more on ACC football from the Charlotte Observer

This is obviously more trustworthy than their predictions, since the lead talks about what a great guy Jim Grobe is:

FOOTBALL TALK AT LEAGUE MEETINGS

Deacons' title puts heat on rest of ACC

If Wake Forest can win it, folks say anyone can

KEN TYSIAC

ktysiac@charlotteobserver.com

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AMELIA ISLAND, Fla. --

Jim Grobe doesn't appear to have many enemies.

Wake Forest's football coach is charming enough to convince freshmen who are eager to play immediately that they should redshirt.

He is generous with his time with members of the media and admired by many fellow coaches.

He had North Carolina basketball coach Roy Williams giggling like a teenager while describing Grobe's sandbagging on the golf course Monday during the ACC spring meetings.

But Grobe didn't do his colleagues any favors by winning the ACC championship to earn the conference's automatic bid to the Orange Bowl last season. Wake Forest has modest football facilities and doesn't often sign recruits in the national top 100.

If Wake Forest can win the conference, what will people think?

"Anybody can do it," said Clemson coach Tommy Bowden.

That will give players confidence against any opponent. But what will fans say to ACC coaches?

"If (Wake Forest) can do it, why can't you do it?" Bowden said.

Bowden and Grobe said Wake Forest's win illustrates ACC football's level playing field. In two years, four teams -- Wake Forest, Georgia Tech, Florida State and Virginia Tech -- have played in the championship game.

The last ACC champion to finish undefeated in conference play was Florida State in 2000.

"The teams are getting closer and closer together from top to bottom," Grobe said. "With Wake Forest winning the ACC championship, it proves there is some equity in college football now."

North Carolina coach Butch Davis said Wake Forest's formula for success will be difficult to duplicate. The Deacons won last season with veterans on defense and 40 of 44 players on the final two-deep chart who redshirted.

Davis said Nebraska won under Tom Osborne with a similar system in the 1980s and 1990s. But many top freshmen now are unwilling to redshirt, and North Carolina is an example of how transfers and dismissals for rules violations can prevent players from reaching their senior season.

North Carolina went 3-9 after beginning last season under John Bunting with just 13 fourth-year players remaining from a highly regarded 2003 class of 22 freshmen. And this season?

"We only have 10 seniors," Davis said.

As a first-year coach, Davis isn't under as much pressure to win immediately as Tommy Bowden, Duke's Ted Roof and Virginia's Al Groh. In eight seasons, Bowden has never posted a losing record, but he has yet to win an ACC title.

He said he answered tough questions during 17 spring speaking engagements on the booster circuit, but said enthusiasm has never been higher.

Enthusiasm also leads to high expectations, which are in vogue everywhere now that Wake Forest has won the ACC.

"The longer you stay, the more (a conference title) becomes a goal that you need to reach," Bowden said. "After eight years, that's something you've got to do. I don't care what school you're at."

Charlotte Observer's pre-pre-season ACC picks

You know, pre-season predictions are interesting but completely useless. After all, the Deacs were picked to finish last in their division before last season, and that was in August. Picks made in May are, somehow, more than completely useless, but I'm going to put 'em up here anyway:

ACC Football Forecast

ACC teams ranked in descending order of their chances to win the 2007 conference title:

School	2006 record	Forecast
Virginia Tech	10-3, 6-2 ACC	Only question is at quarterback
Georgia Tech	9-5, 7-1	Quarterback Taylor Bennett an upgrade over departed Reggie Ball
Florida State	7-6, 3-5	Staff shake-up should pay dividends
Wake Forest	11-3, 6-2	League's reigning champion remains strong on offense
Boston College	10-3, 5-3	Can new coach Jagodzinski build on O'Brien's foundation?
Miami	7-6, 3-5	Offense will be question for new coach Randy Shannon
Clemson	8-5, 5-3	Great RBs, but QB is uncertain
Maryland	9-4, 5-3	Don't count out Ralph Friedgen in a strong division
N.C. State	3-9, 2-6	O'Brien needs to find a reliable QB
Virginia	5-7, 4-4	Attrition has decimated the Cavs
North Carolina	3-9, 2-6	Cupboard left bare for Butch Davis
Duke	0-12, 0-8	Time for Ted Roof's recruits to turn things around

---

Ken Tysiac

US News & World Report

This has nothing to do with football, but a lot to do with Wake Forest (and schools like it, if there were any schools like it):

Colleges should round-file U.S. News' survey

Magazine's campus ratings perpetuate shallow assumptions

PATRICIA MCGUIRE

Los Angeles Times

Rip it up and throw it away. That's the advice I'm giving my fellow college and university presidents this month as the "reputation survey" from U.S. News & World Report lands on our desks. I am one of 12 presidents who wrote a letter urging colleagues to take a stand for greater integrity in college rankings -- starting by boycotting the magazine's equivalent of the "American Idol" voting process.

