It was the most unusual sight in the history of the modern Atlantic Coast Conference.

Seated at one round table in Salon I of the Ritz-Carlton at Reynolds Plantation in Greensboro, Ga., was Clemson football coach Tommy Bowden, with more than a dozen journalists crowded all around him.

At the adjacent table was his father, Florida State coach Bobby Bowden, speaking with exactly two beat reporters. So I sidled up to the empty seat next to the winningest coach in college football history and pointed out the scene swirling around his son.

"I gotta get rid of him," Bobby Bowden said. "He's no good to me anymore."

Aside from beating his father's team three consecutive seasons and four of the past five, Tommy Bowden has turned the tables on his pop in another significant way. For the first time since the year before Florida State joined the ACC in 1992, the Tigers were predicted (overwhelmingly) by the media to win the conference championship.

"It's a position Clemson is used to being in but I'm not used to being in," Tommy Bowden said of the first in his 10-year tenure. "My father is more accustomed to handling those questions than I am."

It showed. For most of the 90 minutes the younger Bowden sat in the room getting grilled by the media, he laid the groundwork for a potential letdown of expectations. He grumbled about his inexperienced offensive line and linebacker corps. He talked about the front-runner drawing every opponent's best shot. He cited in rapid-fire fashion every other notable football coach -- including his father -- who suffered countless setbacks before winning championships.

But Tommy Bowden couldn't deny that in nine previous seasons he's drawn all sorts of talent to Death Valley and has yet to win a conference title. Clemson hasn't even won its division since the league expanded to 12 teams.

"The statistics are what they are," he said. "I've been a head coach here for 10 years and haven't won a conference championship. Disappointed? Yes. You haven't won one, you haven't won one. It's either black or white. There's really no gray area when you put things like that down on the table."

There will be no gray area this year, either. There will be no excuses accepted if the Tigers don't at the very least reach the ACC Championship Game in Tampa, Fla. Not with the loads of skilled talent they have in what is arguably the weakest of the six BCS conferences.

Whether or not Tommy Bowden has what it takes to win the big one is a valid concern. The closest they came was last year when the Tigers coughed up a late lead at home against Boston College.

"If you want to coach, until you win a championship you're going to have to answer those kind of questions," he admitted.

So shouldn't anything less than a BCS bowl bid this year be considered a failure?

"I don't think Mark Richt's season last year was a failure," Bowden said of the Georgia coach who led his team to the Sugar Bowl and a final AP ranking of No. 2 despite not winning the Southeastern Conference East division. "... I'm sure he was less disappointed than I was. But failure if I win 10 games but don't go to the championship game? Ten games is a lot of wins."

Yes it is, but championships are how a team and its coach are ultimately measured. And Clemson has had enough of eight- and nine-win seasons that fall painfully short of potential.

If Clemson doesn't win it all in the ACC this year, it won't be because the talent on the field wasn't good enough.

The finger will be pointed directly at Bowden no matter how much he tries to qualify it. He's going to have to coach this group to a title -- and that will mean getting past not only his father but some coaching challenges presented by unconventional opponents such as Wake Forest and Georgia Tech.

Bowden, of course, has been no stranger to pressure in his Clemson career. He's come very close to being fired before for not living up to expectations that were lower than this year. That he lasted 10 years, he said, is "by the grace of God."

His job might not be on the line this season, but his reputation certainly is.

"This is a good pressure," his father said. "If there's pressure, you don't want it because you're doing bad. You want it because you're doing good and they expect you to do better. He's worked hard and caught H-E-L-L, he deserves a break and I hope he can live up to it and beats everybody but us."

Tommy Bowden has learned a thing or two from his father about dealing with the negatives of coaching as well as the positives. He's seen his father hung in effigy, he's seen him handle cursed luck against Miami and he's seen him win a national championship. Now it's up to the son to make the most of those lessons.

"There's not a book you can turn to page 13 on getting over the hurdle," Bowden said. "The greatest thing I learned from my father is perseverance and patience.

"For so many years he was wide right, wide right, wide left, wide right and then he finally hit one. I think we'll do the same. I've got to see if I can hold the wolves off until I finally make a field goal."

The wolves have gathered around Clemson, hungry for a championship that's eluded the Tigers for 16 years since the elder Bowden joined the league. This is the son's time ... or else.