With the release of the 2013 ACC schedules, the countdown for the upcoming college football season has officially started. The ACC has expanded by two teams since last season, as Pittsburgh and Syracuse will join the conference from the Big East.

With spring practice getting ready to start for all 125 college football teams, quarterback battles will now take center stage. For most national title contenders – Alabama, Oregon, Ohio State, Stanford, Georgia, Notre Dame and Clemson – quarterback isn’t a question mark. However, there are a handful of teams that could be a conference title contender that enter spring practice with uncertainty under center.

With spring practice kicking off across the nation, the race to win college football’s 2013 national title has officially started. Although it’s hard to learn everything about a team in spring practice, the next few months are a good opportunity to get a look at how some of the open position battles are shaping up, along with how some of the underclassmen have improved since the end of 2012.

Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany is many things, but dumb isn’t one of them.

His conference snaked football blue blood and powerhouse Nebraska from the Big 12 to grow the conference in 2011. He followed that up by stealing ACC founding member Maryland and Rutgers from the fledgling Big East to grow his conference into lucrative television and recruiting territories.

Chris Henry was a running back at the University of Arizona from 2003 to 2006. After redshirting, he rushed for 159 yards as a freshman, 119 yards as a sophomore and 581 yards as a junior. Henry had 859 career rushing yards over three seasons before skipping his senior season and declaring early for the NFL Draft.

College football's 2013 National Signing Day is in the books and Athlon Sports kicks off its 2013 team recruiting rankings countdown with an in-depth look at the best classes in the nation. When Jimbo Fisher took over in Tallahassee, he reenergized the Seminoles' recruiting base in the region and more importantly in the state of Florida. The 2013 class is once again an excellent haul and it won the ACC recruiting championship, but the league didn't land a single top-10 class and that has to be a concerning sign for the conference.

We have ranked every college football program in the country, based on the attractiveness of the position from a coaching perspective. We considered many factors — tradition, facilities, location, money  — but in the end, we simply asked ourselves the following question: Where would we want to coach? Today we focus on the ACC.

With college football’s spring practice and basketball’s postseason around the corner, Athlon Sports decided this would be a good time to evaluate each school’s coaching tandem.

Recruiting in college football is downright nasty. It is a cutthroat, cannibalistic big business that is microscopically analyzed by fans, administrators and media members alike. The ACC has been taking a beating on the field and in the media from fans and analysts alike for its recent lack of success. It has struggled in BCS bowls and, in particular, against the SEC. While the conference isn't nearly as bad as the incessant badgering would indicate, the results of this year's recruiting cycle still has to leave ACC fans nervous.

Recruiting is the lifeblood of college football. Without good players, winning championships is nearly impossible. But there is much debate as too just how much recruiting rankings matter.