I would like to see the math on how many games ESPN would have the rights to with a 9 game schedule vs. an 8 game schedule.
Just looking at VT's future schedules, most years have only 1 or 2 away OOC games. For instance, 2018 we travel to ODU, but the other three OOC games (including ND) are at Lane. That means that ESPN has the rights to 11 of our 12 games through the ACC deal. While a 9 game schedule could improve the quality of the games in their inventory, I don't know if it would improve the quantity.
So I see two options for Tech to accommodate the extra conference game -- either drop the FCS game or drop ECU (or ODU). However, we only have FCS teams up through 2021. Dropping one of the two mid-major long term deals only gives ESPN one extra VT game every two years.
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I think I would prefer some seriously complicated and convoluted rotation with multiple "divisions" to a 9-game league schedule /s
in all seriousness, though, anything has to be better than the ridiculously stupid set-up we have now. Who in their right mind thought it was a good idea to have a schedule where some teams in the same league play each other only once in 8 years? We have played OSU, ECU, and Marshall more times in the last several years than we have played half of the teams in our own league. That is just dumb.
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In the first ten years of Louisville's tenure in the ACC (2014-2023), we will have played them once, while we play Notre Dame 4 times. We even have two games against Liberty in that span.
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I kinda see your point but at the same time I hate that we play FSU, Clemson, Louisville, NCST, Wake, and Syracuse once each over a 7 year span. I think I could live with having only 4 home conference games every other year if it means we play all of the teams in our own conference at least one time in a span of 4 years.
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Fortunately, those commitments aren't as cumbersome as they could be.
By sheer coincidence, Atlantic Division schools Clemson, Florida State and Louisville are on the same rotation with their SEC rivals, home in even-numbered years, road in odd-numbered. Meanwhile, the Coastal Division's Georgia Tech is on the opposite rotation, facing Georgia at home in odd years and on the road in even.
So in crafting a nine-game conference schedule, the ACC could have Coastal teams play five road and four home league contests in odd years, the Atlantic five road and four home in even. That way, no ACC school would play at its SEC rival in the same season it had five road conference games.
In fact, that's precisely the model the ACC designed in 2012.
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Weaver mentioned this being a challenge when we were in the BE, but we were able to make it work though it was with 7 conference games rather than 9. It just takes a little more creativity when scheduling home vs road non conference games.
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This makes a lot of sense. If the rumors about the ACC Network being in place by the end of this year are true, then more games = more content. Plus, since the ACC's proposal to have autonomy in deciding how we organize our championship game failed, this means more regular cross-divisional meetings that people have been waiting for (more VT/FSU, VT/Clemson, Clemson/Miami, etc).
If there is/was any hope of ND joining fully in football, I'm not sure how going to 9 games would help. The ONLY ways I could see ND ever joining with a 9 game schedule are 1.) they are forced by the playoff committee, or 2.) we eventually bring in Navy as a football-only 15th member. That could sweeten the pot, especially if the ACC Network is successful. I'm also unsure how Clemson, FSU, GT, and UL will respond to an extra conference game when they are already locked into games with SEC in-state rivals AND have ND every few years under our current deal with them. That only gives them one open OOC slot any year they face ND. If the Irish were to go all in and join, however...well this would all be moot.
I'm all for the move to 9 games. We need more frequent cross-divisional games, and it looks like the rest of the Power 5 have headed in that direction except for us and the SEC. Plus, no one wants to see the FCS games at all. I think this is a step in the right direction.
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Go to a 10 game ACC schedule, 2 equitable OOC games and allow teams to hold a public scrimmage vs. a 1-AA team in August. You can televise the scrimmage on your conference channel. Have a general admission, food donation drive at the gates. Pay the 1-AA team a couple hundred grand for showing up.
Preferably, the conferences take over the OOC scheduling to make it equitable so Duke doesn't stack up 4 easy wins and only need a 2-6 ACC season to make a bowl. The conferences can push for the schedules to look more like an NFL schedule, with a quality opponent every week. I would love to see some ACC-SEC or ACC-B10 challenge type of setups.
If you want to raise more money through memberships and tix, schedule 6-compelling games at home every year.
