The ACC Coastal has an impressive history of creative mediocrity

The ACC Coastal is a mess this season. On Saturday, Pitt took down ACC Coastal leader Virginia, putting the Panthers atop the ACC Coastal Division despite a 5-4 overall record. It was weird enough that UVA was on course to make its first ACC Championship ever, but now it’s gotten even stranger. Pitt was 2-3 overall just a few weeks ago!

This is nothing new — the ACC Coastal has been overachieving at mediocrity for years now. Let’s take a look back at the some of the division’s greatest hits.

Ancient internet history: Many years ago, Matt Hinton at Yahoo’s Dr. Saturday coined the term “ACC Wheel of Destiny,” referring to the conference’s knack for its teams always beating each other in circular fashion and constantly knocking themselves out of big bowls. That term is still used on the internet to this day, especially as it relates to this cluster of a division.

2007: The Coastal standings themselves weren’t all that weird this year, but it should be noted what the ACC title game looked like, because the Coastal did contribute to this scene in its own small way:

2007 was an unusually weird year in college football, and this screenshot fits that theme perfectly.

2008: The Hokies’ win over the Yellow Jackets gave them the division. Most importantly, almost literally the entire division was within a game of .500 in conference play:

2012: Georgia Tech finished 5-3 in ACC play. This mark tied both Miami and UNC for a share of the Coastal, but because both the Tar Heels and Canes had NCAA postseason bans, the Yellow Jackets went to the title game. The Coastal’s ACC title game representatives would go on to finish with an amazing and bizarre 7-7 record, perhaps the most Coastal Division record possible.

Hilariously, UNC got ACC Coastal champion rings made, even though it didn’t technically count.

2013: Duke won its first division title in school history, something no one expected early in the conference season. In back-to-back weeks in September, the Blue Devils lost to Georgia Tech and Pittsburgh. Once again, the standings at the end of the year were a mess, with only Duke and Virginia more than a game from .500 in conference:

2014: This was the year we came the closest to capturing the magic of All 4-4 Everything.

Duke lost to Virginia Tech and UNC to give the division to Georgia Tech, as the spirit of All 4-4 Everything caught up to the Blue Devils:

2016: Four teams were within a game of .500 in conference play, with the Yellow Jackets fully doing their part.

2017: Miami won the division for the first time ever (that it took so long for that to happen says a lot about how weird the Coastal is), but we still had five different teams that were either at or a game within .500 in-conference:

2018 isn’t over yet, and the Coastal standings are already weird, so it looks like we’ll be continuing this tradition. Congrats, and #GoACC.