Clemson Athletic Director Dan Radakovich notes reorganizing the divisions is a discussion point among ACC athletic directors.
I'd be more than happy if the ACC swapped Boston College with Louisville as Tech's cross division rival. Other than that, I have no issues with the current divisional alignment other than with an 8-game conference and 6 teams, rotating through takes too long.
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Sign me up for a 9 game conference schedule so we can rotate through Atlantic Division Opponents more quickly.
I'd go to ten + one cupcake + one BCS quality crossover. No more ECUs. Ever.
A hole would be ripped in the time-space continuum and the universe would be instantly vaporized if the Hokies didn't play ECU every year. You need to get your T-Shirt...
Hokies v Pirates - Saving the Universe Once a Year, Every Year.
I'd be more than willing swap BC for Louisville, but the sooner we get revenge on the Eagles, the better
As much as it would suck and people in both Blacksburg and Charlottesville would HATE it... the alignment that is easiest and makes the most sense is North-South.
North - Boston College, Louisville, Miami, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, LOLUVA, and Virginia Tech
South - Clemson, Duke, Florida State, Georgia Tech, North Carolina, NC State, and Wake Forest
How would Miami fit in the North division?
Would it really be that far outside of normal #goacc decisions?
More like "Old ACC" and "Old Big East" divisions. (Miami fits in the northern expansion category.)
And since none of their fans live in Miami.........
It's written into Virginia Tech's contract with the ACC that we want a shot at UVa and Miami each year because we hate those guys. We moved Boston College over into our division because we have come to hate those guys. With any luck our cross divisional rival will be FSU, Clemson, or Georgia Tech because we hate those guys.
Ur obviously not in south or central Fl. Obnoxious miami fans everywhere...
I think he was taking a stab at their (lack of) attendance
Asked a Miami grad about that, and she explained that its a pain in the ass to drive to ft. Lauderdale for the game. She even pointed out that they have tailgates at the school, and then buses try and bring students up to the orange bowl over an hour away.
While that wouldn't be an excuse for me, I can see how a bunch of students wouldn't make that drive.
My fiancee (who I've been dating since high school) graduated from Miami, and I went to a game with her once (2010, aka "Logan's 3rd and 16"). I thought the students actually had a fairly decent turnout and had a somewhat spirited student section, considering that they only have about 10k undergrads.
Their main problem is the local alumni, or possibly lack thereof. They have a lot of students that come down to Florida for school and then leave upon graduation, and I think they've come to rely on local non-alumni support at the games, which doesn't fly when you're not one of the 10 most exciting things going on during the weekend.
HAHAHAHA! YOU'RE KIDDING, RIGHT?
Actually... not kidding. It wasn't nearly as awesome as Tech's student section, but they at least seemed engaged in the game. They were also moderately loud (again, not as loud as Tech though). They also didn't start leaving until after our final score, and most stuck around for the end of the game. They actually stick around to sing their Alma Mater. The alumni sections were almost empty before the final plays of the game.
To be fair, they had less students than we typically do, and their student section is smaller as a result, because they only have about 1/3 the student body that we do. But, the student section was pretty packed (though it was the ONLY section that looked more than half full...). I'd say their student section was more impressive than ours has been the last 2 years, for sure.
Cross division Techmo-Bowl, anyone?
Yeah, I'd hate for all the new students to miss the joys of parading around Tobacco road as we crush their dreams.
"Hi, I'm 2013 Duke Football, have we met?"
"Hi, Duke. I'm every other year...ever."
yep, north and south makes the most sense. i just wish we could play clemson and fsu every year. tough to make a rivalry when you only meet a couple times a decade.
Ideal situation:
- Notre Dame stops being a baby back bitch and becomes a full-member of the ACC.
- Add a 16th team. From the looks of it, UConn is the best available option
- Create the following four-team pods:
The "Cold as Fuck" Pod: Boston College, Syracuse, UConn, Pittsburgh
The "3 & Half Men" Pod: Notre Dame, Louisville, UVA, VT
The "North Carolina" Pod: Wake Forest, UNC, Duke, NC State
The "Pod of Death" Pod: Clemson, Georgia Tech, Miami, Florida State
- Seven game conference schedule, you have to play everyone within your pod, one team from the other three pods each year and an additional game.
- The final game is chosen through a draft system. The top 8 teams from last year get to choose their opponent, game held at their home stadium. Draft starts with ACC Champion then second best team, third best team etc. The only rule is that you cannot choose a team you're already playing. All of these games will be played on the same weekend.