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NCSU may be a worse practitioner of "schedule for success" than Duke. This proves my point, they are only playing ND because the ACC is making them. Otherwise, it would have been the Citadel.
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The Citadel is going to UNC instead, joining JMU as the only two nonconference home games for UNC. (The other two OOC games are vs. Georgia and at Illinois).
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Personally, I wish more teams in the ACC would do this. A) its more money for us, as the more teams that make it to bowls the more money the conference gets B) It makes every victory look better and more teams would be in the top 25, just look at the SEC
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Not sure I'd call Georgia Tech's schedule appalling. Ga Southern finished top 40 in F/+ last season, Georgia is a top 25 team this year and Vandy was probably scheduled back when they were actually decent. Its a fairly strong OOC schedule for fans and good matchups for GT's level of team this year
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Had a really long comment about this that got deleted but basically an ACC-SEC challenge would be difficult with scheduling since you constantly have 4 teams that are locked into games, 3 of which have been the by far most successful of the last 5 years. So is it a separate event the first weekend of the season? Or are those 4 just built in? I don't think the ACC would go for that because you cant really match your power programs against the SEC's. If you were the ACC you'd want FSU and Clemson playing Bama and LSU not GT and us for example.
B1G-ACC challenge would be interesting and a far better top to bottom opponent for the ACC but you wouldn't get the same level of exposure.
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Dabo is complaining about a move to 9 commence games, because the game against Auburn would go away. I'd like to ask him why can't the game against Troy or South Carolina State go away instead?
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Most schools like 7 home games. There's already 4 home and 4 away conference games on the schedule. That leaves 4 slots to get at least three home games.
Clemson's OOC schedule this year is at Auburn, and home games against Troy, SC State, and South Carolina. Therefore, they have 7 home games, and 5 away games.
One of those OOC games has to go away to make an additional ACC game. If that's an away game, the only wiggle room for Clemson if they want to keep 7 home games is to dump the Auburn game.
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So as I posted above from the article, you make the years where you have 5 road ACC games the year you have a home OOC crossover game for those schools with them, home ND game for some schools and it can work.
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That's what they are doing. They have the South Carolina game at home. When Clemson schedules another SEC team, they try to keep it opposite of where the SC game is, because they don't want to go to two SEC stadiums in a year.
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Well, not to nitpick but isn't Clemson required by law to play SCAR and another in-state school? So South Carolina State could go away but would have to be replaced by another FCS school. Idk what the penalty for not following said law would be or what opposition there would be to removing this law but it is South Carolina so literally nothing would surprise me.
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I am for a nine conference game schedule. But I realistically only see it happening if they also get rid of the permanent cross division rivals. Then you play every team in the other division no more than 1 of every 3 years. It would be nice to have players be able to play every other team during their time at a school.
If UNC gets the death penalty, we can kick them out and make ND a full time member.
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Yeah, despite the fact that UNC probably deserves the death penalty more than any school since SMU they won't get the punishment that they actually deserve.
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It would be nice if we could get away from divisions altogether. You get one ACC rival you play every year (UVA), one NCO rival you play every year (be great to replace ECU with a rival), alternate the other 6 ACC teams very other year, one FCS game of your choosing, one non big5 non-FCS, an ACC Big10 challenge game, and one other mandatory big5 home away or ND. Won't happen, but it would be the most appealing to me as a fan.
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I definitely think that this could work. The most difficult thing to overcome would be the perception of "changing" divisions each year. That would definitely confuse traditional fans (and probably some TV commentators). It would certainly make for an interesting trophy case with both "Coastal" and "Atlantic" division trophies represented.
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Wow, that's amazing. So simple and so effective. Home and home with each conference team every 4 years, maintenance of annual rivalries, and again, you actually play the other teams in your conference.. What a freakin' concept.
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The short version is that this season, the ACC TV package has 91 games. If we added a ninth conference game, it would likely not affect that overall number by more than a few games. A few teams, like us and GT would just be trading one home game for another. Most of the Atlantic teams would be replacing an away OOC game. If they replaced a home game, then ESPN would actually be losing a game.
Looking into the future, we have to assume that most years will see 7 teams with 7 home games, and 7 teams with 6. That still equals 91 games.
