Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 1, 1995 TAG: 9511010049
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DOUG DOUGHTY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Five years after the admission of Florida State as the ACC's ninth member, the conference's other football programs have come to realize they're not in the same league with the Seminoles.
A move designed to bolster the image of ACC football has, in some respects, subjected Florida State's conference brethren to national ridicule.
The other football programs have been described often this fall as the Eight Dwarfs, and Southern California coach John Robinson recently was quoted as saying that the worst team in the Pacific-10 Conference could beat the No.2 team in the ACC.
``I think that quote hit home to a lot of people,'' said Patrick Jeffers, a wide receiver for Virginia, which entertains Florida State at 8 p.m. Thursday. ``That got around pretty quick. I had more than one person tell me about the quote, and my brother actually mailed it to me.''
A Southern Cal source did not deny the accuracy of the quote, but said the comments actually were made by All-America wide receiver Keyshawn Johnson - and not Robinson - in a telephone conference call prior to the Trojans' visit to Notre Dame.
Virginia is the current second-place team in the ACC, so, presumably the Cavaliers are the team that would lose to Pac-10 cellar-dwellar Oregon State. Never mind that UVa dropped a pair of last-second, one-point losses on the road to ninth-ranked Michigan and No.15 Texas.
It wasn't long ago that Virginia was ranked No.1 for three weeks and Georgia Tech shared the national championship, without any boost from Florida State. That took place in the fall of 1990 - two years before the Seminoles played their first ACC football game.
Nevertheless, it's hard to find anybody associated the ACC who questions the decision to admit the Seminoles, who are 29-0 in conference play and have an average winning margin of 45-12.
``I think, in the long term, it will help,'' said Virginia coach George Welsh, whose Cavaliers are 18-point underdogs to FSU. ``If five years from now, they're still undefeated, then it's not so good. This is a one-team league right now; I wouldn't know what to think in a couple of years.''
Although the vote to admit Florida State was unanimous, an earlier vote for expansion was 6-2, with Maryland and Duke opposing.
``I didn't want our opposition seen as being opposed to a specific institution,'' said Andy Geiger, then the athletics director at Maryland, ``but I thought that it made the mountain we'd have to climb at Maryland a great deal steeper and without bringing enough advantage.
``I need to tell you that, at the time, I thought there was a high risk in taking Florida State because I thought that Florida, as a football state, was very different from anything that existed elsewhere in the Atlantic Coast Conference. The whole way the high-school game is run, all those things.''
Geiger went to Maryland from Stanford in 1990 and left in 1994 for Ohio State, so he has some perspective for discussing the ACC.
``I don't think there's disrespect [nationally] for Atlantic Coast Conference football per se,'' he said. ``I just think there's imbalance, and the league can't get out of the shadow of one of its own members, and that's hurting at this point.
``It's tough. I follow the league, obviously, because I was part of it. The traditional programs in that conference are getting hammered.''
Commissioner Gene Corrigan and other officials point to the lucrative television contract that the ACC was able to negotiate with ABC, which might not have been possible without Florida State as part of the package. Also, the Seminoles' presence was a big factor in the ACC getting a spot in the Football Bowl Coalition.
``I think it's been a financial benefit for the league because Florida State has coattails - television coattails - so there's been some revenue that's come into the league that's badly needed,'' Geiger said. ``But I don't think it's enhanced the other programs' [credibility].
``I don't think there's a sweeping respect for Atlantic Coast Conference football because Florida State's in the conference. I think that people believe it's a pretty easy route for Florida State to play its one one or two meaningful games of the year.''
Seminoles coach Bobby Bowden, who spent the first 26 years of his coaching career as an independent, says it is Florida State that has benefited from its ACC association.
``A lot of people would say, `No, it hasn't, either, because people think the conference isn't so strong,''' Bowden said. ``They don't know that. I say, `Let's play out the season and see what happens.' Maybe the conference is stronger than people think. Maybe Florida State is stronger than people think.''
The Southern Cal comments, whether attributed properly or not, have sparked considerable comment.
``That's not fair,'' said Geiger of the alleged putdown. ``I don't think it's true. I saw Georgia Tech-Arizona on TV. It was the middle of the night here, but I couldn't sleep, so I watched it. And that was a competitive game.
``Georgia Tech is a building program, and Arizona [a 20-19 winner at home] is not a last-place team in the Pac-10. Oregon State is not having a good year, and I think they'd be hard-pressed to beat a lot of ACC teams. I don't think Cal would win the ACC or finish second or third.''
One of the ACC's problems is that the middle-of-the-pack teams keep beating each other. At the end of the 1994 regular season, five ACC teams were in the Top 25. Now, only Florida State and Virginia are ranked, and No.24 UVa appears headed for a fall.
``We're not scared of playing anyone in any other conference,'' UVa's Jeffers said. ``Hopefully, some bowl matchups this year will put a lot of ACC teams against [teams from] other conferences, and we can show there's more to this conference than just Florida State.''
by CNB