Benefits of a draft: 1) Good schools/fans are rewarded by having an additional home game 2) The hilariousness that a draft would ensue 3) It would be pretty #goacc
Thoughts?
I like it, but would go to 9 game season with playing two of the four in the other divisions. You'd then get games with everyone waiting no longer than 2 years. Plus one cupcake and one cross conf rival.
The only issue I have with the typical "4 4-team pod" alignment is determining the conference champion. Currently, the NCAA allows a 1-game championship. I wouldn't want any alignment where it's possible for a team to go undefeated and not win a conference title, such as the 2002 B1G season when Iowa and Ohio State both went 8-0. In that case Iowa was credited as a "co-champion" and still went to the Orange Bowl as an at-large, but Ohio State was the official "Big Ten Champion".
Notre Dame stops being a baby back bitch and becomes a full-member of the ACC
This. Either get all the way in or all the way out. They are complicating the conference with their half-ass scheduling. Love to play them, gives us great exposure on the national stage but IMHO not worth the headache of a non full conference schedule.
I feel like the tradition at Notre Dame is too strong. They'll stay independent as long as they want, which I think is forever.
Before this whole ND deal, I seem to remember Swofford saying something along the lines of "the ACC is an all-in conference." Yeah, about that...
you never go "all-in"
It never works.
Just checked the calendar, its 2013, I'd say its time to get over themselves.
Manti Teo's girlfriend would agree..if she was real
Instead of a draft, make the final game of the year between the four pod winners. Essentially a semi-final for the conference championship. The remaining 10 teams can play one another based on their conference record (5 vs 6, 7 vs 8, etc), ensuring a few good match ups, and, best of all, a 13 vs 14 losers bowl where UVa can officially be crowned "worst in the ACC".
I don't think that will work, because no one is going to want to make their 12th game an unknown, especially if it's not a neutral site game.
The only problem with that is Miami. They'd have to be in the South which would end up requiring one of the Tobacco road teams to split from the rest. What I wouldn't be surprised to see is what the Pac-12 does for California teams be done with NC teams. They aren't all in the same division but every California team must play the other California teams every year.
Can we switch Miami with NC State and just get rid of cross division rivals all together? Those are really the only cross-division conference rivalries that would need saving (FLorida State/Miami and UNC/State). Yes, I know that isolates Wake Forest, but I'll stand by what I said that there are only two cross-division rivalries that deserve being preserved as things currently stand.
please can the cross division rivals. I think it would be a decent compromise if we are not getting a 9 game schedule.
so how about them Buckeyes?
Not cool brah
I agree with the idea of getting rid of cross division rivals, but I would add Clemson-GT to your list. If I got to pick what divisions would look like, starting with what we got, and taking into account rivalries and competition:
Coastal: Clemson, GT, VT, UVA, Pitt, Louisville, Duke
Atlantic: FSU, Miami, NCState, Wake, Cuse, UNC, BC
That keeps most of the rivalries, evens out the competition a little. The more I look at this, the more I like it.
Let's ask the chiropractor. He'd know.
Heard rumblings of the ACC possibly swapping FSU for Miami or Georgia Tech for Clemson. Not sure how much merit there is, but if they were going to go that route, I'd prefer the latter. Then, to Joe's point, let's swap BC or Louisville and I'd be more than happy. Clemson, Miami and Louisville every year would make for a fun schedule, IMO.
If they're going wholesale realignment, true North-South would be a bummer, as the Hokies would likely get stuck in a grouping that's something like BC-Syracuse-Pittsburgh-UVa-Louisville-VT-Wake and that's not appealing at all.
Yeah, it essentially becomes Old Big East vs. Old ACC, except for Miami and UVA. That'd be lame.
I came up with an idea for once we get to 16 teams and posted it in a thread 5 months ago (link). Essentially, make 4 4-team "pods" in which you retain your major rivalries (ie, VT-UVA in one, the 4 NC schools in another, etc.). Split the pods in half, and make 2 divisions where each division has half of each pod. Then, every year two pods flip in a rotating fashion, and you play the other 7 teams in your division plus the two teams in your pod from the other division. This way, you play your closest 3 rivals every season, and each of the other 12 teams a total of twice every four-year rotation, once at home and once away.
This way, every player in the ACC has the opportunity to play in each other ACC stadium once during his four years in school, and the fans get to see every other team at least somewhat often, since who really cares if we play Duke or Pitt every season. The only downside I see is that everyone except hardcore ACC fans (and even a few of them) will get confused by the rotating divisions format.
