or fashion can anyone ponder the wreckage of the conference's showing and not wince.

Some of these losses were expected. Too many of them were not. It will be interesting to see how and when ACC Commissioner John Swofford and his band of merry button-down shirts will announce that their conference is right on schedule in its inexorable climb to the gridiron elite.

Caulton Tudor of the N&O has a differing take. The ACC, he writes, shouldn't stick a toe outside of its own ranks to start a season for the forseeable future. That way, at least some of its teams are guaranteed not to lose.
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/sports/college-football/story/931956.html

Let's be fair here. Nobody wins them all. In its years wandering in the wilderness, Alabama, my school, lost to more hyphenated colleges from across the South than I can Google in an hour.

But it's clear that Picking the Right Patsy, as much as that blocking and tackling stuff, is yet another football art the ACC is taking a while to learn.

Here's the scarier part. As Steely Dan put it, They've got a name for the winners of the world, I want a name when I lose. Maybe the ACC already has one. Maybe it's the tray of cupcakes everyone else can't wait to play.
-- Michael Gordon