ACC finally has coaching 'stability'

Things won't be the same when this ACC football season begins in a month or so.

Something is missing, something dramatic -- the old hot seat.

Difficult though it may be to comprehend, there's not a head coach among the league's dozen who will start the season with a posse on his path.

Weird, huh?

"The conference, I think, is entering a period of stability," Virginia Tech fixture Frank Beamer said recently. "That should create stronger programs. These past two or three years, there have been a lot of [coaching] changes -- a lot of transition."

Right you are, Coach.

Since 2005, directing a football team in the ACC has been like landing a minor role in a mob movie. If you count Tom O'Brien, who jumped from Boston College to N.C. State after the 2006 season, half of the league's coaching deck has been rubbed out.

"Comfort zone? What comfort zone," former Georgia Tech coach Chan Gailey said in July 2007.

Gailey was coming off a 9-5 season that included an ACC Coastal Division championship. But '06 ended poorly for Gailey. Losses to Georgia to cap the regular season, Wake Forest in the ACC title game and West Virginia in the Gator Bowl -- each by three points -- left the coach uncomfortable starting '07 and with good reason. A schedule that began with a 33-3 win at Notre Dame ended with "Can Chan!" chants and Paul Johnson assuming Gailey's former office.

Even coaches with decent records -- Gailey was 44-33 overall and 28-20 in the ACC regular season -- sense that heat.

It's calmer now. There are some watch spots: Miami's Randy Shannon, Virginia's Al Groh, Maryland's Ralph Friedgen and perhaps even Florida State's Bobby Bowden. But '08 starts on a relatively cool setting.

Oh, sure, Clemson's Tommy Bowden is never more than a failed third-down conversion attempt from hearing growls. After all, it's Death Valley, which can be translated into "Danny Ford's Area Code."

Truth is, Clemson hasn't had it so good for years, and most Tiger fans know it. In almost a decade, Bowden has won 69 games. Pound for pound, he's second only to Wake Forest's Jim Grobe as the conference's best football buy.

As for Friedgen, Maryland fans need only to keep the following employees in mind -- Joe Krivak, Mark Duffner and Ron Vanderlinden. Friedgen's seven seasons largely have been fat and happy. Given current salaries, the school couldn't design a better hire.

At Virginia, Groh hasn't been a perfect fit. He can be grumpy. Well, grouchy. OK, he graduated with honors from The George Welsh School of Social Endearment.

So what? Groh went 9-4 last season. He's won 58 percent of his games against decent schedules. Plus, there's that money thing. Pete Gillen might chip in. But if the big-bucks folks forked over a blank check, who's the perfect target? Beamer himself? Ask North Carolina about that strategy. The Tar Heels offered him millions and probably a decent parking spot for basketball games. He still walked away.

Miami's Shannon, a defensive guy in an offensive job, has to worry most. One more 5-7, and Hurricanes fans will go Category 5 faster than a Doppler sweep. They'll revert to seeking shelter in the bad-old days when Larry Coker couldn't win but 60 games in six seasons.

But Shannon was hired on the run after Coker was fired on the run, and Miami president Donna Shalala owes it to Shannon to protect his back. Odds are, Miami never again wins another national title. Winning an ACC title will be difficult. None of that is Shannon's fault, however. It's not what Miami fans want to hear, but the once-mighty Canes are closer to being Vanderbilt than Southern California.

That leaves Bobby Bowden. If FSU goes 7-6 again, maybe he'll do the honorable thing and ride off as a defeated, but rich, soldier. But if he doesn't, what's the option? Fire the coach with a statue at the stadium? Do that, and Florida's Urban Meyer will have a legendary recruiting pitch.