One good year from the ACC does kick the SEC off the mountain top. My GF cheers Miami and can't name all the members of the ACC let alone the head football coaches
Well, here's a thought for you.....
Head Coaches in the ACC
Clemson - five years as an SEC assistant
FSU - thirteen years as an SEC coordinator
Louisville - one year SEC coordinator, four years SEC coach, only fired due to a motorcycle exposure
Miami - fifteen years as an SEC head coach that included two conference titles
UNC - three years as an SEC OC at Florida
Wake Forest - one year OC at Tennessee
Boston College - six years as a Florida assistant under Urban
Duke - 19 years SEC assistant, 7 years SEC head coach, part of five SEC conference titles
Eight of their head coaches have SEC experience and at least FIVE of those could be said to have SUBSTANTIAL SEC experience (it's a bit tricky including the Wake coach).
On top of that
one of those coaches - dabaxter - was the self-appointed guy who would be here if Saban stayed in Miami.
(The folks who have been here since pre-Saban will chuckle out loud at that one).
It could VERY easily be argued that that SEC experience has contributed to the rise of the ACC. I'm not listing it as the SOLE CAUSE but........look at your top three programs, the same one's Forde mentioned.
Jimbo Fisher had EXTENSIVE SEC experience......and maybe I should point out that Fisher was already the proxy head coach for about three years when he got the job, so he got to screw up and not really be all that accountable for it. FSU was not overly good any of those three years......and back then the ACC wasn't exactly the SEC, either. But even though Florida is a huge state, I'll go ahead and say it - does anyone here actually believe it was an ACCIDENT that Fisher's rise in FSU just happened to occur at the same time Florida imploded with Muschamp (and there's one right there that would be the exception to the rule if there is any) and Miami being long-term terrible under Randy Shannon and Al Golden?
Of course not. It's just like why Auburn had some very good (by their standards) years while Alabama was on probation (9-4, 8-5, 13-0, 9-3, 11-2, 9-4 and then Saban sets up camp with his own freshmen recruiting class and Auburn is suddenly 5-7; the same exact thing happened in the late 90s in Mississippi, where Ole Miss was crippled and MSU won a division title).
I'm NOT saying Fisher isn't a good coach, but I think an argument can be made his SEC experience helps make him what he is.
The same is true to an even greater extent of Bobby Petrino, whose Arkansas team in 2011 was probably the third-best team in the country behind Alabama and LSU. One year at Auburn in 2002? In and of itself not much - although his name was VERY prominent when Auburn hired Malzahn. Petrino only left because of the discovery of a legalized form of prostitution via the bike wreck. If not, he might.......ok MIGHT......still be in Arky.
But he had himself a pretty good team during the SEC monster era. He was 5-7 with Nutt's scumbags in 2008, lost by 3 on the road to the second-best team in the country in 2009 (and got killed by the champs), outcoached himself in a Sugar Bowl against Ohio State that he clearly should have won, and beat the 2nd best team in the Big 12 in the Cotton Bowl, losing only to the two best teams in the land by 24 each in 2011.
He built a good team during a difficult time so his SEC pedigree is paramount.
Dabo's is a little less since he was so young, that was so long ago, and anyone who coached under Mike Dubious probably wasn't very good to begin with (though Dabo deserves credit for overcoming that nonsense).
I'm not arguing that I'm taking that position, but it's a thought. The immediate counter will be to say, "Well, Cutcliffe spent all those years there and Duke isn't that good!" But surely: a) the extreme academic standards of Duke bear some of the burden; b) the fact Cutcliffe took them to their first bowl game in 18 years ought to mean something. He had three decent seasons in a row.