The ACC as Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce

Hello All,

With recent rumors of a move for Florida State and the possibility that Miami would follow them, I find myself debating whether or not it matters what conference Miami is in.Trying to fill the void that is my life without college football, I have done a lot of thinking lately about Miami's place in the ACC. And I have been watching a lot of Mad Men.So of course I decided to figure out which ACC team is which character from the show. Yes, it is a bleak time.

Boston College is…Stan Rizzo

Rizzo, like Boston College, is a preppy yankee that really serves as nothing but comedic relief. Except for every now and then when he steals the scene. Eff you Flutie. Eff you.

Maryland is…Harry Crane

Harry thinks he is a big deal. He tries to dress hip and fresh and stay abreast of the times. He constantly is reminding people that “hey, I am important!”

Sound familiar?

Duke is…Lane Pryce

Lane is an interesting dude. On the one hand he is a British man of great decorum and manners. On the other, he does what he can to distance himself from his homeland and only truly embraces his heritage at times that he is overcome with emotion…like the 1966 World Cup. As buttoned up as Lane is, every now and then he gets his dander up, as witnessed when he beat the ever loving shit out of Pete Campbell in the boardroom this season. It was refreshing, good old fashioned British hooliganism.

Duke is a Blue Blood in every sense of the word. Because of their basketball team, they are conference royalty. The school is widely considered the “Harvard of the South”; most of the student body comes from the northeast, a spit in the face to the Southern as Grits ACC (nickname: Tobacco Road). When there is basketball to be played, this school resorts to good, old fashioned Southern hooliganism.

Wake Forest is…Joan Holloway

Joan is pretty much universally adored and is, by the way, one of the most beautiful women to ever grace this Earth…but in a “I believe I might meet a woman like that at the grocery store” kind of way. Joan also has a passive aggressive edge to her that results in some of the best verbal daggers delivered on the show.

The joke goes in North Carolina that Wake Forest is everyone’s second favorite team. They are a good school with a beautiful campus and don’t really do anything to piss anyone off. They know their place but every now and then do something really passive aggressive…like beating Florida State. Sometimes I really think I might be falling in love with Wake Forest.

Georgia Tech is…Bert Cooper

Bert founded the agency but now just kind of hangs out at this point. He used to be a great Ad Man but at this point is a relic of the past who does quirky stuff like get massages in his office or require everyone to remove their shoes upon entry. As he proved this season, however, he can still crack the whip if you take your eye off the ball.

Georgia Tech used to be an elite football program which has settled in to the middle tier at this point. They run the Triple Option offense, a quirky animal that fell out of vogue years ago but will burn you if you are not adequately prepared, as all Miami fans remember. They are probably  not a legitimate threat to win the conference, but they are always hanging around.

Virginia is…Megan Draper

Megan, the young, hot wife of the show’s protagonist, is just “good at everything”. She starts off as an actress, then decides she wants to work in advertising. Naturally, she is put on Don’s desk, and as always happens in these situations, she goes with Don and his children to California, finds out he switched identities with a dead platoon mate in the Korean War and has lived under an assumed name ever since, and accepts Don’s (Dick’s?) marriage proposal. She also earns a promotion to copy writer and then single handedly saves the Heinz Baked Beans account. She is fantastic with the kids, fantastic at making Don feel younger, fantastic at saying the right thing at the right time, and fantastic at having hate/makeup sex with Don on the dirty white carpet…that she cleans in her hot lingerie, which she is fantastic at wearing. She is now back to chasing her acting career, and if that doesn’t work out my bet is she becomes Mayor of New York City. (This was the right wagon to hitch your horse to, Henry Francis)

Virginia is considered by many to be the preeminent state university in the nation in terms of academics, and they ain’t bad at athletics either. Their football team is an up and comer with a guy at the helm (Mike London) that makes you think they could do anything. Now, will we be surprised if they backslide? No, just like we won’t be surprised if Megan fails at acting. But the ceiling is rather limitless for this program which has a fertile recruiting ground (The Tidewater) to draw from, the prestige of an elite academic institution and state school resources (kind of like Megan has time and money thanks to Don’s salary) to put in to its football program.

Clemson is…Pete Campbell

Pete is…well, he is a little bitch. He is obsessed with rising up and becoming Don Draper. He cheats on his smoking hot wife (Allison Brie) frequently, including raping the au pair next door. He is a talented guy but tries to do too much and therefore is perpetually disappointed.

Clemson is a talented program that wishes it was Florida State. Every year, they come out of the gate hot before raping their fans with a loss to a team they have no business losing to. In fact, “Clemsoning” is an accepted verb within the college football nerdosphere.  