Sounds promising...I got the sense that the "restructuring" he was referring to had more to do with the scheduling than the actual divisions. Assuming that the divisions stay the same (with Louisville replacing MD in the Atlantic) that could either mean a 9 game season (which I would not prefer) or abolishing the permanent cross over opponent.
With 7 teams in each division it will take 6 games to play each team in your respective division. That leaves 2 extra games available to play against other division teams. If we rotate them 2 at a time (throwing out the home-home series) you'll play all 7 teams in the other division over a 4 year period (and one of those teams twice). The home field would alternate for each matchup. Every year you would travel to one and have one at home. The next time that team comes up on the schedule it will flip.
I threw this together really quickly to try to illustrate what I was talking about...It's pretty rough looking so don't judge me too hard on the presentation..but have at it
this is kind of what our schedule would look like each year until 2023..the pattern would repeat so on and so forth
Only problem with that is that a number of traditional rivals only play each other every 3.5 years on average, like FSU-Miami, NCSU-UNC, Clemson-GT, and Pitt-Syracuse. The only way they drop the annual-crossover is if they blow up the divisions and rebuild from scratch.
fair enough...but as others have noted above, the divisions could be realigned and then this schedule theory could be put in place to keep those rivalries intact and still achieve the goal of playing every team on cycle that is less than 8 years
Thinking about how bad the conference schedule is the next decade makes me want to
Wow,just wow, seriously disturbing.
Are the Notre Dame games counted as conference or OOC games?
my understanding is that they're OOC but I think Notre Dame is obligated to have 5 ACC teams on their schedule each year
Mike London formulated this idea and thought it would bring in more recruits
Is it odd to anyone else that LOLUVA is not in the other division as our cross-division rival? It should be them or GT in my opinion. Otherwise it's not really a rival so much as just another football game.
GT is only a "rival" because until this year we were the only two teams to represent the Coastal in the ACCCG.
nah, I love Techmo Bowl. It's the battle of the two Engineering/Technology Schools in ACC. That's bragging rights dude. Doesn't matter if for ACCCG or not.
This has been my argument all along.
didn't even notice that was you with the new icon image. yah, damn right
Haha, yeah - figured it was time to retire the Halloween/Autumn icon and go with a Christmas one.
Does realignment in this case mean dropping UVA football to FCS? Because they're just sucking the tits of the rest of us making bowls and cash.
Mo' money mo' problems.
Realignment could mean ND is in full time and the addition of ECU to the ACC to make 16. Think about it, we have them scheduled forever. And then the ACC would lock down all major Carolina schools. Granted I'd rather take Cinncy, I wouldn't be surprised.
I'm thinkin' Yukon. They aren't HORRIBLE in football, they're committed to getting better, and they're a basketball power, and they're pretty good at all the other sports that it seems only the ACC cares about.
They are a terrible program. 11-23 over the last 3 seasons. 6-18 in the Big Least. They'll have a new coach but so far new coaches haven't worked out very well for them. Edsall had them pulling in 8-9 win seasons frequently but that is ancient history.
Yes Division:
Florida State
Clemson
Virginia Tech
Miami
Georgia Tech
Louisville
North Carolina
No Division:
Syracuse
Boston College
Wake Forest
NC State
Duke
Pitt
UVA
Our cross division Rival is UVA
hahaha..wow...these divisions. Can you imagine what the ACCCG would look like every year? Nobody would have any interest what-so-ever.
Rule modification, only teams from the YES division can make the ACCCG
Yeah, if these divisions were in place you might end up with some lopsided FSU-Duke ACCCG blowout
Reminds me of the Big 12 South and North (in that order) before the defections.
That's what I was thinking. Some horrible championship games those were.
This could be like an ACC with intra-conference relegation. The top 7 (or 8 - we could add two more I guess) teams would all play eachother with the best two playing again in a champ game. The bottom 7 (or 8) would all fight each other for scraps of meat to win the lower division and replace the worst two teams in the championship division the following season.
Each division could have a round robin and there'd be plenty of room left for cross-divisional and OOC matchups.
GAME CHANGER: 3 DIVISIONS!
ACC North:
BC
Syracuse
ND
Pitt
UL
ACC Midatlantic:
UVA
VT
Duke
UNC
NCst
ACC South:
Wake
Clemson
GT
UM
FSU
You play everyone in your division annually. In 'even' years, you play every team in division 2. In odd years you play everyone from division 3. The top division winners play in the ACCCG. IT'S IMPOSSIBLE FOR THREE TEAMS TO GO UNDEFEATED!
