The Grandover Resort, just a couple of skips away from the ACC headquarters in Greensboro, N.C., is the host again for this year’s ACC football kickoff, featuring 24 players, 12 coaches, some golf, lots of diet soda and, later on, some “hospitality.“ It’s kind of an overwhelming experience, but a welcome one, as it signals the long-awaited return of college football.

Most teams will begin practice in the first week of August, so players and coaches are eager to begin spinning their thoughts on the upcoming season.

First off, our coverage plans for tomorrow’s News & Advance:

—I’ll have a story on UVa quarterback Marc Verica and how he’s prepared for a season in which he enters as the Cavaliers’ unquestioned starter at the position.
—Nathan Warters and I will team up on a notebook package. Nathan will also write a short piece about the story du jour in college football—the role of agents. No talk of pimps in Greensboro yet.

We’re also working on gathering info for stories on Duke and North Carolina for our Media General sister papers in Danville and north-central North Carolina. In Tuesday’s N&A print edition, Nathan will write about Virginia Tech’s John Graves and we’ll produce another notes package. I’ll update the blog tomorrow with thoughts from the ACC’s 12 coaches and the release of the preseason predictions and the preseason all-ACC teams.

(My prediction: Virginia will not be picked to win the Coastal Division. Shocker there, I know.)

Some quick thoughts from today’s interview sessions with the players. I spent most of my time at the Virginia table but tried to roam around a bit.

—ESPN breathlessly covered the SEC media days in Hoover, Ala. (ding!), and you might have noticed that the coach clips, at least, all came in a stodgy, podium, press-conference type setting. There’s a little more freedom here, as the players set up at tables, giving you somewhat of an opportunity for one-on-one interaction with the players. If you were covering Wake Forest, you could have all of the one-on-one time you wanted. I can’t remember ever seeing more than three reporters at a time at the Wake table. The Deacons are admittedly the most unsexy team in the ACC.

The big winners in terms of media participation? First, the Virginia schools. The media from the Commonwealth travels well, and you had to get there early to angle for a seat at either the Tech or UVa table. North Carolina’s table seemed to always be full as well. Miami chose not to bring quarterback Jacory Harris to the session, so that probably cut down on the interest for the Hurricanes, and it doesn’t help in belt-tightening time that the Miami-area papers/TV stations don’t travel full force to media days like this. The Clemson table was quite popular, as was Florida State quarterback Christian Ponder.

—ACC commissioner John Swofford held court before the players in his yearly commissioner’s forum. He didn’t have anything groundbreaking to report. The biggest topic of discussion was expansion in the wake of the upheaval in the Big 12, Big 10 and the Pac-10 earlier this summer. The ACC wasn’t a big player in the expansion movement. The league isn’t looking to add teams, but it certainly would have been in a position to react if say, Virginia Tech or North Carolina had been courted by the SEC, as some outlets reported.

“Rest assured, we were quietly evaluating the landscape,“ Swofford said.

—Of the eight bowl games the ACC has tie-ins with, all are before New Year’s Day, save for the Orange Bowl, which will be played January 3 in suburban Miami.

—The bowl lineup has changed a bit for the league. The new pecking order for the league:

1. BCS national championship game/Orange Bowl
2. Chick-Fil-A Bowl, Atlanta (ACC vs. SEC)
3. Champs Sports Bowl, Orlando (ACC vs. Big East/Notre Dame)
4. Sun Bowl, El Paso (ACC vs. Pac-10)
5. Meineke Car Care Bowl, Charlotte (ACC vs. Big East)
6. Music City Bowl, Nashville (ACC vs. SEC)
7. Independence Bowl, Shreveport (ACC vs. Mountain West)
8. EagleBank Bowl, Washington, D.C. (ACC vs. Conference USA)
9. Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl, San Francisco (formerly the Emerald Bowl) (Pac-10 vs. WAC/ACC)

The Fight Hunger Bowl is a conditional agreement only if the Pac-10 or WAC run out of bowl eligible teams.

The Gator Bowl is out of the rotation. Only seven ACC teams were bowl eligible last season. North Carolina was the last ACC team to play in the Sun Bowl, losing to Texas in 1994. That was also the last time an ACC team played in the Independence Bowl. Virginia beat TCU 20-10 that year.

—One of the big storylines that people seem to be talking about here is the surplus of good quarterbacks in the league this year. Some examples:

* Georgia Tech’s Josh Nesbitt ranks second in ACC history for career rushing yards by a quarterback.
* Florida State’s Christian Ponder’s 2009 season ranked sixth in ACC history for total offense average per game (321.8 yards).
* In 2009, Miami’s Jacory Harris had the fourth most passing yards in a single season for a Hurricanes quarterback. The top three on the list—Bernie Kosar, Ken Dorsey and Craig Erickson.
* N.C. State’s Russell Wilson threw 31 TD passes last year, fourth in ACC history behind Phillip Rivers, Chris Weinke and Danny Kanell.
* Virginia Tech’s Tyrod Taylor led all FBS passers last season in yards per pass attempt (9.51).
* Clemson’s Kyle Parker—who was a first-round draft pick of the Colorado Rockies yet chose to return to Death Valley—had the third most touchdown passes in ACC history for a freshman with 20, behind Rivers and Chris Rix.
* North Carolina’s T.J. Yates enters the year ranked 28th all-time in ACC career passing yardage.

—The ACC also returns five 1,000-yard rushers (but none were in attendance today)—Virginia Tech’s Ryan Williams and Darren Evans, Boston College’s Montel Harris, Maryland’s Da’Rel Scott and Georgia Tech’s Nesbitt.

—A few quotes from the players, but not too many because, honestly, it was very difficult to hear some of these guys speak unless you were speaking directly to them.

* North Carolina’s T.J. Yates spoke about how much he enjoys road games and the feeling of camaraderie in the locker room when you go on the road. His favorite venue in the ACC is Virginia Tech’s Lane Stadium, not surprising since the Heels upset the Hokies in Blacksburg last year.

“You walk out of that tunnel with 80,000 fans jumping up and down,“ he said. “It gives you goose bumps.“

* Virginia Tech’s Tyrod Taylor has experience playing big early-season games. The Hokies opened last year against Alabama and will face Boise State in September at FedEx Field to open the 2010 season.

“I think it brings more focus to all of the summer workouts,“ Taylor said.

The key to keep that one game in perspective in respect to the season as a whole.

“That one loss doesn’t make or break your season,“ he said. “You’ve got to get your head focused for the next week. You can’t put all of your eggs in one basket.“

* Miami’s Matt Bosher had an interesting take, saying “Everyone is going to have our doubts about us. That’s just the way it is at UM.“

Interesting, considering how eager the national media was to jump Miami up the polls after a solid start to the season last year.