Wake Forest coach Jim Grobe guided the Demon Deacons to their second ACC title in school history last season.

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WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Wake Forest's improbable Atlantic Coast Conference championship a year ago was either a sign of parity or parody.

When the ACC underwent its football-fueled expansion a few years ago by bringing Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College into a conference that had been dominated by Florida State, it seemed certain any of those schools would annually rule the league.

That changed last season when the Hurricanes and Seminoles stumbled and Wake Forest — the smallest school in the league and the preseason pick to finish last in its division — wound up winning the ACC for just the second time in school history.

That — combined with a postseason in which three of its best-finishing teams (Wake Forest, league runner-up Georgia Tech and Virginia Tech) lost their bowl games — prompted critics to scoff that the Demon Deacons merely took advantage of a down year in the ACC.

Now, with Virginia Tech poised to possibly contend for the national title, Florida State and Miami seemingly back on the upswing with 30 all-conference players returning, the ACC is out to prove it is a deeper, better league.

"If you get picked sixth in either division, you shouldn't feel too bad, because I don't think there's a bad football team in the ACC," Demon Deacons coach Jim Grobe said. "And when you've got all those good teams, somebody's got to be picked first, somebody's got to be picked last, but I really believe that you could be a heck of a football team and not have much to show for it."

The Hokies have 16 starters back, including eight from a dominating defense, and are the overwhelming favorites to win the ACC for the second time since joining the league in 2004.

VTU coach Frank Beamer and his two coordinators, Bryan Stinespring on offense and Bud Foster on defense, have been in Blacksburg for at least 15 years each and have taken the Hokies to 14 straight bowl games.

"That's the thing that I'm most proud of, that we haven't been an up-and-down football team," Beamer said. "I think it makes a statement about our coaching staff (and) I think it makes a statement about our recruiting that over the years we've been a very consistent football program."

It's that kind of consistency that first-year coach Randy Shannon hopes to re-establish at Miami. A longtime assistant under Dennis Erickson, Butch Davis and the fired Larry Coker, Shannon is being counted upon to reverse a decidedly uncharacteristic Miami stretch in which the Hurricanes lost 12 games in three seasons.

"At Miami, we're 9-3 and everybody says Miami has slipped," Shannon said. "You ask any coach in America if they could go 9-3, right off the bat, I guarantee 98 percent of them would take it and run. But at Miami, 9-3 isn't acceptable. That's just how it is."

Shannon is one of four new coaches in the league, joining his former boss Davis among the newcomers.

Davis, who spent two seasons in broadcasting after his exit from the NFL's Cleveland Browns, brings an immediate jolt of star power to North Carolina's foundering program and was joined by a former Big East rival.

Tom O'Brien, who at Boston College went winless in four tries against Davis' Miami teams, left BC after a decade to take over at North Carolina State, and the Eagles plucked Jeff Jagodzinski from the Green Bay Packers' staff to replace him.