1st, you have ND listed twice in Division 1. 2nd, this requires ND to be a full time member. 3rd, this changes to a 9 game schedule (I like personally) but ND will never agree to as it only gives them 3 other rivalry games, Navy, USC, & Stanford. 4th, The south division is murderous, Clemson, FSU, GT, and Miami in the same division?
1) Typo has since been fixed
2) Of course.
3) Shouldn't matter. It wasn't long ago that three of those four teams were all barely above .500. Additionally, if duke can continue their success, the midatlantic could be just as challenging. Finally, a couple years ago there were 3-4 BCS top 10 teams in the SEC West. The SEC didn't realign.
It's nice that a four year student/athlete would be able to see/play every team in the ACC both home and away. I think all of the in-conference rivalries would stay in tact too?
Either your math doesn't work out or I am completely misunderstanding something. What I think you're saying is, for example, there's 3 5-team divisions, Division A, Division B, and Division C. Each team plays each other team in their division every year. Each team in Division A plays each team in Division B in even years, and Division C in odd years.
Who does Division C play in even years, and who does Division B play in odd years?
Dammit! I knew it was too good of an idea to actually work!
It's all good. I have just spent entirely too much of my free time thinking about ways to improve college football. Haven't had much luck.
This thread and the old conversations about the 4 team pods got me and a friend thinking (and procrastinating) last night, figured I'd share here since I really liked the idea. Take the 4 team pods that you play every year, and in order keep from losing some of the traditional rivalries add in a permanent crossover game that you play every year. We'll also add a team that you play twice every three years. The rest rotate every three years, so teams never go more than 3 years without playing someone.
We added Navy as the 16th team in order to fill the market being vacated by Maryland, and in an attempt to make Notre Dame happier with becoming a full member. Not endorsing the Navy part of this as much as the schedule idea.
1st year schedule:
2nd year schedule:
3rd year schedule:
Still doesn't solve the Conference Championship Conundrum that arises from having 4 divisions.
Just have the two highest ranked teams/ or best conference records play.
Or have the last season game unscheduled for every team and use it as a playoff.
Leg for your first being this.
Ditto.
I would support adding Navy for the academic/Maryland/Notre Dame reasons as well as to make a 16 team conference, but if we add someone new, I would think it should be someone south of North Carolina because we need a little more south balance in the league.
I do think that four 4-team divisions would be a great scheduling strategy, or if we didn't even do divisions, identify four teams for each team who are rivals but aren't necessarily a division. For example, our four top rivals in the ACC might be UVA, Miami, say, Pitt, and maybe GT. Play these four teams every year, but it wouldn't necessarily mean that they'd each play each other (as you would expect in a divisional structure). That means 4 games you play every year, and you'd get 4 rotating games every year (assuming an 8-game league schedule, which I think should go to 9).
I'd like to let all players who go through a 4 year progression play against every other team in the ACC, and minimize the number of non-Lane stadiums you'd miss.
This is a good idea. We'd have to work out some other operational and scheduling considerations, though.
If you can eliminate the divisions all-together and go to a nine game schedule things become pretty simple. The league can stay at 14 teams, Notre Dame would just get moved through in the open weeks like an out of conference opponent. Each team would see each stadium atleast once every 4 year period. I'd say best 2 records go to the championship game, of course the NCAA rules would have to be petitioned. Looks something like this:
Year 1:
Year 2:
Going to 9 games would cause problems for FSU, Clemson, LVL and GT. They already have one OOC game tied up every year with an SEC rival.
Let them play UVa every year
It's a problem if teams continue to insist on scheduling cupcakes, but I think that's going to start going away with CFB's current attendance problems and the playoff system making SOS more important. All those teams would still have 2 opportunities per year (except when they play ND) to schedule a weak opponent if they really wanted to.
The exact same format could be used with an 8 game schedule, but there would be 3 permanent rivalries rather than 5. Personally I prefer the 9 game schedule so there would be fewer "rivalries" cut and that it forces teams to play fewer games that only have the starters playing in the first half.
I, for one would like the divisions to realign. I don't want to play GT every year or Boston College. However, I think it would work best for the divisions to be split North/South with a few interminglers near the mid-atlantic. I think we should run an optimization study with multiple criteria of travel costs, traditional rivalries, and competitive balance.
You cannot put the value of seeing Paul Johnson's sour-puss face on a spreadsheet. Keep them in Bud's crosshairs, he owns them.
