By Steven Bradley (Contact / Staff Bio)
May 9, 2008 - 12:15 a.m. EST

The Clemson Tigers haven’t won an ACC Championship in football since 1991 – a fact not lost on the team’s fan base – and there is a prevailing notion among that group that it should have happened by now.

As proof, few coaches have been on the hot seat more frequently over the past decade than Tommy Bowden, as Clemson has continually fallen just short of reaching that elusive goal.

It didn’t help matters for Bowden when Wake Forest came out of nowhere to win the league title two years ago, and the fact is that Tiger fans have believed nearly every season that their team had the necessary talent to get the job done – particularly with traditional powers like Florida State and Miami going through a stretch of somewhat lean years.

The NFL Draft a couple of weekends ago, however, proved that notion to be a misconception – as only two Tigers were selected, and the only first-day selection was a junior, defensive end Phillip Merling, that chose to come out early.

That means Clemson had exactly one member of last season’s senior class that NFL general managers deemed worthy of being drafted.

Admittedly, the number of NFL draftees is not an exact indicator of the talent level of a particular team – both Furman and Coastal Carolina had exactly the same number of draftees this year as the University of South Carolina, and I don’t think anyone would argue that the Paladins and Chanticleers were as talented as the Gamecocks.

Nevertheless, funding the NFL is a good general indicator of a team’s overall talent level, and the fact is that seven of the ACC’s 12 teams – including Wake Forest – had more players picked in the draft than Clemson. Only two teams, Maryland (one) and Duke (none), had fewer players selected.

Part of the notion of the Tigers underachieving is that the ACC isn’t viewed as a powerhouse conference in football, but again, the draft numbers don’t necessarily back that up. In 2006, the ACC had 10 more players chosen than any other conference, and this year, the league had only one fewer player selected than the top conference – the SEC – in terms of draftees. Further, in this year’s NFL Draft, the ACC became the first conference in the nation to have two players chosen among the top four picks in the draft for three consecutive years. Not exactly a weak conference, huh?

The point to all this, and I promise there is one, is that things are changing for the Tigers.

While Clemson fans may have grown slightly weary of Bowden’s ‘one play away’ line, that excuse actually holds some water this time.

If not for a dropped touchdown pass late in the BC game by perhaps the league’s best receiver, Clemson would have made the ACC Championship Game this past season.

And while the Tigers lost a solid senior class, the bulk of the program’s talent will be on the field again this year.

Clemson has at least six players on its current roster that are likely first-day selections in next year’s NFL Draft – seniors James Davis, Aaron Kelly, Cullen Harper and Michael Hamlin, as well as underclassmen C.J. Spiller and Ricky Sapp, if they choose to come out early – with as many as four of those guys potential first-round talents.

On top of that, the Tigers are flat out rolling in terms of recruiting. While recruiting rankings are an inexact science at best, Clemson has secured two five-star recruits – according to Scout.com – in each of its past two classes. That’s as many or more than many traditional powers, including Michigan, Ohio State, Virginia Tech and Nebraska.

Furthermore, the Tigers have already gotten a verbal commitment from another five-star prospect for next year’s class in Texas stud safety Craig ‘Poppa’ Loston. While there is a long way to go until National Signing Day, the fact that Clemson has gotten so much as a verbal this early in the game from a national top-20 recruit out of the Lone Star State speaks volumes about the direction of the program’s recruiting.

The simple fact is while Clemson’s fan base has been hungry for an ACC title for a long time, the talent simply hasn’t been there to make that a realistic goal.

It’s been a long wait for Tiger fans, but the pieces seem to be falling into place – and it’s very possible, they won’t be waiting much longer.

And for the upcoming season, they actually have good cause – for once – to have extremely high expectations.