GREENSBORO, N.C. - Led by a pair of Heisman Trophy winning quarterbacks in Florida State's Chris Weinke and Miami's Vinny Testaverde, one of the winningest head football coaches in Atlantic Coast Conference history in Clemson's Danny Ford, and former Terp Kevin Glover, the ACC Wednesday announced its Class of 2009 Dr Pepper ACC Football Championship Game Legends.

The Legends will be honored at this year's Dr Pepper ACC Football Championship Game weekend. They will appear at the ACC Coaches and Awards Luncheon at noon on Friday, Dec. 4, and will be honored at the "ACC Night of Legends" held at the Grand Hyatt Tampa Bay on Friday evening. They will also be recognized during pre-game ceremonies at Raymond James Stadium for the 5th Annual Dr Pepper ACC Football Championship, which has an 8 p.m. kickoff on Dec. 5 and will be nationally televised by ESPN.

The group of 12 former gridiron standouts from current ACC schools includes three former ACC Players of the Year, seven former All-Americas, nine players who combined for 79 years of professional football experience and 10 who were drafted into the National Football League including two first-round picks and the No. 1 choice in the 1987 draft (Testaverde).

In all, the collection of players and coaches combined to capture two national championships, one NFL World Championship and 15 ACC team titles.

Weinke, who now resides in Austin, Texas, compiled a 32-3 record as the first three-year starter at quarterback for Bobby Bowden, leading the Seminoles to three ACC Football Championships and the 1999 National Championship as FSU downed Virginia Tech in the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) national title contest. Named the 2000 Heisman Trophy winner as the nation's best college football player, he led the Seminoles to an unprecedented three straight berths in the BCS Championship Game. By the conclusion of his collegiate career in 2000, he had virtually re-written the Florida State record book and still holds no fewer than 26 school marks in passing and total offense, as well as five Atlantic Coast Conference records. In 2003, Weinke was named to the ACC's 50th Anniversary Football Team.

Testaverde, who now lives just outside Tampa in Odessa, Fla., became Miami's first Heisman Trophy winner, claiming the 1986 Trophy. In two seasons as the starting quarterback for the Hurricanes, Testaverde led Miami to a 21-1 record including a 28-16 upset triumph over then-No. 1-ranked Oklahoma in 1986 in the Orange Bowl. That year he was named a consensus All-America and also earned the Maxwell and Walter Camp Player of the Year Awards and the Davey O'Brien Award. The first selection in the 1987 NFL Draft, Testaverde went on to a 21-year career in the National Football League with Tampa Bay, Cleveland, Baltimore, the New York Jets, Dallas, New England and Carolina, throwing for 46,233 yards and 275 touchdown passes.

Ford, who now lives just outside of Clemson in Pendleton, S.C., began his head coaching career as the youngest head coach (30 years old) in Division I football with a win over Ohio State in the 1978 Gator Bowl. Three years later, he led the Tigers to the 1981 national championship and was named National Coach of the Year. In all, Ford compiled five ACC Football Championships in his 11 seasons as head coach of Clemson. His winning percentage of .760 is the third highest in ACC history and he ranks second only to FSU's Bobby Bowden in most bowl victories while an ACC coach with six. His 96 victories, while Clemson's head coach, are fourth-best in ACC history. At one stretch his Clemson teams were ranked among the Associated Press' rankings for 41 consecutive weeks and his Tiger teams earned 18 wins over nationally-ranked opponents.

Joining them are a trio of some of the best running backs in the ACC's formative years in Billy Barnes (Landis, N.C.), the 1956 ACC Player of the Year from Wake Forest, Jim Bakhtiar (Charlestown, W. Va.) of Virginia, who earned first-team All-America honors in 1957, and Duke's Bob Pascal (Easton, Md.) of Duke who led the ACC in total offense in 1955 and helped lead the Blue Devils to at least a share of the first three ACC Football Championships.

Three more Legends who earned All-America honors include Boston College standout defensive back Mike Mayock (Newtown Square, Pa.), who was a two-sport standout for the Eagles in football and baseball, Virginia Tech triple threat quarterback Bob Schweickert (Grayslake, Ill.), who was named to the then-prestigious Look Magazine All-America team in 1964, and Glover (Columbia, Md.), a 1984 first-team All-America center and one of the centerpieces to the Terrapins ACC Championship teams in 1983 and 1984.

Glover is in his sixth season with the Terrapins as the school's first-ever director of character education. He also serves as an academic counselor and a liaison between the team and the NFL, taking care of all dealings regarding scouts and agents.

Completing this year's impressive Legends class are three more record-setting running backs of the 1970's and early 80's in Georgia Tech's Eddie Lee Ivery (Thomson, Ga.), who set the NCAA single-game rushing standard with 356 yards against Air Force in 1978, NC State's Willie Burden (Statesboro, Ga.), the 1973 ACC Player of the Year, and North Carolina's Kelvin Bryant (Tarboro, N. C.), who rushed for over 1,000 yards in three consecutive seasons for the Tar Heels despite playing in only seven games due to injury in 1982.