A.C.C. Is Deep Enough the Fill Women's Soccer Final Four by Itself DURHAM, N.C. - With 25 appearances in the final four and 21 N.C.A.A. Division I national championships, North Carolina has been the premier women's college soccer program for decades. Yet it was hardly a surprise last season when the Atlantic Coast Conference became the first league with three teams in the College Cup - as the sport's final four is now known - and the Tar Heels were not one of them. The days of North Carolina's stockpiling the majority of the most talented players in the country are over. There are simply too many elite players to go around. North Carolina still attracts its share - enough to be ranked 11th in the country. But many stars are now drawn to other programs in the A.C.C., which has emerged as the sport's most dominant conference. "From top to bottom across the board, we do probably have more talent than most of the other conferences do," said Florida State Coach Mark Krikorian, whose Seminoles were ranked No. 1 for much of the season but are currently fifth. The Pacific-12 boasts No. 1 Stanford, the defending national champion, and No. 2 U.C.L.A. But the A.C.C. has four teams in the top 10 of the coaches poll - Florida State, No. 7 Virginia, No. 8 Wake Forest and No. 9 Maryland - and seven in the top 25, with No. 11 North Carolina, No. 16 Duke and No. 24 Virginia Tech also in the rankings as of Tuesday. The A.C.C. also accounts for six of the top 25 teams in the more weighty N.C.A.A. Ratings Percentage Index. It is that depth of quality teams that sets the A.C.C. apart. Last year, the A.C.C. had eight teams reach the Round of 16 of the N.C.A.A. tournament. Three - Florida State, Duke and Wake Forest - made the College Cup, with Stanford. The A.C.C. could replicate the feat this season, with the same three teams or three different ones. Or it could do better. "I honestly think four out of four is a possibility," Duke goalkeeper Tara Campbell said. Campbell was one of many girls who watched the United States win the 1999 Women's World Cup final over China and became inspired. For many college stars, that game served as a touchstone, a moment when their desire to succeed in the sport crystallized. "I just think that because of the success of the women's national team, it made soccer more aware in this country, and maybe it was our hope and dream that when kids would come out to watch us play, they would, too, want to play," said Carla Overbeck, the captain of that United States team and now an assistant at Duke. Eight former North Carolina players were on that World Cup team, including Mia Hamm, who became a fan favorite. Kristen Mewis, who was 8 in 1999, was one of the girls who revered Hamm and her teammates. "I specifically remember watching that game," said Mewis, a senior midfielder for Boston College. "I just remember saying, "I want to play for that team one day." " When Mewis was in high school deciding where she wanted to play in college, she chose the Eagles in part because they play in the A.C.C. Campbell was drawn to Duke's academics, but also said the conference was a factor in her decision. "When I was coming down to deciding between different schools, the fact that Duke was in the A.C.C. was big in the pro column when I was breaking it down pros and cons," Campbell said. Just because you know that once conference starts, you're playing a national-level game every time. It's an N.C.A.A.-tournament-quality game every game in the A.C.C. Of course, there are a lot of reasons players are drawn to the conference, from academics to geography, even the weather. "I think, first of all, the conference fits the recruiting demographic," the longtime North Carolina coach Anson Dorrance said. Our recruiting demographic is an upper-middle-class athlete whose parents value high-level education opportunities. Obviously, the conference is filled with elite universities. Also, we've got an excellent East Coast footprint, which is attractive to any athlete from Maine to Florida and all the way across. We'll attract some outstanding players as a result of being the kind of schools these athletes love to attend. And I think because of our reputation as a great conference, we're even able to recruit out West. Alison Foley knows what it is like to recruit inside and outside the A.C.C. She has been Boston College's coach for 16 years, competing in the Big East until joining the A.C.C. in 2005. "We got a lot of top-caliber players, a lot of national-pool-type players, national team players, to come for a visit and they would love Boston College, but one of the things it would come down to: "But I've always dreamed of playing in the A.C.C.," " Foley said of recruiting before her team joined the league. I couldn't fault them for that. But because so many other teams are stronger, North Carolina is no longer able to dominate. That is a reason the Tar Heels have missed the College Cup the past two seasons. No Tar Heels team has gone three years without a final four appearance since the tournament began in 1982. Dorrance says he is not using that as motivation, certain that there is enough inherent pressure that goes with playing in the program, even if others in the A.C.C. have caught up. "Yeah, well, obviously, we need to admit that to ourselves," Dorrance said. The way we look at it is, we've just got to do a better job in recruiting. We've just got to do a better job with training and developing our kids. We're killing ourselves to make some corrections to see if we can get back there, for sure.