Seems to me that its time to rethink things from an ACC overall standpoint. They were fine with Miami and FSU playing each other every year in the ACC title game, even stupidly putting the game location in Florida for the first 3 years (appearances by Miami in that time...ZERO, FSU..1). So the game moves to North Carolina. Clemson becomes a legit contender and Miami drifts into being an afterthought and all the sudden you drop dreadful Maryland (yep, know they beat us this year, just acknowledge they were dreadful the entire 10 years of the title game era) and they are thinking "This is looking top heavy for the Atlantic, we gotta move things". As a VT fan, part of me wants to see ranked teams more frequently, so I am fine with re-aligning and getting shots at FSU, Clemson, or up-and-coming L'Ville sooner. Presidential terms are shorter than the time between FSU visits to Lane. BUt if a National Title and ACC title game apperances get this program further along; would it not be better to just keep the Coastal titles going, shots at the top ranked Atlantic team in the title game, and possible playoff births as is?
Might be relevant to post this here. Changes coming to the ACC schedule?
http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/10171901/acc-review-sched...
Some of the protected rivalries do seem unnecessary/irrelevant. I like the direction this could be heading.
I'm glad to hear this, but I think we introduce another problem. While I do like rivalries, I don't think we have balance in the league with rivalries. For example, one could rightly say that Miami has rivalries that should be maintained with FSU and VT. VT has another rival in UVA. UVA has VT and UNC. But who does Louisville have? Boston College? Sure, most teams have at least one natural rival (UNC/NCST) but some don't really have much of a rivalry with anyone (Wake, Louisville). We're gonna have to force some rivalries at some point.
What is a horse's main rival, anyways?
I can see the Elmer's cow saying "Gloo Mor Horse" every commercial break at the annual Elmer's Sticky Bowl.
I do like the fact that Louisville is starting up the ACC-SEC in-state battle for Thanksgiving weekend beginning next year. That should give one ACC virtual lock win every year. With the rise of FSU and Clemson (although they lost this year to USC), maybe the ACC can eventually tip the scales on the ACC-SEC in-season matchups.
Clemson lost to USC this year and the previous four...I see no reason why that trend should change...GT has also lost five straight to UGA and twelve of the last thirteen. I would like to see the scales tip but I don't see it happening
I've been wanting to come up with some divisional ideas, and I know that North/South will not work. The old Big East teams don't want to be isolated, and UVA would pitch a fit if they were the only "old ACC" team surrounded by old Big East.
So, what matchups need to stay?
VT: UVA, Miami, GT
FSU/Miami
How does it work in North Carolina? I know UNC is big against State and Duke, but is Duke/NC State a big deal? And what about Wake?
The easiest solution is to swap Clemson/Miami and Pitt/NC State and then drop the cross division games.
Revised Atlantic:
FSU, Miami, Louisville, BC, Syracuse, Wake, Pitt
Revised Coastal:
VT, GT, Clemson, UNC, Duke, NC State, and UVA.
I still think a straight N-S realignment makes the most sense. At the end of the day, Clemson, Florida State and Georgia Tech all want to be in the same division. You fill out that division with the NC schools and throw Miami in the North with Boston College and Syracuse, where they wanted to be in the first place. Add in Louisville, Pitt, UVA and Virginia Tech and the divisions are probably fairly balanced most years. Right now FSU and Clemson are the cream of the crop, but Louisiville doesn't suck and you never know when VT, Pitt and Miami will return to prominence.
So you have the division with relatively low travel expenses and the division with the highest travel expenses?
divisions only matter for football. do 4 trips/year really make any noticeable difference when you consider once you are on a plane, the costs are pretty much the same regardless of where you are flying? FSU has to fly everywhere, i believe, same with Miami and Boston. GT's only bus trip is probably Clemson. when you consider divisions are only for 4 road games in 1 sport, i don't think travel expenses should weigh in on the decision at all...
I've always had the opinion that the division isn't bad if they just moved a few teams. Move Pitt to the Atlantic and Louisville to the Coastal. Then swap Syracuse and UVA. Then major cross-division rivals stay preserved (despite how annoying it is). So your division is like this:
Atlantic--------Coastal
===============
BC-------------Cuse
FSU------------Miami
Pitt-------------Louisville
Clemson--------GT
UVA------------VT
Wake-----------Duke
NCSU-----------UNC
Now each division has 1 team in Florida, 1 in the Northeast, 1 team in VA, and 2 teams in NC. Pitt and Louisville could be swapped and GT and Clemson could as well.
rivalries have to be considered. you cannot break up the oldest rivalry in the south (uva-unc). i think a simple fix to your alignment would be to swap uva and l'ville. Pitt-uva could develop into a great annual game and so could l'ville-VT.
that said, i've always agreed with CPA in that N/S is the way to go. it's a marketing decision as much as it is a competitive balance decision. you want divisions to be easy to understand and talk about nationally, outside our region. B1G realized their mistake and fixed it quickly. Pac12 considered a zipper model before realizing N/S was best. we should do the same.
