This is intended to be a basic primer for the ACC, which will give a little bit of background info that will allow you to better understand the later posts which will include more specific discussion of the conference.

 ACC is short for Atlantic Coast Conference, also known as the birthplace and home of college basketball ;) (I’m sorry, but basketball affects everything that happens in the ACC).  It is a conference consisting of 12 schools strung along the Eastern Seaboard of the United States, centered in the Mid-Atlantic region and the Carolinas.  What most people don’t realize is that the ACC is actually a fairly decent college football conference in addition to their basketball prowess.  While it has been several years since there has been a national contender out of the ACC, there is typically fierce competition in-conference, and the ACC has posted about a .500 record in bowl games for the past few seasons.  The main problem that has recently faced teams in the ACC has been a deficiency in quarterback play.  Since 2004, when both Matt Schaub and Phillip Rivers were drafted, the ACC has really only had one good quarterback (Matt Ryan from Boston College who was picked 3rd this year) and the teams have struggled to find even adequate players at the QB position (for examples, look at Miami and Florida State’s struggles for the past few seasons).

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ESPN.com just reported that Lepsis has decided to retire.  He said he wasn't playing up to the level he would like to and he decided that it would not be fair to the team to keep playing through the end of the contract.

The article can be found here: http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3176167

From the article:
"Mike would call me out for not playing very well [this season] and I had to agree with him," Lepsis told The Post. "I'd say, 'You're right, I'm playing like crap.' I didn't want to go make all that money and not give the team what I was supposed to. I could definitely still go out and play a few more years, but that's not what I wanted to do."

I have to say, I am very impressed with Lepsis and the way he's handled this.  I would imagine that most of the players in the NFL would try to stay on and play out their contracts, even if they were hurting their team.  I don't think that Lepsis was damaging the team this year or anything, but there were some times that he got beat when he maybe wouldn't have in the past few years.  That's still better than most of the tackles in the league, but maybe not quite up to Lepsis's level.

It's just nice to see that there are still some players who aren't just out for themselves.  Lepsis has been a great player for a long time and I wish him well in his life after football.