Omaha bound
It's funny. When the ACC expanded to 12 schools, the thought was the conference would begin to dominate in football while remaining a force in basketball. No one mentioned baseball.
And then the ACC got just one BCS berth - something they could have done before expansion - and that team, Florida State, lost. When basketball season rolled around, it wasn't much better. Four teams reached the NCAA tournament, and none even made it to the Elite Eight.
But here we are, late Saturday night, and three ACC teams are already part of the eight-team field in the College World Series. And Miami still has a chance to give the conference half of the field. And did we mention that seven ACC teams reached the field of 64 in the baseball tournament this year?
Of course, only one of those seven was a recent expansion team - Miami - while the other two expansion teams were busy going 13-46 in conference play this baseball season (and recently the coach of one of those teams - Boston College - jumped ship to the other - Virginia Tech. Isn't that like going from the frying pan into the fire?)
The outlook for football is bleak, at best, for the fall, and it's anyone's guess if basketball will rebound (I thought about going with bounce back, but I think rebound was the way to go) next season.
But for now, let's not worry about that. Let's focus on baseball. Because if Tyler Colvin and Chad Flack can keep up their late-inning heroics, and if Georgia Tech can keep up its dominance, the ACC has a real chance to end up with a national champion in Omaha. Football and basketball should be so lucky.
-Patrick Hite