Three years ago the ACC was loaded. And, no, I’m not talking about basketball or men’s soccer.

Believe it or not, I’m talking about football. And more specifically I’m talking about quarterbacks.

Virginia had Matt Schaub. Scott McBrien was at Maryland. Charlie Whitehurst had just finished his first full season as the starter at Clemson, and N.C. State had some guy named Philip Rivers.

Even North Carolina had Darian Durant.

Up and down, the league had potent offenses and quality signal callers.

In 2003, Schaub followed his offensive player of the year season in 2002 with 2,952 passing yards and 18 touchdowns to just 10 interceptions.

McBrien also had a huge senior season for the Terps, throwing for more than 2,600 yards and 19 touchdowns to only six interceptions. Whitehurst threw for more than 3,500 yards, and Durant had eight more touchdowns than he did interceptions.

And Rivers put together one of the greatest seasons in ACC history — breaking the 4,000-yard mark and being named the consensus ACC player of the year.

But all those guys are gone — most to the NFL — and now the conference is a barren wasteland of incapable quarterbacks and sputtering offenses. Through five weeks this season, ACC teams have started 18 different quarterbacks, and all four of the teams in this state are on their second one. That’s not a good sign.

Somewhere along the way the conference turned into a defensive and running game dominated brand of football. It’s boring and ineffective, and it has led to the use of one of the dumbest terms in the game — “game managers.”

“Game managers,” according to many experts, are quarterbacks who don’t make the crucial mistakes and who allow the running backs to win games.

Yeah right, let’s be honest with ourselves. Saying a quarterback is a good “game manager” is a nice way to say he can’t throw the ball down the field or we’re too afraid to let him because he’ll throw it to the other team. The only thing a “game manager” is good for is handing the ball off.

He is simply a bad quarterback, and the ACC is full of them. Only two are averaging more than 200 yards passing per game and, only four have a completion percentage over 60 percent.

In 2003, Rivers completed more than 70 percent of his passes and Schaub completed 69.7 percent of his.

But don’t get me wrong. Not all the quarterbacks in the league are terrible. Some are decent.

Boston College’s Matt Ryan leads the conference in total offense and has thrown for more than 300 yards twice, and Florida State’s Drew Weatherford seems to have the potential to be great after leading the Seminoles to the ACC championship last year. But ranking the guys below those two is a process of elimination, not celebration.

Being the best in this year’s crop of signal callers is like being the fastest reader in the remedial English class. Doesn’t really mean much, does it?

But what about Reggie Ball? Yeah, he’s the active leader in career passing yards in the ACC, and he looked great the past two weeks in wins over Virginia and Virginia Tech. But how long will it last?

Over his four years as Georgia Tech’s starting quarterback, he has been as inconsistent as anyone. Coming into the season, he had thrown more interceptions than touchdowns.

And he has thrown five more picks already this year.

But the real question is this — Who’s to blame for this underachieving batch of “game managers”?

Is it the players themselves? Are they simply quarterbacks whose high school talent didn’t translate into success at the college level — i.e. Marcus Stone?

I doubt it. It would be quite a coincidence for that many players to be incapable of being successful in the ACC based on talent alone.

Are the coaches to blame? They get blamed for everything else, so why not?

Maybe, but even though the coaches have a responsibility to teach and develop talent, they are not completely at fault. No one is.

Finding a good college quarterback is simply luck.

Coach Chuck Amato, referring to a quarterback’s ability to carry a team with the game on the line, said after the Boston College game, “Some have it and some don’t.”

Schaub had “it.” McBrien had “it.” And Rivers had “it” from the beginning. They didn’t need to be coached. They could just step up and perform time and time again.

Daniel Evans had “it” for one drive, but will it continue the rest of the season? Who knows?

But one thing I’m certain about is ACC teams will continue to struggle until quarterback play improves and remains consistent. And the conference will not become this powerful football force commissioner John Swofford wanted to create with expansion until the offenses improve.

The three new ACC teams, other than maybe Boston College, are in the same boat as the older members. At Miami, Kyle Wright is not making fans forget about Ken Dorsey, and nobody is comparing Sean Glennon to Michael Vick at Virginia Tech.

So it looks like for the foreseeable future, we’ll be stuck watching offenses turn the ball over and try to force the running game when everyone knows that’s what they’re going to do. I can’t wait.

I can hear the DEE — FENSE chants now.

Tell Dennis how impressed you are with the ACC’s quarterbacks at sports@technicianonline.com or call him at 515-2411.