Because of scheduling agreement w/Notre Dame, ACC will only play 8-game conference schedule, sources told @espn— Brett McMurphy (@McMurphyESPN) October 3, 2012
The addition of Notre Dame and 9 conference games would have been tricky, and somewhat unfair to ACC schools. In some seasons, FSU, Georgia Tech, and Clemson would have had to play 9 ACC games, Notre Dame and their SEC rival. That's a loaded schedule.
An 8-game schedule still has pros and cons , and I won't know if I like it until the logistics are finalized. As it stands now each team in the 12-team ACC plays 5 division games, 1 permanent cross-division rival, and rotates annually through the remaining teams in the opposite division. Will the 14-team league keep the permanent rival with 6 division games? With just one game a season, cycling through the opposite division would take a while.
Eight Conference games will allow for much more flexible non-conference scheduling.
Update: The release from the ACC has all the details.
Football
With the addition of Notre Dame playing five games annually against ACC teams, the league has determined it will play an eight-game conference schedule for 2013 and beyond. Divisions, primary crossover partners and rotating opponents from the opposite division will remain consistent to what was previously announced.
Men's and Women's Basketball
The ACC will continue to play an 18-game conference schedule with the addition of Notre Dame. The scheduling model will be based on a two-partner format.
Each year, teams will play every league opponent at least once with the two partners playing home and away annually. In addition to the four annual games against partners, the remaining 14 conference games will feature home and away games with two rotating opponents and five home-only games and five road-only games.
The two-primary-partner format preserves competitive balance and builds upon traditional rivalries while providing the opportunity to create new ones (Virginia Tech - Miami and Virginia).
What do you guys think?
Comments
Pros: More flexibility to schedule good non-conference games; more home games; FSU Clemson and GT don't get totally dicked over for playing their annual SEC rivals
Cons: Play NC State, FSU, Clemson, Syracuse, Maryland, and Wake Forest way less; potentially hurts strength of schedule for playoff bid (that is up to the individual AD's scheduling philosophies)
Logistically, I think it was the only way to go... I'm cool with it
Also, I'm happy about our permanent partners in basketball.... UVA and Miami. Way better than UVA and BC, in my opinion. I hate playing at BC...
totally sucks that we take road trips to clemson and FSU less than we already do (and host them, too). such is the beast of the super-conference...
i also see this as bait, down the road, to entice notre dame to become a full-member for football. but who knows.
You're more optimistic than I am.
I don't care about SOS, W's/L's....I care about having as many competitive games in a 12 game schedule as possible. Bowling Green and Austin Peay just piss me off because of their lack of interest. At least 9 ACC games would be interesting, then 3 more OOC games we would most likely schedule one good team and 2 uninteresting teams.
For example.....We just took 9 ACC games + BCS Quality Opponent + ECU + Liberty and turned it into 8 ACC games + BCS Quality Opponent + ECU + Marshall + Liberty.
I don't care about FSU, GT and Clemson's SEC rivalry problem. Stop playing them when you play ND if it bothers you so much.
I try to look at it from the ACC's point of view as a whole, not just Tech's. Also, I know a lot of people don't go to games, or all of them, but as a season ticket holder, I'd rather play Marshall at home than Syracuse on the road.
Also, don't just think of the schedule negatively. It could also turn out to be BCS opponent, Notre Dame, ECU, and Liberty some years. And when you schedule a BCS opponent, they require a return game. That is hard to pull when you also have 5 away games in conference. I'm just personnaly a fan of 4 home 4 away. Same every year.
No Cross-Division Rival
I'd rather just work our way through the Atlantic Division playing 3 of them each year with no annual rival. Someone should come up with a decent division of the teams that would allow important cross-division rivalries to remain (UM/FSU, GT/Clemson, etc.) but makes them in conference. Maybe something along the lines of:
Division 1: Division 2:
VT Miami
UVA FSU
GT NC State
Clemson UNC
Wake Syracuse
Duke Pitt
Maryland BC
You still have VT/UVA, VT/GT, GT/Clemson, Wake/Duke, UVA/Maryland (I've heard some say it's a rivalry), Miami/FSU, UNC/NCSU, create Cuse/BC, and keep a Big East group with Pitt/Cuse. The only rivalry you lose would be UVA/UNC but this way keeps it as balanced as possible in my mind.
Although if BC didn't suck
This wouldn't really be an issue.
#BlameTheStache
I think when both teams are good..
I'd like to keep Miami on the schedule every year. Freaking love beating Miami...
I agree
But, I put GT over Miami in designing that. Having Miami and FSU in the same division as GT, Clemson, and us would just be unfair. Trade UM and FSU with GT and Clemson and then you don't have one division covering the entire East Coast with their in-division schedule by going all the way up to Boston or NY, and then down to Tallahassee or Miami.
I'd love to see these
Division 1: VT, Miami, FSU, UVA, UNC, NC State, Duke
Division 2: GT, Clemson, Wake, Pitt, Cuse, BC, Maryland
(In terms of watching good football)
i.e......
...we don't want to be in the same division as the Big East teams.
Nobody does.
I'm hoping for a the 5-3 split to be maintained
in the 12-game setup, we're playing (all) 5 division opponents and 3 cross-division opponents (1 fixed, 2 rotating through the other 5).
When the league expands to 14, I'd like to see us play 5 of 6 division opponents and 3 cross-division opponents (1 fixed, 2 rotating through the other 6) each year, rather than 6 of 6 division opponents, and only 2 cross-division teams. Ideally we'd see a simple 5-3 split but about the only thing the ACC press release said clearly was that cross-division rivals will remain the same.
I'd be willing to sacrifice one blowout of UVA every 6th year to play FSU, GT, Clemson, UMD, NC State, Wake Forest, and Syracuse more than once per 6 years.
You can't not play your entire division.
that may seem like a fine idea for diversity, but when we're 6-2 one year and Miami is 7-1 and we didn't get to play them at home, we'll be pissed.
Ok, so this leaves us
with a scheduling issue....we have 2013 on our schedule, but was originally an OOC game. Since they're in our division, and we have 3 crossovers on the schedule (BC, FSU & MD), one of those will have to be dropped. My guess would be FSU, since we play them this year. This also has the effect of opening up a non-conference game slot. Are we high on the list for a ND game? Do we schedule a cupcake like Savannah State? We already have Bama, Marshall and Western Carolina. Who do you guys want to see? My guess is that we see a fair-to-middlin' type school (Southern Miss-ish).
Unlikely
Utah moved to the Pac12 last year, but they had the same issue on their schedule where they had already scheduled a Pac12 team OOC. What ended up happening was that Utah and Cal played the game, however it was not counted as a conference game and was not reflected in the standings. I think this is a more likely scenario for next year than booting off a team like FSU.