That other ACC team: heading into a showdown with Florida State, Virginia has proved to be an Orange Bowl dark horse.(College Football)

Because coach Al Groh is trying to convince his Virginia team that using anything but cliches in interviews is tantamount to selling the Cavaliers' playbook on eBay, someone has to blow the trumpet for this club.

So, listen up: Virginia is a 5-0, top 10 beast that just might have enough to win the ACC this year.

That's heavy-duty stuff, considering Florida State, Maryland, Miami and Virginia Tech still loom on the schedule and that the new ACC has decided to stop worshipping at the altar of Coach K and the round ball. Given what Virginia has shown us to this point--especially in last Thursday's 50-10 thrashing of Clemson--it's clear the talented, deep and experienced Cavs are ready for life in their tough, new neighborhood.

Virginia has been here before. The Cavs were even ranked No. 1 for three weeks in 1990 and have made a few other brief visits in the top 10 since. But those rankings were based more on the harmonic convergence of fortuitous scheduling and the ACC's old-time priority of basketball uber alles than on overwhelming talent. These days, the program is not built just to win seven or eight games and play in a mid-major bowl; it's built to take a serious step forward.

"It really started at the latter part of last year, when our veteran players, the juniors and seniors, began to take a handle of the team, and we finished by beating Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech and Pitt," Groh says.

In three-plus seasons at Virginia, Groh has laid a foundation that could take the Cavaliers from a second-tier bowl regular to a team with a national profile. This year's club proves it.

Despite losing a highly accurate (69.7 percent completion rate) quarterback in Matt Schaub, the Cavs' offense has crackled this season, averaging 42.4 points and 493.2 yards with Marques ...