Here's my point, and what that ESPN article didn't bother to tell you...
The ACC is 4-1 this year against the SEC East. They have wins over Kentucky, South Carolina, Florida, and Georgia. Congratulations.
Those 4 SEC East teams that the ACC beat are 2-6 this year against the SEC West. Georgia earned both of those wins.
Ole Miss and Miss. St. are pretty good at football too. Especially this year. They've taken up the slack for Florida and Tennessee being down programs right now despite being in a different division.
The strength of the conference is in the Western division. But even everybody else in the SEC is a little better than everybody else in other conferences. That's the point.
The ACC has already lost to East Carolina twice, Notre Dame twice, Colorado St., Nebraska, Iowa, Akron, Maryland, UCLA, BYU, UL-Monroe, and Utah St.
It only appears as if everyone else doesn't matter if you're not paying attention. When you stack 'em up against what the peach fuzz of the other conferences are doing, the separation is what it is. The rest of the country is long fatigued by it. But it still doesn't change.
And the SEC as a whole is 5-5 against the other power 5 conferences and the 2 Mississippis , Texas A&M, and Vandy didn't even bother to schedule a power 5 game this season. Again this circles back to my original statement. The SEC isn't as far above the other power 5 conferences as alot of their fans want to believe, especially this season. Is Alabama better than all the other teams? Maybe but the playoff will decide that. But don't pretend the the rest of the SEC is this dominante force that rules all the other conferences with an iron fist. There have been seasons where that has been the case but, over the past few it has not.