North:
BC
'Cuse
Pitt
uva
VT
UNC - NCSU
Dook - Wake
South:
Miami
FSU
GT
Clemson
L'ville
NCSU - UNC
Wake - Dook
you only protect the 2 NC rivalries. with a 9 game schedule, VT would now play Miami, FSU, GT, Clemson, and L'ville at least once each every 3 years (NCSU and Wake would be 1/3 as often). most 5th year seniors would have played all but 2 of the south teams home and away when they graduate. not too shabby.
you could stick Miami in the North as CPA wants to do, but that would impact how often FSU plays northern teams which i think is bad for the league.
It's not so much that I want them there. It's more that that seems to be where Miami wants to be. Personally, my ideal situation would be the one you described... straight North-South, 9-game league schedule, and I wouldn't protect ANY rivalries. UNC would have to decide whether they want to play UVA and NC State, Duke and NC State, or UVA and Duke every year and the one they leave out is gonna have to be in the other division, showing up on their schedule three times every seven years. And when you think about it... 3/7 isn't all that bad. You're playing everyone in the other division pretty much every other year.
the 5 Carolina schools make things tricky. it's not so much "UNC has to decide"...they could pick NCSU and uva, but then NCSU would say, what about Clemson? since there are 4 schools in NC, i'm ok with them protecting their rivalry games. all 10 other league members would be in a division with 2 of them allowing everyone to play at least one game per season in NC. the Pac12 allowed the 4 CA schools to play 2/4 of their crossover games every year vs one another, the B1G allowed Indiana and Purdue to protect their game, i think we would be ok allowing 2 games to be protected for 4 teams.
as far as Miami, they didn't seem to give 2 craps about playing BC every year, so i'm not so sure they really care about football being aligned with the north. as long as they are in the same league as teams from the northeast, Miami is happy.
There's absolutely no competitive balance if you do things N-S like that.
The South is a Meat Grinder, and the North is a Dumpster Fire.
No Old Big East Division. We left the big east for a reason. All you did was re-create the BE but make it worse by taking Miami away.
I disagree. The South is Clemson and Florida State plus five. Miami and the Carolina schools haven't exactly been tearin' it up. Georgia Tech is an empty shell its former self.
The North has parity. Louisville is likely the toughest team there and the rest of them will all make a solid run at the division title in many years. Syracuse didn't always suck. Neither did BC or Pitt. And I think we'll be getting pretty good again pretty soon.
Consider that it really wasn't that long ago that Clemson was a middling program and losing by 70 points in a bowl game, and Florida State had their own rough patch. Hell, I remember a time not very long ago at all where the SEC East was the greatest division in college football and all those losers in the SEC West could never touch 'em. You can't just ASSUME that one division will always be a meat grinder while the other is a dumpster fire. Only four years ago all the toughest teams were in the Coastal and now they're in the Atlantic. It's constantly changing.
What needs to be done is the logical step of splitting into geographic divisions and letting things sort themselves out. And in the ACC... North-South makes the most sense.
If we're being honest with ourselves here BC, Pitt and SU have never been *that* good. The last time Syracuse was very good was literally almost two decades ago, Pitt closer to four. Even the one or two good years they had weren't that great. Also, in the post I responded to Louisville was in the South.
I understand what you're saying in theory, just in practice I look in being in a division with BC, Pitt, and f-ing Syracuse while losing Miami and GT and continuing to not have FSU and Clemson, and that's just a load of barf. That's a suck division with a suck schedule. Our home schedule is bad enough and has enough problems selling tickets as it is - go take GT and Miami off the regular schedule and see what happens.
I get where you're coming from, but going to a 9 game schedule and removing the protected rivalries should make it easier to swallow. We'd be playing Clemson, Florida State, NC State, et al. a HELLUVA lot more frequently. Three games in seven years is a helluva lot better than once in six years. And honestly, if you put FSU, Clemson, GT and the Carolina schools in one division and put Miami in the north, that might not be so bad, but there would have to be protected crossovers so that Miami and Florida State could play every year and LOLUVA and Carolina could play every year. What that leaves us with is playing everyone in the North (Miami, BC, Cuse, Pitt, Loserville, & LOLUVA) plus a crossover from the South (GT?) every year and then we'd rotate through the other South teams (FSU, Clemson, and the Carolina 4) twice every six years. The key is getting that ninth league game. 2/6 is still better than what we have now, but I prefer the 3 in 7 rotation you get from nixing the protected games.
