It's one thing to be able to play competitively or even beat one or two serious P5 teams per year.

It's a completely different thing to play better competition every single week.

Tech didn't notice much difference because the "old" Big East was just as good or better than the ACC in the first years after we joined.

On the other hand, it was a bigger step up for WVU to move from the "newer" Big East to the Big 12, which I think has greater depth most years than the ACC, lack of defense be damned. This year's WVU team would have blazed through the Big East it left and maybe had one loss at most in the "old" Big East. But in the Big 12, the Mountaineers took three losses. TCU has had a similar experience, although TCU has markedly improved its recruiting after getting in the Big 12.

There are programs like the Chris Peterson Boise State teams or the Marshall teams with Chad Pennington or Byron Leftwich that were really, really good, mowed through their respective conferences and knocked off what are now P5 programs a couple of times. But the difference in talent and depth shows up over a more difficult, eight or nine game conference schedule. The service academies would not fare well if subjected to that grind, and they know it.