If we max out, and play all OOC games at home, that's 7 teams with 8 games, and 7 with 7. That's 105, but we have to subtract 2 or 3 for Notre Dame to play at home, and then 1 or 3 for the SEC rivalries. So, at the most, ESPN would be getting somewhere between 99 and 102 games. But that would be highly unlikely.
So, it could improve the quality of some individual games, but it could also keep the overall quality around the same, as teams would learn to schedule around the ninth game to attempt to maintain their current strength of schedule.
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A lot of people keep focusing on 'quantity' of the games. Doesn't quality have an impact on if ESPN selects the games? Our current deal relegates some of the FCS and ugly ACC matchups to ACC/Raycom TV deals because ESPN didn't select those matchups. By going to 9 conference games don't we potentially increase the overall quality of games available?
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It's hard to say long term. Because for every Clemson/VT matchup that gets added to the schedule, you'll have another Syracuse/UVA. It also depends on which teams get dropped from the out of conference schedule.
But like I was saying above, I think some teams are going to change their approach to their OOC schedule to maintain a certain strength of schedule. Look at Clemson. They're going to have 5 away conference games in the year that they play SC at home. With only two available non conference slots, are they going to be so bullish in scheduling another SEC team? And when they do, they are going to make sure the home game is the opposite year of the SC game.
Looking at VT, we would probably be replacing the ECU game with a ninth ACC game. ECU is a fairly consistent middle of the road team. I would consider Clemson, FSU, and Louisville to be definite upgrades over that game. However, I don't know if NC State, Syracuse, and Wake Forest would be.
I think it would be easier for ESPN to manipulate the quality of the games by trying to influence schools to schedule better out of conference games.
Besides, if other conferences start moving their rights to other networks, quality won't really matter to ESPN, because they will just need content.
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As a fan, I would gladly play a tougher schedule with more conference games, better quality OOC opponents and no FCS teams even if it meant we had a harder path to the championship. Winning is great, but as a fan I'm more excited about going to games and watching competitive football week in and week out.
And I'd be willing to bet that market forces would ultimately reward those teams and force other conferences to catch up as we'd be delivering a better product to TV/streaming platforms.
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I think now with the committee being involved and SoS being such a determining factor, you are rewarded for tougher scheduling. So if you play a difficult schedule and happen to lose a game, it doesn't necessarily mean you are out of it. The days of the BCS rankings and gaming the system by scheduling cupcakes to ensure an easier path and rack up computer points are over. People are making the decisions now, and people want to see competitive games.
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The response to that would be Stanford last year. Easily one of the best 4 teams in the country, won the second most difficult conference, but got left out because of an early season loss to a strong OOC opponent. SOS definitely matters more, but minimizing losses still matters more than winning big games I'd say. Of course that very well could change.
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Fair point. But I have no doubt that there is strong East coast bias in the committee. Always has been with college sports, for the most part. Stanford was a top team and played a strong schedule, but it's hard to keep track of the PAC-12 if you're on the East coast.. If you aren't USC or Oregon (traditional powerhouse and flashy new program), you probably won't get the same attention.
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Comments
I would like to see the math on how many games ESPN would have the rights to with a 9 game schedule vs. an 8 game schedule.
Just looking at VT's future schedules, most years have only 1 or 2 away OOC games. For instance, 2018 we travel to ODU, but the other three OOC games (including ND) are at Lane. That means that ESPN has the rights to 11 of our 12 games through the ACC deal. While a 9 game schedule could improve the quality of the games in their inventory, I don't know if it would improve the quantity.
So I see two options for Tech to accommodate the extra conference game -- either drop the FCS game or drop ECU (or ODU). However, we only have FCS teams up through 2021. Dropping one of the two mid-major long term deals only gives ESPN one extra VT game every two years.
Is it bad that the first thing I zeroed in on in your response was "drop ECU"?
Didnt need to read the entire post and I was already applauding.
When I saw this article the first thing that ran through my mind is great....we gotta drop an out of conference game! Gooooooodbye ecu
I think I would prefer some seriously complicated and convoluted rotation with multiple "divisions" to a 9-game league schedule /s
in all seriousness, though, anything has to be better than the ridiculously stupid set-up we have now. Who in their right mind thought it was a good idea to have a schedule where some teams in the same league play each other only once in 8 years? We have played OSU, ECU, and Marshall more times in the last several years than we have played half of the teams in our own league. That is just dumb.
