Alex Wujciak poured his heart onto the field with 17 tackles in the Terps' loss Saturday. Photo by Adam Fried/The Diamondback

“If we go undefeated in the ACC, we go to the Orange Bowl.”

Linebacker Alex Wujciak is correct in his bold statement. The Terps are not yet out of contention for the ACC championship — heck, they’re not yet out of contention for a perfect ACC season.

At this point, the assessment is clearly far-fetched. The Terps (1-3)have yet to win a game against any FBS (formerly D1-A) opponent. But then again, the way things have looked so far, we’re clearly in for another wildly unpredictable year in ACC football.

First, Virginia Tech was going to run away with the conference. Then, their star running back, Darren Evans, was injured in practice and knocked out for the season.

Two weeks in, there was the supposed Miami dynasty. The Hurricanes clawed past Florida State in an instant classic then demolished Georgia Tech.

Then, Virginia Tech smashed them this week. But the Hokies were handled by Alabama in their opener and needed a near-miracle to beat Nebraska. So, they’re clearly vulernable.

Georgia Tech, N.C. State, North Carolina and Clemson have all looked at least formidable. And Boston College is somehow off to a 3-1 start after being projected by some to miss out on bowl season.

Maryland and Virginia have stunk the joint up.

But conference season is redemption time in the ACC. Every team in the conference already has a loss — something that can’t be said for any of the other five BCS conferences. And Virginia Tech is the only undefeated team in conference play that’s actually played a conference game (N.C. State, Maryland, Virginia and Duke kick things off this week).

The conference as a whole is just 19-13 in nonconference games. Compare that to the Big 12 (32-10), SEC (24-2), Big Ten (24-9), Big East (21-7) or Pac-10 (19-7). You don’t have to be a genius to figure this one out: the ACC is not very good right now.

On the road, the fits get worse. ACC teams boast a 4-9 record in road games — though with the showings at Byrd Stadium lately, it’s unclear whether home-field advantage will really be there for the Terps this year.

Still, the conference standings are a jumbled mess, and I can tell you it’s not going to be easy filling out my Diamondback ACC Power Rankings poll tomorrow.

So could the Terps turn it around in ACC play?

Well, not with the efforts they’ve shown us so far this season. But crazy things seem to happen every year in this conference. And while even a bowl game appears rather unlikely right now, the league might just be bad enough this year for things to work themselves out.

ajoseph@umdbk.com

This entry was posted on Monday, September 28th, 2009 at 3:01 am and is filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.