How Do Current ACC Coaches Stack Up?

How does the current batch of ACC head coaches compare to those of yesteryear? Steve Spurrier or David Cutcliffe? Danny Ford or Tommy Bowden? Mack Brown or Butch Davis?

Read what WRAL’s Dane Huffman has to say on the subject :

N.C. State athletics director Lee Fowler raised an interesting point Wednesday… “I do think probably at this time we have as good a head coaches in the league as we’ve had, and that’s from top to bottom,” Fowler said. “And I think, given the time for these guys to get their program going, we’re going to have one of the better leagues in the country.“I think we have 12 of the better head coaches we’ve ever had in this conference.”

It’s an observation worth a closer look.

Personally, I believe the league had a stronger set of coaches in the late 1980s and specifically 1989.

Virginia and Duke tied for the league title that season.The Cavaliers had their best coach ever (George Welsh) and Duke had its second-best ever (Steve Spurrier, second only to Wallace Wade).

Clemson was in the last year of the Danny Ford regime, and Ford finished 10-2 in 1989 before being pushed out.

Georgia Tech had Bobby Ross, who would win a share of the national title in 1990 and go on to be successful in the NFL.

N.C. State had Dick Sheridan, whose only equal in Wolfpack history was Lou Holtz. I’d rank Holtz slightly ahead of Sheridan as the best coach N.C. State has ever had but there’s no question both were superior coaches.

North Carolina finished 1-10 that year for the second straight year under Mack Brown, but Brown the Heels pointed in a winning direction and his recruiting classes would soon pay off.

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