The Champ is here! Not really as I planned on writing this piece regardless of if Clemson won or not on Monday night, but it helps my case so here we are. The ACC rounds out an amazing season by capping it with a national championship. 2016 proved that the Atlantic Coast Conference is the best in college football (and maybe across NCAA sports).
Just through the regular season, the ACC was 9-6 against other power 5 schools in non conference play this year. For comparison:
ACC: 9-6
Big 12: 2-6
Big Ten: 7-4
Pac 12: 5-5
SEC: 6-8
The Big Ten was the only other conference with a winning record in the nonconference. This also makes the Big 12 look rather weak (like none of us already knew that). I’m not saying bowl games really mean anything, but the ACC also dominated bowl season.
ACC: 9-3
Big 12: 4-2
Big Ten: 3-7
Pac 12: 3-3
SEC: 6-6
If you’re keeping score at home, that puts the ACC at 18-9 overall while not other conference was any better than the 8-8 Pac 12. AS you can see, the ACC reigned dominate not only this year, but also over the past few as they have had a team in the national championship in three of the past four years, winning two of the past four.
As it extends to other sports, the ACC also dominates in basketball. They’ve also had three appearances in the last four championships, winning two. This year it is rumored that the ACC may be able to get close to ten teams in the NCAA tournament, which obviously is enormous. For the time being, the ACC is the king of college football and college sports in general.
*Insert angry SEC fan comments here*