College Watch: Atlantic Coast Conference
Only receiving one scholarship offer and listed as a two-star recruit, Devon Brown has more than proven recruiters wrong as he's emerged as Wake Forest's leading receiver and top punt returner.
JoshDWeiss.com
You don't have to follow college football to know about the ACC. The two major football schools in the Commonwealth both compete in the ACC while Maryland, a school located less than an hour from most points in Northern Virginia, also calls the ACC its home. Throw in the four North Carolina schools and, voila! You have the makings of a home conference.
If you're counting at home, that's seven schools located within 300 miles from here. That proximity has helped the ACC become home to 39 area athletes, which is far more than the next closest conference, the Big East, which has twelve.
One thing about the ACC becoming home to so many local players, is that it makes quite a statement about Northern Virginia football. For those seven ACC schools which are located fairly close by, their desire to recruit area prospects only legitimizes us as a region. After all, there must be some reason why those schools are spending their time trying to establish some sort of a pipeline up here. Most of these guys like Butch Davis, Jim Grobe and Tom O'Brien have recruiting staffs that know what the heck they're doing. They wouldn't just waste their time up here for a fun trip up to D.C. They want to win. And instead of purely focusing on the Tidewater or Richmond, which are hotspots much closer to them, they still venture up I-95. This trend is also very true for West Virginia and Penn State, which boast a combined five local players.
On the flip side of this equation, it'd look pretty bad if only Virginia, Virginia Tech and Maryland were the only ones to get a whiff of this area. So when you have Wake Forest, N.C. State, UNC, Maryland, West Virginia and Penn State constantly poking their heads into Northern Virginia, that says something.
One thing that's very unique about the following prospects is that they're all pretty young. Only two scholarship players on this list are upperclassmen, meaning there's lots and lots of future potential with these players. As it stands now, only three of the twelve players listed are starters, but the two quarterbacks on this list could very well become big-time stars in the ACC.
