Little brother is all grown up.

For the second time in four years, an ACC team knocked out an SEC team to win a national championship.

It started in 2013, when FSU rallied past Auburn, scoring the winning touchdown on a 2-yard pass with 13 seconds left.

It repeated in 2016, when Clemson rallied past Alabama, scoring the winning touchdown on a 2-yard touchdown pass with 1 second left.

In 2013, Jameis Winston also won the Heisman. In 2016, Deshaun Watson should have, but the honor instead went to another ACC signal-caller, Lamar Jackson.

It’s a good thing Alabama held off Watson and Clemson in 2015, or it would be all ACC, all the time.

The SEC has been accused of living in the past — seven consecutive national championships from four programs from 2006-2012 will cause that — and now it’s the ACC rightly puffing its chest.

But the past is the past, and no league outside of the SEC has won sole back-to-back national championships since Nebraska of the old Big 8 in the mid-1990s.

Can the ACC keep it going? Is it really the new king of college football?

I asked my guy Joe Giglio, an N.C. State beat writer who not only knows the ACC better than anybody but put up with me for 3 years as his editor at The News & Observer. One of our highlights each week was a roundtable discussion on college football.

With three SEC vs. ACC matchups on deck for Week 1, it felt like the perfect time to bring it — and Joe — back.

Q: ACC obviously has national title/Heisman reasons to puff its chest. Where are you on the ACC is King of the Land talk? And, is the league actually better or worse this year than last year?

Giglio: The ACC was the best conference in college in football in 2016. Can’t imagine there’s an argument against that. However, sustained consistency — by more than just one team — made the SEC the best.

If LSU, Auburn, Tennessee and Florida live up to their preseason rankings, the SEC will be back on top. I like to compare the SEC last year, and the year before, to Florida State and the rest of the ACC during the 1990s.

The ACC definitely has three top 10 teams — FSU, Clemson, Louisville — but its strength will be determined beyond that. How good is Miami or Virginia Tech on the Coastal side? Can N.C. State put together a Top 25 season to go with its Top 25 talent? Can Pitt, UNC or Georgia Tech put together eight- or nine-win seasons?

I don’t think the ACC will be as good as it was last year. For one, those three Atlantic Division teams have the potential to counterfeit each other and leave the league without a team in the Playoff. For another, I don’t think FSU (Dalvin Cook) or Clemson (Deshaun Watson) have game-breakers on the current roster the caliber of those players.

Q: N.C. State opens against South Carolina. Both fan bases are as pumped as they’ve been in a long time. Some analysts are too …

I don’t see it. Is there any reason to believe N.C. State can win the Atlantic and possibly contend for a Playoff?

Giglio: Not a good reason, the schedule is just too hard.

Q: Alabama rolls on. New faces, same expectations. They’re starting at No. 1 again. Are they overrated?

Giglio: While I do think Alabama gets a lot of credit for being Alabama, I think they’ve earned the benefit of the doubt. Plus, there are enough parts back on offense to suggest they could make real progress there. I do think the losses of Reuben Foster and Ryan Anderson are being overlooked, but reloading on defense has never been Saban’s problem.

Plus, getting back to the schedule, even if Alabama loses in the opener, who’s going to beat them in the SEC? LSU? Just wait until Matt Canada dials up a jet sweep on the goal line for the third-string tight end instead of Derrius Guice. I’m not sold an anyone else out west, either.

So Alabama has to lose twice to get knocked out of the Playoff. That’s not going to happen.

Q: ACC vs. SEC. Alabama-FSU, Tennessee-Georgia Tech, N.C. State-South Carolina. Who are you picking in the three Week 1 matchups — and why?

Giglio: Picks: Rammer jammer, Butch’s “champions of life” and the Wolfpack.

Why? FSU’s offensive line is not great (not a great recipe vs. Tide), Georgia Tech’s talent base and South Carolina will struggle with N.C. State’s strength (the defensive front).