In the first ten years of Louisville's tenure in the ACC (2014-2023), we will have played them once, while we play Notre Dame 4 times. We even have two games against Liberty in that span.
yes, exactly
*rage flips every damn table between my apartment and Whit's office
They are just another FCS cupcake we ought not to schedule. Let it go amigo, save the rage for LOLuva.
I'll root for UVA long before I root for Liberty. There I said it.
Marrying a Card in December...when those schedules dropped we were furious as hell.
I'm very much opposed to the 9 game schedule. I don't like having a different amount of home and away conference games each year.
I kinda see your point but at the same time I hate that we play FSU, Clemson, Louisville, NCST, Wake, and Syracuse once each over a 7 year span. I think I could live with having only 4 home conference games every other year if it means we play all of the teams in our own conference at least one time in a span of 4 years.
Weaver mentioned this being a challenge when we were in the BE, but we were able to make it work though it was with 7 conference games rather than 9. It just takes a little more creativity when scheduling home vs road non conference games.
This makes a lot of sense. If the rumors about the ACC Network being in place by the end of this year are true, then more games = more content. Plus, since the ACC's proposal to have autonomy in deciding how we organize our championship game failed, this means more regular cross-divisional meetings that people have been waiting for (more VT/FSU, VT/Clemson, Clemson/Miami, etc).
If there is/was any hope of ND joining fully in football, I'm not sure how going to 9 games would help. The ONLY ways I could see ND ever joining with a 9 game schedule are 1.) they are forced by the playoff committee, or 2.) we eventually bring in Navy as a football-only 15th member. That could sweeten the pot, especially if the ACC Network is successful. I'm also unsure how Clemson, FSU, GT, and UL will respond to an extra conference game when they are already locked into games with SEC in-state rivals AND have ND every few years under our current deal with them. That only gives them one open OOC slot any year they face ND. If the Irish were to go all in and join, however...well this would all be moot.
I'm all for the move to 9 games. We need more frequent cross-divisional games, and it looks like the rest of the Power 5 have headed in that direction except for us and the SEC. Plus, no one wants to see the FCS games at all. I think this is a step in the right direction.
The more conference match ups, the better. Games are both more exciting for fans and more valuable for networks as far as conference payout.
The same thing I propose every time:
Go to a 10 game ACC schedule, 2 equitable OOC games and allow teams to hold a public scrimmage vs. a 1-AA team in August. You can televise the scrimmage on your conference channel. Have a general admission, food donation drive at the gates. Pay the 1-AA team a couple hundred grand for showing up.
Preferably, the conferences take over the OOC scheduling to make it equitable so Duke doesn't stack up 4 easy wins and only need a 2-6 ACC season to make a bowl. The conferences can push for the schedules to look more like an NFL schedule, with a quality opponent every week. I would love to see some ACC-SEC or ACC-B10 challenge type of setups.
If you want to raise more money through memberships and tix, schedule 6-compelling games at home every year.
I'm looking up ACC opponents this year, and some of the OOC lineups are just appalling.
NC State
William and Mary, at ECU, ODU, Notre Dame
Georgia Tech
Mercer, Vanderbilt, Ga. Southern, at Georgia
Miami
Florida A&M, FAU, at App St., at Notre Dame
At least Duke has an away game at Northwestern on their schedule.
NCSU may be a worse practitioner of "schedule for success" than Duke. This proves my point, they are only playing ND because the ACC is making them. Otherwise, it would have been the Citadel.
The Citadel is going to UNC instead, joining JMU as the only two nonconference home games for UNC. (The other two OOC games are vs. Georgia and at Illinois).
