I know there's a generally favorable fan opinion of nine conference games a year, but the idea of having to play five conference opponents on the road every other year is concerning to me.
I think it's time to drop the cross-division rival altogether and just rotate through the seven cross-divisional teams on a home and home basis. It will take division realignment to preserve some rivalry games, but the yearly cross-division rival doesn't work in a 14 team league.
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I think it's time to drop the cross-division rival altogether and just rotate through the seven cross-divisional teams on a home and home basis.
Yep... this. I get the ACC's desire to have Miami vs FSU every year in the title game happen, but Miami has been an absolute disaster ever since the conference expanded, and there is little hope anymore they will ever recover to the levels at which they once played.
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Is FSU/Miami even a ratings draw anymore? The ACC went to 12 teams during the Wide Right era, but lately I don't think it's been the anchor the ACC was betting on. I don't have the ratings numbers, but I'm confident saying it's definitely no OSU/Michigan or Iron Bowl in terms of audience draw.
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Does the factor of playing a team on the road vs at home have any bearing on SOS?
I ask because if having 5 conference road games bolsters your SOS then why wouldn't that be more attractive in this new era of the CFP?
Sure, you have to travel to one additional game every other year, but wouldn't you also have that one extra game at home every other year too? (conference only; I realize you can still build your schedule to have 6 home, 6 away)
EDIT: I just want to add that I'm completely in favor of dropping the cross-division 'rivalry' game but I'm just kinda 'thinkin out loud' here.
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I would generally agree with dropping the cross-divisional rivalry, but it would be nearly impossible to preserve all important rivalries if we did away with that. That would mean Miami and FSU in the same division, then you might as well throw Clemson in there too to preserve Clemson-FSU. I doubt they would want both Florida schools in the same division, and you would likely end up with more imbalance. I like the Bitter Plan, but there's NCAA legislation to overcome before we get to that point.
I think if we keep the same setup, the goal should be to create the most compelling football games each year. That means more FSU/Clemson/Miami/VT/UL/GT all playing each other. I say set the divisions like this:
Each team is listed next to their crossover rival. If they were to make these minor tweaks, that would create at least five more interesting football games in the ACC per year that normally won't happen (Clemson/VT, FSU/GT, VT/UL, Miami/UL, GT/UL). We would lose GT/VT, but that's really about it; I think those could be amicable terms for both sides considering we would get Clemson and they FSU in return. It still wouldn't solve the rotation problem as far as playing all teams from the opposite division more regularly, but I think it would create an overall better ACC football schedule and balance out the divisions a little bit. It will be interesting to see where conference championship autonomy and 9-game schedule talks go in light of the Wake-UNC news, though.
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The conference is big but with such a geographical stretch (Syracuse to Miami), it just doesn't feel like we have that same rivalry setting that SEC has. I think that's gonna take a little bit to develop. The schedule can be much more simple if they didn't have Notre Dame and the one school from the other side we have to play. 8 ACC games and 2 against the opposite divsion with only one team aside from the regular BC? to me it doesn't make sense. just play the opposite division in home and home series and forget the BC regular game. This way we get to play more schools sooner. I'm also wondering if they should considerng re-aligning the divisions, North and South. For us it wouldn't make sense since we like to play the Carolina teams, but for ACC it could potentially save some travel money
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Comments
I know there's a generally favorable fan opinion of nine conference games a year, but the idea of having to play five conference opponents on the road every other year is concerning to me.
I think it's time to drop the cross-division rival altogether and just rotate through the seven cross-divisional teams on a home and home basis. It will take division realignment to preserve some rivalry games, but the yearly cross-division rival doesn't work in a 14 team league.
Yep... this. I get the ACC's desire to have Miami vs FSU every year in the title game happen, but Miami has been an absolute disaster ever since the conference expanded, and there is little hope anymore they will ever recover to the levels at which they once played.
Is FSU/Miami even a ratings draw anymore? The ACC went to 12 teams during the Wide Right era, but lately I don't think it's been the anchor the ACC was betting on. I don't have the ratings numbers, but I'm confident saying it's definitely no OSU/Michigan or Iron Bowl in terms of audience draw.
Does the factor of playing a team on the road vs at home have any bearing on SOS?
I ask because if having 5 conference road games bolsters your SOS then why wouldn't that be more attractive in this new era of the CFP?
Sure, you have to travel to one additional game every other year, but wouldn't you also have that one extra game at home every other year too? (conference only; I realize you can still build your schedule to have 6 home, 6 away)
EDIT: I just want to add that I'm completely in favor of dropping the cross-division 'rivalry' game but I'm just kinda 'thinkin out loud' here.
I would generally agree with dropping the cross-divisional rivalry, but it would be nearly impossible to preserve all important rivalries if we did away with that. That would mean Miami and FSU in the same division, then you might as well throw Clemson in there too to preserve Clemson-FSU. I doubt they would want both Florida schools in the same division, and you would likely end up with more imbalance. I like the Bitter Plan, but there's NCAA legislation to overcome before we get to that point.
I think if we keep the same setup, the goal should be to create the most compelling football games each year. That means more FSU/Clemson/Miami/VT/UL/GT all playing each other. I say set the divisions like this:
Atlantic:----------Coastal:
FSU--------------Miami
Clemson----------VT
GT---------------Louisville
NC State---------UNC
Wake------------Duke
BC--------------LOLUVA
Syracuse--------Pitt
Each team is listed next to their crossover rival. If they were to make these minor tweaks, that would create at least five more interesting football games in the ACC per year that normally won't happen (Clemson/VT, FSU/GT, VT/UL, Miami/UL, GT/UL). We would lose GT/VT, but that's really about it; I think those could be amicable terms for both sides considering we would get Clemson and they FSU in return. It still wouldn't solve the rotation problem as far as playing all teams from the opposite division more regularly, but I think it would create an overall better ACC football schedule and balance out the divisions a little bit. It will be interesting to see where conference championship autonomy and 9-game schedule talks go in light of the Wake-UNC news, though.
The conference is big but with such a geographical stretch (Syracuse to Miami), it just doesn't feel like we have that same rivalry setting that SEC has. I think that's gonna take a little bit to develop. The schedule can be much more simple if they didn't have Notre Dame and the one school from the other side we have to play. 8 ACC games and 2 against the opposite divsion with only one team aside from the regular BC? to me it doesn't make sense. just play the opposite division in home and home series and forget the BC regular game. This way we get to play more schools sooner. I'm also wondering if they should considerng re-aligning the divisions, North and South. For us it wouldn't make sense since we like to play the Carolina teams, but for ACC it could potentially save some travel money
No North-South. We would essentially be in the Big East Redux.