O’Gara: No, Jim Phillips. The ACC doesn’t have ‘the most exciting collection of college football teams’ in America

I respect Jim Phillips’ unbiased opinion. I really do.

When the ACC commissioner spoke Monday at ACC Media Days and claimed that “there’s not a more exciting collection of teams in the country than in the ACC,” I could tell that he was coming from a place of neutrality.

After all, it’s not like the ACC’s Grant of Rights deal has its 2 most prominent members (Florida State and Clemson) involved in a lawsuit with the conference over media contracts. It’s not like one of those teams (Florida State) was just shut out of the Playoff as a 13-0 team because of how unexciting it was without star quarterback Jordan Travis, and it’s certainly not like the other team’s (Clemson) refusal to adapt to the transfer portal has coincided with 3 consecutive Playoff-less seasons.

Nah. Let’s hear Phillips’ take on why “excitement” in the ACC is unmatched:

ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips:

“There’s not a more exciting collection of teams in the country than in the ACC.”https://t.co/ojqGsikaBH pic.twitter.com/7Js3NhJRDe

— On3 (@On3sports) July 23, 2024

To be fair, Phillips’ unbiased take came on the heels of adding SMU, Cal and Stanford. To recap, that’s 3 programs with 1 combined AP Top 25 finish in the 2020s, and it came from SMU, which won 11 games in its final season in the AAC. That was also SMU’s first ranked finish since the “Pony Express” days of the mid-1980s. Meanwhile, Cal and Stanford are just trying to have their first winning season of the 2020s.

Ah, but “exciting” is the key word here. “Exciting” was watching the SMU offense last year. Like, when it faced Group of 5 competition. Of the ACC’s active members in 2023, only 2 (No. 18 Florida State and No. 20 UNC) finished with top-30 scoring offenses. Meanwhile, the SEC had 6, including the nation’s most exciting offense, LSU, which was led by Heisman Trophy winner Jayden Daniels.

OK, but Daniels is gone. After all, Phillips talked about the excitement levels going into 2024. He didn’t talk about how the ACC has just 2 players in the top 20 of the preseason odds to win the Heisman Trophy, which is an award that hasn’t been won by an ACC player since Lamar Jackson (an actual exciting player) in 2016.

Related: Looking to place a bet on the Heisman Trophy winner for 2024? SDS has you covered with all the latest odds!

Phillips also didn’t talk about how the lone team that played in a New Year’s 6 bowl was aforementioned FSU, which wasn’t excited enough to play in the Orange Bowl and suffered a 63-3 beatdown from Georgia. The same was true a year earlier when the ACC’s lone New Year’s 6 bowl representative, Clemson, got pounded 31-14 by a Joe Milton-led Tennessee.

In fact, the ACC has yet to win a single New Year’s 6 bowl (Playoff or non-Playoff) during the 2020s. The conference has an 0-5 record with all 5 losses coming by double digits.

Exciting? Eh. How about “disappointing.”

Clearly, it’s just “SEC bias” that propelled the conference to 14 New Year’s 6 bowl victories during the 2020s. Clearly, it’s just a big conspiracy to benefit teams with bigger fan bases.

If Phillips wants to quantify “excitement” in terms of average home attendance, the ACC loses that argument, too. Nine SEC teams averaged at least 65,000 fans per home game compared to just 2 (FSU and Clemson) for the ACC. By the way, that’s not counting Texas and Oklahoma for the SEC, which would give the conference 11 such teams. Meanwhile, counting SMU, Stanford and Cal for the ACC would … still give the ACC just 2 teams that averaged 65,000 fans per home game. Shoot, none of those 3 new ACC members even averaged 40,000 fans per game in 2023.

Phillips didn’t play the attendance card to prove his point. He instead played the “we have the best coaches” card.

“We have elite coaching leadership, 6 ACC head coaches named to the 2024 Dodd Trophy preseason watch list. No conference has more,” Phillips said at ACC Media Days (H/T On3). “Two of the 3 active coaches in the country to win a national title reside here in the ACC: Mack Brown and Dabo Swinney. The combination of our proven veteran coaches combined with our dynamic young coaches is incredibly powerful.”

Ah, yes. Nothing proves “excitement” like a 72-year-old coach who won a national title nearly 20 years ago. And if this is about 2024, it’s worth noting that on DraftKings, UNC is No. 36 at 300-to-1 to win a national title while Clemson is No. 14 at 40-to-1.

Related: Looking for a place to place a national championship future? SDS has you covered with all the latest odds!

Oh, and note that Phillips said “no conference had more” coaches on the 2024 Dodd Trophy preseason watch list than the ACC, which totally fuels hype and excitement during an 8-month offseason. He carefully chose those words because like the ACC, the SEC also has 6 coaches on that preseason watch list.

To recap, Phillips’ top argument for excitement is actually one shared by the SEC. And just in case that wasn’t enough, 2023 Dodd Trophy finalist Kalen DeBoer wasn’t eligible because he’s in Year 1 with a new program.

Ah, but wait! Phillips has more!

If the bulletproof point about the ACC’s elite coaching didn’t sell you, maybe the quarterbacks will.

“The ACC is the conference of quarterbacks,” Phillips said. “Thirteen enter the season with over 20 career touchdown passes and 3,500 career passing yards. Eight quarterbacks are projected to start Week 1 in the 2024 NFL season; 25% of NFL teams.”

Interesting. Let’s look at that stat. As in, the “13 ACC QBs have at least 20 career TD passes and 3,500 career passing yards” stat, and let’s apply it to the SEC.

Here are the list of SEC quarterbacks who are part of that group:

• Taylen Green, Arkansas
• Payton Thorne, Auburn
• Graham Mertz, Florida
• Carson Beck, Georgia
• Blake Shapen, Mississippi State
• Brady Cook, Mizzou
• Casey Thompson, Oklahoma
• Jaxson Dart, Ole Miss
• Quinn Ewers, Texas
• Diego Pavia, Vanderbilt

Note that Jalen Milroe, AKA the guy who finished higher in the 2023 Heisman Trophy voting than any returning player, didn’t make the cut for that group because he only has 3,172 career passing yards. Payton Thorne, however, easily made the cut, as did Oklahoma backup Casey Thompson.

In other words, that’s hardly the best barometer for “excitement” for an entire conference. If I were to play that card for the SEC, I’d say that the conference has 5 returning quarterbacks who started in a Playoff game or won a New Year’s 6 bowl. With all due respect to Thompson and Thorne, they’re probably less worthy of being part of any “excitement” argument than that group.

Oh, and for what it’s worth, the SEC has 9 quarterbacks who are projected to start in the NFL in Week 1. And that’s excluding guys like Jalen Hurts and Kyler Murray, both of whom started at SEC schools and finished elsewhere.

By the way, that’s worth nothing if we’re evaluating how “exciting” a collection of teams is in a conference.

I get it, though. What’s Phillips supposed to say? That the ACC has never been more random and it’s in jeopardy of imploding if any of its members can ever get out of a bad media rights contract? That doesn’t roll off the tongue.

Instead, Phillips got up to the podium and sold ACC superiority. Well, at least he attempted to sell ACC superiority.

In my unbiased opinion, he failed miserably.

Connor O'Gara

Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.