If I could, I would upvote this comment several times.
I don't know why the North/South idea keeps getting proposed, when we know it's just a crapstorm waiting to happen.
VT, BC, and Pitt would be mad because they would be right back where they were in 2003. UVA would be mad because you just forced them to move to the Big East. Louisville, being from Big East 2.0, probably wouldn't care and just be damn glad to be there. Syracuse, I'm not sure because I feel like they made the move for money and basketball, so they probably don't care.
The only good parts of our old Big East schedule were annual games against West Virginia and Miami.
how is playing 50% of your football games against teams between VA and Boston being "back in the BigEast"? i hate this argument. we will still be in a league with and play teams from NC to Florida. no other sport would be impacted by any divisional alignment in football.
leaving the BigEast for the ACC had very little to do with who we play in football. it was about TV revenue, olympic sports stability, and prestige. period.
with the current coastal/atlantic split and an 8 game schedule, VT plays BC, Pitt, uva, UNC, Dook, GT and Miami annually with only 1 game vs cuse/l'ville/ncsu/wake/clemson/FSU
if you go North/South while adding a 9th game, VT plays BC, Pitt, uva, still plus cuse and 3 of UNC/dook/Wake/l'ville/Miami depending on how you define the North plus THREE of the remaining southern schools.
it's a wash at worst for football, and has zero impact on other sports IMO.
Because before the ACC expanded, all of those teams between Virginia and Boston were the Big East. Maryland was the northern most team in the ACC.
Let's look at the annual games for VT back in the Big East days:
Boston College, Pitt, Syracuse, Miami, Rutgers, WVU, Temple, UVA (OOC)
And the annual games for VT in "ACC North":
Boston College, Pitt, Syracuse, UVA, Louisville, one NC school
Four are exactly the same, and we lose the one annual game that we actually didn't mind keeping from the Big East (Miami).
But let's look at it from UVA's point of view (yeah, I know, shudder to think like a Wahoo). The "ACC North" would not be much different for them than if they had defected to the Big East in 2002.
If we changed conferences to upgrade our prestige, then how does it get upgraded when we get surrounded by the same teams that we left behind?
And I don't know why the other sports are being mentioned, since they've never been affected by football divisions, and this is a football discussion.
The reason we made the move was money, prestige, and non-revenue exposure. Back in those days, the Big East was just about on par with the ACC in football. Miami was fresh off their run from 2000-2003, where they went 46-4 and never finished worse than #5 in either major poll. We had played for a MNC, losing a close one to FSU. That same FSU team was the last one to make any real noise from the ACC. They were still decent by 2003, but the ACC hadn't had a top-10 team since 2000.
The ACC made the move to bolster football, to bring it from barely-BCS quality to hopefully top-tier. If FSU and Miami had stayed relevant, we may very well be talking about ACC supremacy right now instead of the same SEC crap. We wanted to make the jump because there was extra money involved, and the fact that it would greatly benefit our non-football sports as well. We were football-only in the Big East until 1999, prior to that I believe we were in the A-10. The opportunity to get into the ACC in all other sports was huge, and look at what we've parlayed it into:
- Basketball team went from being consistently the worst in the Big East to perennial postseason participants in the ACC (albeit in the NIT most years, and now we've regressed just about back to previous form)
- Men's soccer made the final 4 in 2007
- Women's soccer made the final 4 in 2013
- Baseball has twice advanced further than they ever had been before except one season in the '50s
- Softball made the NCAAT 4x in a row with Tincher, including an appearance in the WCWS. Also, Tincher no-hit the US Olympic Softball Team
- Track and field has had numerous individual national champions, something I don't believe we had ever achieved before
- Wrestling has become one of the top teams in the nation
No divisions.
Each team has 4 conference rivals they play every year.
9 in conference games required (play every non rival team every other year.)
Two Highest ranked teams play in ACC CG (or two best conference records.)
Maybe the NCAA has softened on their stance, but I don't think so. They have been pretty firm on their position that you cannot stage a championship game without splitting into divisions of at least six teams. The ACC wanted to split into divisions of 6 and 5 in 2004 to stage a CG and got no joy from the NCAA. No divisions of at least 6 teams --> no championship game.
The ACC formally petitioned for change:
http://espn.go.com/blog/acc/post/_/id/67076/acc-votes-to-send-legislatio...
we'll find out this summer if it has a chance of passing...
