A lot has been made recently concerning the apparent demise of the ACC and how the raid on the Big East did not go as planned. To say the formation of this super conference didn't go as planned is a gross understatement. It absolutely failed miserably, I'm talking Bay of Pigs, Ryan Leaf as your number one draft pick type failure. While formulating their rise to conference supremacy, the presidents and AD's of the ACC institutions had to at least formulate a possible scenario for if it all goes wrong. They may have thought that the conference would only get an at-large BCS bid only every other year or that the Miami/FSU game would eliminate an ACC team from national title contention each season. I am sure that not one of them pictured the downfalls that have played out over the last few seasons.

Before we dive straight into the numbers (what can numbers really prove anyway) it's important to just recap the last few seasons using name recognition alone. The first ACC title featured a stolen Big East team in Virginia Tech losing to a mediocre Florida State. While the conference was disappointed that their champion would be ranked so low (and lose their BCS game), the game itself seemed like a relative success. The next season's title game featured Wake Forest vs. Georgia Tech. Not exactly a match of perennial titans, but sometimes it's nice to have new blood in the title game. However, it's not so nice to turn on the TV and see section after section of empty seats and bored fans. The bowl season wouldn't be any better as both title game participants lost to Big East teams in their bowl games. The 2007 title game featured a pair of Big East runaways in another empty stadium miles away from where either team calls home (not to mention another loss for the ACC champion in the BCS). Not exactly what everyone had in mind.

Now to the numbers. The ACC showed signs of a demise after ACC king supreme Florida State lost to Oklahoma in the 2000 National Championship. From 2001-2003 the highest ranked ACC team couldn't pass 11 in the final AP poll. Surely, that would change when the cream of the Big East crop switched allegiances. Not so much. Over the past four seasons, the average of the highest ranked ACC team when it all is said and done stands at.......you guessed it 11. Now to give the conference some credit, Virginia Tech did finish at 7 in 2005 and 9 in 2007, but Wake Forest finished an embarrassingly low 18 in 2006. Low rankings, no at large BCS invitations, no national titles (or appearances) and a .000 winning percentage in BCS games since 1999 all smell of failure for the conference and the formulators of this "super-conference". But it gets worse. Over the past two seasons the ACC has compiled a 19-32 record against non-conference BCS teams and a pitiful 6-10 bowl record (we won't even get into their opponents). The ACC futility is only rivaled by that of the Big Ten, but at least they have put multiple teams in the BCS and made appearance in the national championship (well at least kinda made an appearance) Meanwhile, what of the conference that the ACC pillaged in order to produce the new band of football powerhouses? Three straight BCS wins, a 22-17 BCS non-conference record and an 8-2 bowl record over the last two seasons.

Unless the ACC turns it around quickly, the great greed grubbing of a conference conquest will go down as one of the worst ideas in sports history. I'm talking XFL, sacrificing a whole draft for Ricky Williams type idea.