North Carolina State is…Ken Cosgrove

Cosgrove is probably the only guy in the office that everybody genuinely likes. He is cool, calm and collected and lets everyone do their thing without interfering. Hell, the guy is even a published author. I wish he were my friend.

North Carolina State has a nice atmosphere and..yeah, that’s about it. Every now and then they put a solid team out there, but you always get the sense that they are good for at least 4 losses…in other words, no one has a problem with The Pack except for UNC, and that is a matter of too many chefs in the kitchen more than anything else.

Virginia Tech is…Peggy Olson

Peggy started off as an assistant and pulled herself up to the position of head copy writer. She essentially did what Megan did, except without marrying the boss first. She has become one of the power players on the show by virtue of her merit and nothing else. She is commendable in that sense.

VTech has become one of college football’s annual powers simply through establishing a rugged, workmanlike program that gets after it year in and year out. They will probably never win a national title, but they seem to make their way in to the Top 5 at some point every season. The minute they stop working, they will be gone, much like Peggy.

North Carolina is…Roger Sterling

Roger is an Alpha Male. His thirsts for women and booze are legendary. He is the son of the guy that co-founded the agency. He has delivered some of the best one liners in the history of the show. However, Roger now faces an external crisis. He got by for years on his ability to wine and dine clients; he did not rise in to his position, but had it given to him by virtue of being the son of the boss. America is changing though, and clients care less about your ability to down martinis and more about your ability to produce good work. Roger must adapt or die.

When I think about Carolina, I think about the old aristocracy. Carolina was the most important school in this conference for years, before the new blood from Florida (FSU, Miami) came along and relegated them to “basketball power” status. Tobacco Road is a thing of the past; in its place has emerged a super conference that has an eye for the bottom line and not tradition. UNC must start producing more on the gridiron, or it will find it has less power in a conference that cares more about football than basketball for the first time in its history.

Florida State is…Michael Ginsberg

Ginsberg is the rising star in the office. He is a little weird…okay, he is really weird. But the talent is undeniable.  If he can stay out of his own way, he is going to be an absolute force to be reckoned with. But here is the problem: I’m not sure he can hold it together. He seems to have a massive chip on his shoulder, which is good, but can lead him astray. For instance, he might have this exchange with Don, his boss, in the elevator:

Ginsberg: "What do I care? I got a million of them. A million."
Draper: "Good. I guess I'm lucky you work for me."
Ginsberg: "I feel bad for you."
Draper: "I don't think about you at all."

(Don drops mic  /hits the Diddy dance / shoulder shimmies…in my head)

Now what was the point of that Ginsberg? You want to be the best? Win. Just win. That is all you ever had to do. Don’t tell me about how great you are, just be great.

Florida State has so much talent they don’t know what to do with it. Literally. They have no clue what they are doing out there half the time. Every season it is something. It is an injury or a missed field goal or their quarterback developing Lyme Disease and running bareass naked down the highway proclaiming himself God or a missed field goal. Anyway, Florida State would have so many championship trophies they could use them as doorstops if #1 recruiting classes counted. But they don’t. So year after year, we get to hear about how this is the year FSU puts it all together. Could they? Certainly. They have all the tools. Will they? I don’t know, but something in my gut says no. And yes, of course they wish they were Miami.

Miami is…Don Draper

Don Draper is the legend. He came from nothing and exploded on to the scene. He took no prisoners and played the game with a swagger that had never been seen before. Draper was the guy that told Big Tobacco, and really Big Business, to go eff themselves in The Letter. He married a model, and when she started getting on his nerves, he stepped out on her with pretty much everyone. And good lord did that guy rock a suit. Was he perfect? No. Did he do some things that made you squirm a little? Of course he did. But we rooted for him anyway because he said things like “’She’s never been marriedbecause she’s never been in love.’ I think I wrote that to sell nylons.” He was the epitome of the American man: flawed, but he fought for his place in this world and didn’t take shit off of anybody, including his clients. However, the times are changing, and Don is off his game a bit. He doesn’t get The Beatles and more to the point, doesn’t care. He became content; now his competitiveness has kicked back in and he wants his corners. The only problem is, the pack has caught up and in a lot of cases passed him. The things that made him lovable before, namely his swagger (and willingness to alienate entire industries), are now being thrown back in his face. The question facing Don is “can he get his fastball back?”

Miami rose from the brink of cancelling the football program to the most dominant decade in the history of college football. The players played with swagger that had never been seen before; as a result they were labeled as “bad for the game”, but people loved them for it. As I have written thousands of words about, The U has fallen off, mostly because they got complacent. However, the competitive fervor has returned, and now the question on everyone’s mind is “how long until Miami strikes back?”