CHARLOTTE, N.C.The ACC has been stuck with the nickname for years. It's "the SEC's little brother."Because of its geographic overlap and several in-state rivalries among the teams, the ACC constantly gets compared to the big, bad SEC in football. It's the younger sibling who can't quite hang on the football field and cares more about basketball.Kevin Scarbinsky of AL.com saddled the ACC with the "little brother" moniker in one of his columns. So did David Teel of theDaily Pressand Berry Tramel of theOklahoman. Matt Murschel of theOrlando Sentineland Chris Low of ESPN.com have referenced the nickname in stories, too. The label is nationally known.But something has changed about "little brother" in recent years. It's gotten stronger. It's started walking and talking more like "big brother." It won a national title against the SEC in the 2013 season and went down to the wire for another last season.There's still a gap between ACC football and SEC football, but it's definitely shrinking."Besides this last year, we've always been one and two with the SEC in players drafted, guys getting out there in pro ball, number of great quarterbacks and number of great players," Florida State head coach Jimbo Fisher said at July's ACC Kickoff event. "This league has always been an outstanding one."Fisher is right. The ACC has finished second behind the SEC in number of NFL draft selections in four of the past six years. Its eight wins over Top 10 nonconference opponents in 2014 and 2015 are the most of any conference. The ACC also claims the best record for a conference in BCS/New Year's Six/College Football Playoff games over the past four years.That status for the ACC is a far cry from the one it had during the majority of the BCS era. From 2004 to 2012, the ACC didn't have a single winning record against the SEC. Its teams struggled on the biggest of stages and weren't major factors in national championship races."Under the BCS, the ACC was often considered the fifth- or sixth-best conference, trading spots with the Big East," Stewart Mandel of Fox Sports told Bleacher Report. "It got roasted for its record in BCS bowls. It's come along quite a bit since then, thanks in large part to having three straight years with an ACC team in the playoff or national title game."Scarbinsky, one of those previously mentioned columnists who called the ACCthe SEC's "little brother" a couple of years ago, sees the shift.The tide started to turn in the 2013 season, when the ACC had its first national champion in football since the 1999 campaign. Florida State won both, with the latter coming against Auburn in the final BCS National Championship Game, which became an instant classic.According to MCubed.net, the ACC went 4-7 against the SEC that year. But it won the big one and shrunk the SEC's average margin of victory from 11.4 points in 2011 and 2012 to 3.3.In 2014, the ACC captured its first winning record against the SEC since 2003. It went a perfect 4-0 on rivalry Saturday, with Florida State, Georgia Tech, Clemson and Louisville all beating their in-state SEC rivals. Last year, the ACC finished just under .500 with a 4-6 record, but the margin of victory was aminuscule0.5 points per game.Now the ACC is riding that wave of momentum to its highest point in recent memory when compared to the mighty SEC. Heading into the 2016 season, the ACC had a pair of Top Four teams in both the preseason AP and coaches polls. In Week 1, it has a solid chance to go 3-0 against the SEC with Clemson vs. Auburn, North Carolina vs. Georgia and Florida State vs. Ole Miss.The Oct. 29 matchup between the Clemson and Florida State has tremendous Game of the Year potential for all of college football. It's such a momentous clash of two titans that some are already suggesting the ACC could get both teams into the College Football Playoff this winter."They've got elite players, we've got elite players," Florida State defensive end DeMarcus Walker told Bleacher Report. "They've got a great coaching staff, and so do we. Deshaun Watson is the best quarterback in the country. Dalvin Cook is the best running back in the country. ... We've got those guys competing against each other. I feel like these two teams could be playoff teams."Remember when the SEC had that undisputed Game of the Year title with Alabama and LSU a few years ago' It was around that time the ACC was fighting to stay relevant in the Power Five."Wasn't nobody asking [about two ACC teams contending] eight years ago, I'll tell you that," Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney said, per George Schroeder of USA Today."It was more, 'Do you think an undefeated ACC team would not get in'' I think those questions have gone away."Those murmurs of doubt have been replaced by exclamations of conference pride."I love this conference," Walker said. "I love playing in the ACC. I love everything about it. It's a great conference. We have great talent. We play a good team every week. ... Day in and day out, we try to put on for the ACC."Watson, the conference's top Heisman contender heading into 2016, told Bleacher Report'sMatt Hayeshethinks the league is now right up there with the SEC in terms of individual talent:Both are very competitive; there's a lot of talent in both leagues, and both do great things on the field.I know everyone says the SEC is so much better than everyone else, but I really don't see the differences. We have the same athletes. ...I truly believe there's no difference between the two leagues. It's not overwhelming or shocking to play against the SEC like most fans think.Walker, Watson and the rest of the players in the league have plenty to boast about.The ACC's star power and championship potential right now are among the best of the best in college football."You name me a league that has bigger stars than Dalvin Cook, Deshaun Watson and Brad Kaaya," Fisher said. "There's other guys in our league that are great players. We have other great players. Miami has other great players. Clemson has other great players, so does Georgia Tech, NC State. All across the board, everybody has them.""James Conner, the big running back at Pitt, [we have] him back in the league," Fisher added. "You're talking about the Player of the Year from two years ago. We have star-studded players. This is a great league of football."Fisher knows what kind of football is in both conferences. Before his move to Florida State, he was the offensive coordinator at LSU from 2000 to 2006. Before