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WINSTON-SALEM – For the first time in the ACC’s 56 seasons, Wake Forest is the league’s only representative in the Associated Press weekly Top 25 poll.

The Demon Deacons moved from 23rd to 20th after last Thursday’s 41-13 win at Baylor, and they took over the unofficial and unscientific designation as their conference’s best team when Clemson tumbled from No. 9 and Virginia Tech fell from 17th to the land of limbo known as “Others Receiving Votes.”

The Tigers were overwhelmed by Alabama 34-10 and the Hokies were upended by East Carolina on Saturday. The survey marks the first time in nearly five years that any of the six BCS conferences has had fewer than two teams in the Top 25. (On Nov. 23, 2003, ninth-ranked Florida State was the ACC’s lone representative.)

It is also the first time since Dec. 5, 1999 – 156 polls ago – that any of the six major leagues has failed to crack the top 19. On that day, No. 22 Stanford was the Pac-10’s standard-bearer.

This week’s survey is the 821st of the ACC era and is the sixth with Wake as the ACC’s top team. The Deacons also led the way for three weeks in 2006 and two weeks in 1979.

The current rankings may afford national observers a free rhetorical shot at the league and at the Deacons. If Wake’s the best your league has to offer, they reason, your league can’t be that good.

“As long as we’re winning and feeling good about ourselves, we don’t care what everybody else says,” defensive tackle John Russell said 90 minutes before the poll was released. “We’ll leave the speculation to everybody else.”

While these are the glory days of Wake football by most accounts, coach Jim Grobe preferred the good old days of early 2006 in some respects. That team flew in stealth mode to the program’s first ACC title in 36 years. The anonymity and the presumption of imminent bubble-bursting are gradually fading. Wake earned its first preseason rating in the poll’s 70-year history last month and now has another tag as it prepares for Saturday’s home opener against Mississippi (3:30 p.m., WXLV-45).

“Last week was tough, but this week’s tougher,” Grobe said. “The expectations get greater from everybody. We all have expectations. Everybody wants to be good. Everybody wants to get pats on the back. I think our players need to realize the only thing that matters is their play on Saturday. The other stuff that goes on around it might feel good, but if you’re not careful and you let those pats on the back lead you to believe you don’t have to play well on Saturday, it can get taken away from you pretty quick. “And we don’t know how good we are. I don’t think too much can be made out of our win over Baylor and too much can’t be made about other teams’ losses.”

Contact Rob Daniels at 373-7028 or rob.daniels@news-record.com