The Confidential

The Mount Rushmore of the ACC: Football Coaches

Yesterday, we unveiled the ACC Mount Rushmore of Basketball Coaches.  Today, we ran a poll to see what you thought about the #4 selection.  Well, it is onto the football coaches now.  Who makes up the Mount Rushmore of ACC Football Coaches?

Who is not eligible?  We are going to avoid the coaches for Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Louisville, and Notre Dame.  So no Todd Graham.  OK, that was a joke.  No Rockne, Parseghian, Schwartzwalder, or Sherrill.  Just coaches from the 12 ACC schools as of June 30, 2013.  But that still leaves a lot of high-quality coaches.

The first one is a no-brainer.  Bobby Bowden.  Although he and Joe Paterno were engaged in a battle to see who could have more wins vacated at one point, what Bowden accomplished with the Seminoles places him in contention for a college football Mount Rushmore spot.  Certainly, the ACC can devote a spot to a guy that won 300+ games.

Although he did a lot of work in the Big East, we had to give Frank Beamer a spot.  Virginia Tech has carried the ACC since the expansion in the early 2000’s.  Not Clemson.  Not Florida State.  Virginia Tech.  And that longevity is worth something to us.  Meanwhile, he has over 200 wins.  The Hokies had a rough year last year (by Beamer standards), but the overall body of work is very impressive.  Notably, the most controversial thing you can really say about Beamer is that he recruited the Vicks.

After this it gets tough.  Unlike the basketball side, a case could be made for several coaches for the final two spots.  Let the controversy begin!

Ultimately, the Confidential reserves the third spot is for Danny Ford of Clemson.  Ford only spent 11 years on the Clemson sideline, but he went 96-29-4 over that period.  Along the way, the Tigers won a national championship in 1981.  As with too many coaches, Ford had some issues with violations and players getting in trouble though.

For the fourth spot, the Confidential is going to go with Bobby Ross of Georgia Tech fame.  Actually, Ross had significant success with the Maryland Terrapins, winning three ACC titles.  But at Georgia Tech, Ross had similar success and won a national championship in 1990.  For those accomplishments, we give the edge to Ross.

Who did we omit?  Lots of names.  Miami had three coaches who could make the list–Howard Schnellenberger, Jimmy Johnson, and Dennis Erickson.  Of course, Bobby Bowden coached Florida State for the duration of those coaches’ tenures and then some.  Like Bobby Ross, Bill Dooley and Jim Tatum coached multiple ACC schools with success.  And George Welsh helped turn Virginia into an actual football school for a significant period of time.  Frank Howard won 165 games for Clemson!  So we expect tomorrow morning’s poll to be fairly heated as well.

In the meantime, feel free to jump the gun and tell us what you think of our Mount Rushmore!