Personally, I wish more teams in the ACC would do this. A) its more money for us, as the more teams that make it to bowls the more money the conference gets B) It makes every victory look better and more teams would be in the top 25, just look at the SEC
Not sure I'd call Georgia Tech's schedule appalling. Ga Southern finished top 40 in F/+ last season, Georgia is a top 25 team this year and Vandy was probably scheduled back when they were actually decent. Its a fairly strong OOC schedule for fans and good matchups for GT's level of team this year
Had a really long comment about this that got deleted but basically an ACC-SEC challenge would be difficult with scheduling since you constantly have 4 teams that are locked into games, 3 of which have been the by far most successful of the last 5 years. So is it a separate event the first weekend of the season? Or are those 4 just built in? I don't think the ACC would go for that because you cant really match your power programs against the SEC's. If you were the ACC you'd want FSU and Clemson playing Bama and LSU not GT and us for example.
B1G-ACC challenge would be interesting and a far better top to bottom opponent for the ACC but you wouldn't get the same level of exposure.
Scrap the FCS games and play another team in your league? Makes too much sense so it won't happen
Dabo is complaining about a move to 9 commence games, because the game against Auburn would go away. I'd like to ask him why can't the game against Troy or South Carolina State go away instead?
Probably because it makes more sense to not overload your schedule with tough opponents.
And because Clemson would have to replace it's fourth OOC game with an away ACC game.
And? You can make the schedule so you have enough home games.
Most schools like 7 home games. There's already 4 home and 4 away conference games on the schedule. That leaves 4 slots to get at least three home games.
Clemson's OOC schedule this year is at Auburn, and home games against Troy, SC State, and South Carolina. Therefore, they have 7 home games, and 5 away games.
One of those OOC games has to go away to make an additional ACC game. If that's an away game, the only wiggle room for Clemson if they want to keep 7 home games is to dump the Auburn game.
So as I posted above from the article, you make the years where you have 5 road ACC games the year you have a home OOC crossover game for those schools with them, home ND game for some schools and it can work.
That's what they are doing. They have the South Carolina game at home. When Clemson schedules another SEC team, they try to keep it opposite of where the SC game is, because they don't want to go to two SEC stadiums in a year.
It is still ridiculous to expect them to drop to 1 non power 5 team. They would run in to the same problem every time they played ND as well.
If he already has USC, FSU, GT, Louisville on the schedule there is no reason to add Auburn.
Well, not to nitpick but isn't Clemson required by law to play SCAR and another in-state school? So South Carolina State could go away but would have to be replaced by another FCS school. Idk what the penalty for not following said law would be or what opposition there would be to removing this law but it is South Carolina so literally nothing would surprise me.
I am for a nine conference game schedule. But I realistically only see it happening if they also get rid of the permanent cross division rivals. Then you play every team in the other division no more than 1 of every 3 years. It would be nice to have players be able to play every other team during their time at a school.
If UNC gets the death penalty, we can kick them out and make ND a full time member.
UNC won't get the death penalty. ND won't join as a full time member in football.
Your other part sounds like a pipe-dream but I really like it. Would be really cool to not have to play BC every. single. year.
Yeah, despite the fact that UNC probably deserves the death penalty more than any school since SMU they won't get the punishment that they actually deserve.
It would be nice if we could get away from divisions altogether. You get one ACC rival you play every year (UVA), one NCO rival you play every year (be great to replace ECU with a rival), alternate the other 6 ACC teams very other year, one FCS game of your choosing, one non big5 non-FCS, an ACC Big10 challenge game, and one other mandatory big5 home away or ND. Won't happen, but it would be the most appealing to me as a fan.
We need to adopt this proposal a SEC fan made a few years ago.
https://theroommateswitch.wordpress.com/
I definitely think that this could work. The most difficult thing to overcome would be the perception of "changing" divisions each year. That would definitely confuse traditional fans (and probably some TV commentators). It would certainly make for an interesting trophy case with both "Coastal" and "Atlantic" division trophies represented.
I like it. Toyed around with some pods. Came up with two ideas:
Idea 1:
NCSt, UNC, Duke, WF (tobacco road pod)
VT, UVA, Louisville (mid-atlantic pod)
FSU, Miami, GT, Clemson (south pod)
Syracuse, BC, Pitt (north pod)
Idea 2:
NCSt, UNC, Duke, WF (tobacco road pod)
VT, UVA, Clemson (south pod)
FSU, Miami, GT (deep south pod)
Syracuse, BC, Pitt, Louisville (north pod)
What a novel idea /s
Wow, that's amazing. So simple and so effective. Home and home with each conference team every 4 years, maintenance of annual rivalries, and again, you actually play the other teams in your conference.. What a freakin' concept.