That will be very interesting if it is approved. Not the first time the ACC has made such a petition. The conference also petitioned to have a championship game with 11 before BC was added.
Yeah, I'm just very pessimistic about the ACC's chances of getting the go-ahead. Splitting into divisions is the only way to be sure schedules are equitable. Everyone in the division plays each other, so a division champ can be named. Once you have two division champs, you have a clear championship game. There is no argument, and no appearance of impropriety. There is no bias or favoritism. If you allow the selection to be made without divisions, then it's no longer an objective selection method and suddenly petitions are flying left and right from third and fourth place teams pleading their subjective case and it's a headache I don't think the NCAA wants to deal with.
If you set the rules for ACCCG entry as specifically as they have set the rules for determining division champions, there won't be any "bias or favoritism", as long as you set the schedules such that no group of 3 teams had the possibility of all going unbeaten.
let's think progressively, get people talking about the ACC in a fun way...A DIVISION LOTTERY!
Maybe leading up to the Orange Bowl every year, the ACC hosts a show on ESPN (or ACCN) to announce the divisions for the next season.
Pot 1: 2 Division Champs from current season
Pot 2: 4 teams who finished 2nd and 3rd
Pot 3: 4 teams who finished 4th and 5th
Pot 4: 4 teams who finished 6th and 7th
Pick one ball from each pot and place it in a Coastal Bowl and then do the same for the Atlantic Bowl until all the balls are exhausted. then, one by one, open them up to share which teams will be in which division.
Use the next 4 weeks or so to ensure teams play their rivals, play teams they haven't played in 2+ years, and balance the home/away games and rotations if there are matchups from the year before. then announce the full schedule around the end of January.
it might not create a pretty/balanced rotation of any sort, but it would be fun, it would be random, and we could even give ESPN some say in the crossover games to beef up TV inventory. we get variety in our scheduling which we desperately need, and we maintain divisions which makes it easy/clean to determine the CCG participants.
I would say that a set divisional rotation that allows for a balanced schedule would work better than just randomly selecting a "lottery". Just so happens that I came up with such an idea 7 months ago and linked it a month ago in this same thread (link again for reference).
The unique part about this would be that you have Rivalry Pods that are split across divisions. Each year you would have 7 division opponents, and 2 "annual crossover" opponents. You would never play a cross-divisional game against a team not in your Rivalry Pod. The twist is that the divisions change every year, to balance the schedule out so that you play 3 teams every year, and each of the other 12 teams exactly twice each (once home and once away) during any 4 year period.
I don't particularly like this solution (or any involving rotating divisions) with the current NCAA rules regarding conference title games because it would really confuse the average college football fan (or even hardcore fans from other conferences), but if they were to allow the ACC to select their own method of determining the title game participants (therefore demolishing the division structure) I would be all-in on this method of scheduling, as it would eliminate the chance for 3 teams to all go undefeated while maintaining rivalries and schedule balance.
I like the sound of that, but the NCAA is firm on divisions, so how about this.. keep the divisions, but schedule the teams like you proposed.
Every team plays each other within 2 years, and plays home & home within 4 years - which happens to be the typical time a player spends in school. The downside is that this is a 9-game schedule and with Notre Dame rotating through the conference there winds up being 10 'ACC' games some years. FSU, Clemson, GT, Wake (play vandy alot) may not go for that.
Then when/if we go to 16 teams, some permanent match ups would have to be eliminated to keep the 2-year rotation going...
I think rule is you have to play everyone in your division. Another option would be rotating divisions. I did this with pods a couple of years ago where two pods are matched in one division for two years and matched with another division the next two years. They then rotate through the third pod across the four years so you play everyone in the conference home and away every four years and you try to place permanent rivals in pods together so they play each other every year. I've done this for 16 teams, but not for 14. Anyway, this is what it looked like then (you can tell it's old since Maryland is still there and Loserville is not):
here is a 14 team format that would also allow for home/away every 4 years (minimum) while still maintaining annual divisions to draw your championship game participants from. the 9th game shown as vs/@ would be used by the league to preserve annual rivalry games not falling within the 8 game schedule that year or to work with ESPN for made for TV crossover games if all rivalries have been preserved for select teams.
Let's create two divisions:
The Atlantic Coast Conference Divisions:
ACC - Big East Division
ACC - ACC Division
In all seriousness, three or four permanent rivals with five or six rotating games every year. Let's get each player to play a home and away game against all other teams within their four year career. Not sure if this is possible, but too lazy at the moment to math.
If they decide on North-South, I think we should call them the Snowblower and Heatstroker divisions.