Monthly Archives: June 2012

Plea to the ACC: Reconfigure the Divisions!

Posted on by acaffrey

The Confidential is not very sympathetic to much of what Florida State complains about.  For the most part, they blame the ACC for their own inability to field a top 10 team.  The ACC leadership is merely a scapegoat.  HOWEVER, Florida State does have a legitimate issue regarding the zipper-format that the ACC has used to divide the teams into divisions.  The Confidential renews its plea for the ACC leadership to apply a logical division of the teams primarily based on geography and school type.

As you know, the ACC is currently divided into the following divisions:

Atlantic: Clemson, Florida State, Wake Forest, North Carolina State, Boston College, Maryland, Syracuse (in 2013?)

Coastal: Georgia Tech, Miami, Duke, North Carolina, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Pittsburgh (2013)

We know these are right because they have been researched.  Yes, one has to check the standings to keep this straight.  If ACC fans and followers have to double-check to know for sure, just think how outsiders consider the ACC.

The logical solution is to do a more pure geographical distribution:

North: BC, Maryland, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Pitt, Syracuse, and Miami

South: NC, NC State, Duke, Wake Forest, Georgia Tech, FSU, and Clemson

That is easy to remember.  It’s the northern schools, plus Miami (a northern school in character).  Play 6 games, plus 2-3 cross-divisional games.  Lock-in certain rivalries: Miami-FSU, Virginia-North Carolina, maybe a few others.  Or give everyone a locked-in opponent:  BC-Duke, Syracuse-Wake Forest, Miami-FSU, Clemson-Va Tech, Georgia Tech-Pitt, Maryland-NC State, North Carolina-Virginia.  And then play 1-2 other cross-divisional games.  One could even rotate the “locked-in” game periodically, so that Duke-Syracuse and BC-Wake Forest could play each other.  And so on.

The upshot is that FSU gets games against the three southern-most schools–which is good for attendance, TV ratings, and strength of schedule.  All rivalries are preserved.  And the world can keep the division straights.  Everyone plays a ton of geographically logical games.  Only Miami loses geographically, but it renews rivalries with Syracuse, Pitt, and BC.  This is what we call a win-win.  Making FSU happy is not a bad bonus either.  So… ACC leadership… the plea has been renewed.  Make it happen!

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Huge Win for the ACC–Four Team Playoff In College Football on the Horizon?

Posted on by acaffrey

For most folks who have been fretting over the future of the Atlantic Coast Conference, the monetary situation is scary enough.  But when the SEC and Big XII announced their new bowl, there was legitimate concern that the national championship might arise out of a winner of that game versus the winner of the Rose Bowl.  If so, there would be a mad scramble for teams to get into one of the big four conferences.  The latest news is that the 11 conference commissioners, as well as the Notre Dame athletic director, have agreed to a four-team proposal that will select the best four teams, regardless of conference affiliation.   As always, Frank the Tank has a great update.

To be sure, the university presidents will need to make the final decision.  But it is doubtful that the presidents will decide to reject the commissioners’ suggestion and trigger conference realignment Armageddon.  As previously noted on this blog, it is not even clear that adding teams to the top 4 conferences is financially viable.  A school pretty much needs to be worth $40M-$5OM per year to allow each of the existing conference teams to get a $2M raise through the addition.  And even if some schools are worth that, it is not clear that it is worth diluting the tight-knit, slow-growing conferences that are stable.  This playoff structure gives the presidents an “out” for delaying realignment.

For the ACC, this should eliminate any real concern by the ever-whining Florida State fan base that they cannot be nationally competitive.  It probably will not shut them up, but it should.  If they can just learn how to win, they’ll be fine.  The money is there.

And for the rest of the ACC teams, they remain in the national title picture.  A 13-0 ACC team WILL be in a playoff.  Heck, even a 13-0 Big East team will probably qualify.  Like Florida State, it is just up to the ACC teams to go out and win games.

 

Reports of ACC’s Death “Greatly Exagerrated”

Posted on by acaffrey

Look, nobody can predict the future.  But for the very short term, at least, it looks like the Atlantic Coast Conference will be surviving intact.  In response to an inaccurate report of his death, Mark Twain once stated that the report of his death was “exaggerated.”  Similarly, it looks like the death of the ACC may have been prematurely pronounced too.

Florida State’s President Eric Barron addressed the trustees regarding realignment: http://floridastate.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1373740.  Naturally, this will only cause the Florida State babies fans to simply seek to get him fired.  After all, why would anyone want its leader to be one to reject knee-jerk reactions.  In any event, nothing in what Barron had to say suggests that Florida State has one foot out the door.  Barron even became the 1,000,000th person to question why the ACC does not move to geographically logical divisions.  Not much to see here.

Dabo Swinney had all kinds of negative things to say about the Big XII rumors.  Most notable is that the rumors are hurting recruiting.  It certainly makes you wonder.  Do Clemson and Florida State fans REALLY think that kids in their locality are going to be thrilled about having games a time zone away?  Let the Presidents worry about the money.  Fans can just focus on being fans.

Again, neither of these individuals have the final say.  But both are being awfully bold in their statements.  It seems likely that a lot of the college football world is going to sit tight and see what happens with playoffs before making a move.  Makes sense, really.