that, he spent six years in the 1990s coaching quarterbacks at Auburn."I coached in the other league for 13 years," Fisher said. "No guy on no panel is more of an expert than I am, I promise you. I know it. There's great ball in this league."Fisher might have forgotten about his new in-state ACC neighbor, though.New Miami head coach Mark Richt, who was at SEC East powerhouse Georgia for 15 seasons, spent almost all 16 years of his assistant coaching tenure at Florida State. Now he's back in the ACC, and he likes what he sees."I'm really looking forward to the changes that have happened," Richt said last month. "More teams. I think the league is much deeper and tougher top to bottom than when I remember leaving it. Really looking forward to the challenge."The ACC's stronger position in the world of Power Five footballand its sibling rivalry with the SECis more than just the title-contending powerhouses in Clemson and Tallahassee.Richt is the biggest name in what was a banner offseason of hires for the ACC's Coastal Division, where there's a wide-open race opposite Clemson and Florida State's one-two power punch in the Atlantic. The new Hurricanes head man is joined by former BYU mainstay Bronco Mendenhall at Virginia and recent Memphis revivalist Justin Fuente at Virginia Tech. Spread offense guru Dino Babers joined the Atlantic by taking the Syracuse job this offseason.With the additions of Richt and Mendenhall, the ACC now has five of the top 15 head coaches in college football by winning percentagethe most of any conference. (Fisher, Swinney and Louisville's Bobby Petrino are also included.)"Virginia Tech was replacing a legend and got one of the hottest coaches out there in Fuente," Mandel said. "Virginia, I would not have guessed would be a player for someone like Mendenhall. Richt is obviously a big get for Miami. It's good because that division is not very well-regarded right now, but I could see it improving quite a bit, especially with [Pat] Narduzzi coming into Pitt last year as well."Besides Narduzzi and Conner's Pittsburgha team Mandel picked to win the division as one of college football's most improved teams in 2016the Coastal also has North Carolina and its high-flying attack that almost crashed the playoff in 2015 with a near-upset of Clemson in the ACC title game."With the new coaches that have come into the Coastal, you look at the head football coaches in this league and you look at what's happening in our league in the last three or four years ... I mean, this is a hell of a division," North Carolina head coach Larry Fedora said last month. "It really is. From top to bottom, there's a lot of strength."David Cutcliffe's bowl-focused Duke and Paul Johnson's option-running Georgia Tech, two completely different teams that have enjoyed some of their best-ever seasons in recent years, have also done their part in raising theACC's profile."I think top to bottom, the league has gotten better almost every year since I came into the league eight years ago," Johnson said. "There are some tremendous, tremendous athletes. ...I wouldn't want to try to predict the order of finish in this league."Clemson and Florida State aren't even complete runaway favorites in their own division. Louisville, which beat two SEC teams last year, is tied for the most returning starters in college football for 2016. It also has one of the nation's most exciting offensive weapons in sophomore quarterback Lamar Jackson."I think Louisville can beat anybody on any day," Swinney said at the ACC Kickoff. "I think Louisville is a really good program. They've got great coaches. They've got excellent players. They have some dudes, man. I think they're going to continue to recruit at a high level. Nobody will be excited to play Louisville, I promise you."Louisville helped usher in this newer, brighter era of ACC football when it joined the league in 2014 to replace Big Ten-bound Maryland. Petrino's Cardinals are 17-9 since their arrival. Maryland has gone 10-15 in its new home.The addition of the Cardinals brought the ACC to 14 teams, which is where conference expansion has been capped so far. But if a move to 16-team superconferences is next, the ACC has a chance to climb even higher as a football league.In 2013, Notre Dame joined the ACC alongside Pittsburgh and Syracuse in every sport except football. However, if the Fighting Irish want to join a conference to bolster their College Football Playoff hopes anytime between now and 2036the length of the league's new network deal with ESPNit has to be the ACC.No other conference, not even the mighty SEC, can add a team in future expansion as prominent as Notre Dame. And several teams in the league are already raking in the benefits of having the Irish on board with their scheduling agreement and their big-money inclusion in the new network deal.With its star power on the field and on the sidelines, its rising strength from top to bottom and its eye-catching potential for the future both financially and competitively, the ACC isn't looking like that same little brother anymore."ACC football does not have the luster of, say, the SEC," Schroeder wrote last month. "For almost forever, its football essentially has been a nice opening act for basketball. But its reputation has grown in recent years."Sure, the SEC still has its trophy case full of national titles and a higher number of star-studded signing classes each February. The ACC might never be able to knock the SEC off its perch as the country's best football conference."If you're judging by the top teams, the ACC is right there for clear-cut No. 2, perhaps with the Big Ten," Mandel said. "But I can't see a day where it's viewed top to bottom in the same breath as the SEC simply because there's not nearly as much passion for ACC football across all 14 schools."A lot can change in just a few years, though.Change has definitely come for the better of the ACC since Jameis Winston raised that famous crystal football for Florida State at the Rose Bowl in January 2014.And with three headline matchups against the SEC on tap for Week 1, the league has a great chance to prove it's just getting started.All quotes obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted. Stats are courtesy ofcfbstats.com. Recruiting rankings are courtesy of247Sports.Justin Ferguson is a National College Football Analyst at Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter@JFergusonBR.
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