If you thought the college football vocabulary had jumped the shark with the terms Power 5 and Group of Five turning up in recent years in the darn of the age of autonomy, brace yourselves. The ACC has introduced a brand new term for us to consider; Autonomy 5.
The ACC Football Kickoff is getting underway down in North Carolina this morning, which means it is time for the conference to start explaining why it should be given more respect in the power conference game. One piece of propaganda media resources shows off the ACC’s record in New Years Six bowl games against other power conferences since 2012, and to be fair it is a respectable mark of 4-1. But that message sort of gets overlooked by the new term “Autonomy 5" being introduced.4-1 vs. the autonomy 5. Why can’t @theACCfootball get more respect? #ACCKickoff. #FirstTeam pic.twitter.com/vvutydlIRP
— SXM College Sports (@SiriusXMCollege) July 20, 2015
Nope. No thanks. Personally, I’ll be sticking to the term “Power 5" instead, and even that is somewhat silly to me. But I move on.
If nothing else, this piece of material is a good way of showing just how you can get numbers to work in favor any time you wish. Sure, the ACC is 4-1 in the big bowl games since 2012, and that should not be overlooked. But the ACC went 4-7 in bowl games last season, with a record of 4-7. That included identical 0-2 marks against the Big Ten and Pac-12 and a 1-2 record against the SEC (the ACC was 1-0 against the Big 12). The Georgia Tech victory over Mississippi State was a great one for the conference, but Florida State getting drubbed by Oregon was not a good look.
Is one year too small of a sample size for you? The ACC saw Florida State crowned national champions and Clemson top Ohio State in the BCS games the previous season, but the rest of the conference went 3-6 to give the ACC a losing bowl record with losing records against the Pac-12 and SEC. The ACC also went just 2-6 in bowl games in the 2011-2012 season.