Just how underwhelming was the ACC this season?

The 2022 college football regular season is just about all wrapped up, and the bulk of the ACC should be thankful for that.

This year’s ACC regular-season slate is officially in the books and, just like any other conference’s, it had several ups and downs.

Some highlights from this installment of ACC football include the sudden comeback of the currently top-20 Florida State Seminoles, the unexpected rise of the Duke Blue Devils, and the Syracuse Orange managing to make a bowl game. The North Carolina Tar Heels also took a steep hike in respectability under the leadership of quarterback Drake Maye.

Maye, a redshirt freshman, saw one of the nation’s best season-long performances of 2022; attached to his iconic run are both Heisman conversations and an appearance in the ACC title game.

Especially when looking at Florida State and UNC, it is safe to say that the Atlantic Coast can hold its head up high with at least a couple of spikes in relevance. These spikes don’t quite reach the rest of the conference, though.

Of the 14 teams in the league, half of them finished with a regular-season record that was worse than theirs from 2021. Some harsher examples of this would have to be Wake Forest (10-2 to 7-5), Boston College (6-6 to 3-9), and both of the Virginia teams (each saw their 2021 win totals sliced in half).

But, with all of that said, perhaps the most destructive hit dealt to the conference’s national footprint was Clemson once again missing the College Football Playoff by a country mile.

The ACC has already been regarded by many as a struggling league, with Clemson being its only playoff contender in recent memory. With the Tigers failing to make a CFP run in what is now back-to-back years, the Atlantic Coast’s lack of spotlight is the worst it’s been in a while.

Now one good thing is that this—for the lack of a better word—“collapse” is happening in a season where there appears to be next-to-no great college football teams to begin with. Hopefully, the conference will be able to establish at least one challenger by the time that changes.

As I said at the start, every league experiences a share of both highs and lows. However, the ACC has lately seen solid climbs be outshined by hurtful plummets, and it desperately needs to build beyond its handful of decent teams before the rest of the college football world leaves it even further behind.