ACC has A LOT of potential. In fact back in 2004 after Miami and Virginia Tech jump ship to the ACC, most were talking about the ACC surpassing the SEC.
FSU and Miami were CFB power houses at that time. Clemson was up and coming (although no one envisioned them where they got under Dabo), Maryland and NC State were coming off 10 win seasons and Georgia Tech wasn't a laughing stock back then like they are now.
ACC has great recruiting areas with the Carolinas, Virginia, Pennslyvania, and Florida. They got access to most of the big East Coast markets including New York, Boston, Washington DC, Miami, Tampa, Charleston, Raleigh, etc. The ACC SHOULD be better than they are on the field.
ACC also had a lot of NFL prospects come out of it. I feel like a lot of ACC teams look like Texas. Texas year-in and year-out has good games where they look like a legit top 10 type program and then they have other games like Texas Tech where they fall flat on their face and look horrid. Most ACC schools, not named Clemson, do the same thing.
However, the elephant in the room has been FSU and Miami. Neither have looked anything like their 1990s counter-parts since 2004. FSU had a good run early on with Jimbo and plummeted while Miami has been a desert for 20 years now. The last time Miami was good was literally when Tennessee was good prior to Heupel which was early 2000s time frame.