I did the rough math, and put up a scenario at my blog: http://cfarena.blogspot.com/2016/06/looking-at-9-game-acc-schedule.html
The short version is that this season, the ACC TV package has 91 games. If we added a ninth conference game, it would likely not affect that overall number by more than a few games. A few teams, like us and GT would just be trading one home game for another. Most of the Atlantic teams would be replacing an away OOC game. If they replaced a home game, then ESPN would actually be losing a game.
Looking into the future, we have to assume that most years will see 7 teams with 7 home games, and 7 teams with 6. That still equals 91 games.
If we max out, and play all OOC games at home, that's 7 teams with 8 games, and 7 with 7. That's 105, but we have to subtract 2 or 3 for Notre Dame to play at home, and then 1 or 3 for the SEC rivalries. So, at the most, ESPN would be getting somewhere between 99 and 102 games. But that would be highly unlikely.
So, it could improve the quality of some individual games, but it could also keep the overall quality around the same, as teams would learn to schedule around the ninth game to attempt to maintain their current strength of schedule.
A lot of people keep focusing on 'quantity' of the games. Doesn't quality have an impact on if ESPN selects the games? Our current deal relegates some of the FCS and ugly ACC matchups to ACC/Raycom TV deals because ESPN didn't select those matchups. By going to 9 conference games don't we potentially increase the overall quality of games available?
It's hard to say long term. Because for every Clemson/VT matchup that gets added to the schedule, you'll have another Syracuse/UVA. It also depends on which teams get dropped from the out of conference schedule.
But like I was saying above, I think some teams are going to change their approach to their OOC schedule to maintain a certain strength of schedule. Look at Clemson. They're going to have 5 away conference games in the year that they play SC at home. With only two available non conference slots, are they going to be so bullish in scheduling another SEC team? And when they do, they are going to make sure the home game is the opposite year of the SC game.
Looking at VT, we would probably be replacing the ECU game with a ninth ACC game. ECU is a fairly consistent middle of the road team. I would consider Clemson, FSU, and Louisville to be definite upgrades over that game. However, I don't know if NC State, Syracuse, and Wake Forest would be.
I think it would be easier for ESPN to manipulate the quality of the games by trying to influence schools to schedule better out of conference games.
Besides, if other conferences start moving their rights to other networks, quality won't really matter to ESPN, because they will just need content.
The topic made it to Bitter's mailbag.
Sadly the ECUs and ODUs will stay on the sch. Think it will be the end of the
FBSFCS games. The SEC will ostracized for still playing them.FCS (or 1-AA as I still call it)
Good catch, thanks. I still hate that they changed it.
As a fan, I would gladly play a tougher schedule with more conference games, better quality OOC opponents and no FCS teams even if it meant we had a harder path to the championship. Winning is great, but as a fan I'm more excited about going to games and watching competitive football week in and week out.
And I'd be willing to bet that market forces would ultimately reward those teams and force other conferences to catch up as we'd be delivering a better product to TV/streaming platforms.
I think now with the committee being involved and SoS being such a determining factor, you are rewarded for tougher scheduling. So if you play a difficult schedule and happen to lose a game, it doesn't necessarily mean you are out of it. The days of the BCS rankings and gaming the system by scheduling cupcakes to ensure an easier path and rack up computer points are over. People are making the decisions now, and people want to see competitive games.
The response to that would be Stanford last year. Easily one of the best 4 teams in the country, won the second most difficult conference, but got left out because of an early season loss to a strong OOC opponent. SOS definitely matters more, but minimizing losses still matters more than winning big games I'd say. Of course that very well could change.
Fair point. But I have no doubt that there is strong East coast bias in the committee. Always has been with college sports, for the most part. Stanford was a top team and played a strong schedule, but it's hard to keep track of the PAC-12 if you're on the East coast.. If you aren't USC or Oregon (traditional powerhouse and flashy new program), you probably won't get the same attention.
Christian McCaffery's empty Heisman Trophy case agrees.