All presidents receive versions of the reputation survey, organized by region. Mine lists 181 Northern universities, including schools as different as the behemoth City University of New York's Hunter College, with more than 20,000 students, and my Trinity, a historically Catholic women's college that's now a 1,600-student university.

The survey asks me to "rate the academic quality of undergraduate programs," assigning each school a score on a 1-to-5 scale from "marginal" to "distinguished." That I have little real information about these 181 institutions does not seem to matter to U.S. News. The survey results will account for 25 percent of the total score used to rank colleges and universities in the "Best Colleges" issue.

In a cover letter reminiscent of a sweepstakes mailing, U.S. News informs me I am "one of a select group of people" with "the broad experience and expertise needed to assess the academic quality of your peer institutions." Most of what I know about these schools is through anecdotes, news stories and rumors. Should I score an institution poorly because I've heard it has money woes? Should faculty unrest influence my vote?

`Best' college? It depends

This reputation survey is just part of the larger problem with "Best Colleges," a misnomer that feeds into the American obsession with celebrity, prestige and list making. What's "best" educationally for an aspiring physicist is different from what's "best" for a future reading teacher. But in the strange alchemy of U.S. News, the rich diversity of American higher education boils down to a few points about fame and wealth.U.S. News also collects lots of institutional data that it churns through its own formulas to score each school; those scores drive the rankings. Colleges with high faculty salaries and strong "selectivity" -- meaning they reject a lot of applicants -- fare much better than those that are more efficient with resources or that accept more students.

Universities wanting to move up in rank dare not admit more low-income students from urban public schools who might lower retention and completion rates.

U.S. News also provides an incentive for colleges to raise tuition, because that means higher "educational expenditures per student" and more "faculty resources," which together account for 30 percent of the score. The very consumers whom U.S. News allegedly serves are paying a hefty price for what its rankings have done to higher education.

Plea to presidents: Backbone!

College presidents should show some backbone and stop colluding in this unseemly beauty contest.

Privately, some presidential colleagues say they agree with my position but are afraid to act publicly for fear of upsetting trustees or alumni. But one of the essential tasks of leadership is to risk speaking the hard truth.

U.S. News and others in the college-ranking business claim they promote accountability in higher education. But what truly betrays public trust is permitting surrogate measures of academic quality to replace real information about what students learn on our campuses. Colleges need to take back responsibility for communicating educational results, starting with posting accreditation reports on Web sites.

We also need to teach prospective students and families to assess what really counts in higher education -- not a magazine ranking but how well a college meets a student's learning style and academic interests, how available the faculty are outside the classroom, whether students can get the courses they need to graduate in a timely way and what professional schools and employers welcome its graduates. The best way to assess a school's quality is to visit the campus, stay overnight in residence halls with other students, meet the faculty, sit in on classes and try on the "feel" of the place.

PR distorts voting system

Some of the best colleges in the nation don't fare well in the U.S. News survey because they don't have the wealth, big-time sports fame or public relations clout to influence the peer voting system.

Every March and April, in anticipation of the reputation survey, some university PR machines go into overdrive and crowd my desk with glossy brochures touting accomplishments. A few presidents appeal for my vote directly, sending personalized form letters extolling their colleges' virtues. I rip those up and throw them away, where they commingle in the trash can with the U.S. News survey.

---

Patricia McGuire is president of Trinity (Washington) University in Washington, D.C. (www.trinitydc.edu.)

More hot stove, and Paint It Black

ESPN.com ran Mark Schlabach's ACC Spring Recap: http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=2860237

Lots of good things said about the Deacons.

And most of you have probably already seen and heard this, but if you haven't, and if for some reason you haven't started getting excited about Deaconball 2007, here you go:
http://www.wakeforestsports.tv/spring_football.html