View Poll Results: The ACC championship game is:

Voters
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  • A failure.

    9 30.00%
  • A fiasco.

    17 56.67%
  • A success that hasn't occurred yet.

    4 13.33%
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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Feb 2007

    The ACC Championship Game: Failure or Fiasco?

    So I'm watching this year's ACC White Elephant/football championship game, once again featuring attendance resembling nothing so much as Wallace Wade during the Roofranks Administration, and I'm left wondering why exactly it was so important for the league to cast aside the round robins in football and basketball to stage this important event.

    So I put it to the DBR community - is the ACC championship game a mere failure, a full-blown fiasco or merely a success that hasn't occurred yet?

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Norfolk, VA

    Fiasco with a capital F

    It is a full scale fiasco. I was not in favor of expansion, do not like the results of expansion, and have no intention of "getting over it" and moving on. Expansion was and remains a bad idea - not that I'm opinionated or anything.
    Bob Green

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Bob Green View Post
    It is a full scale fiasco. I was not in favor of expansion, do not like the results of expansion, and have no intention of "getting over it" and moving on. Expansion was and remains a bad idea - not that I'm opinionated or anything.
    Hey, Bob, don't hold back. Tell us what you really think!

    I agree. Expansion has been a joke in all sports.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Raleigh, NC
    Quote Originally Posted by Indoor66 View Post
    Hey, Bob, don't hold back. Tell us what you really think!

    I agree. Expansion has been a joke in all sports.
    Not only has it not noticeably improved level of play in sports, it also destroyed one of the best scheduling systems in the country. No, the best. The only team I've even been remotely pleased with is BC football, which I've taken a liking to. Still don't like their bball team, nor do I like anything from Miami or VT.

  5. #5

    In the words of Bobby Bowden...

    "I'm bumfuzzled"... Personally, I vacillate between the failure and success waiting to happen choices. I simply cannot believe that FSU and Miami will continue to be mired in mediocrity as they have been since the merge...

    Yet, in large part, they still are... If they fail to re-emerge, VaTech continues to slide into reverse, and BC/UNC/GaTech/UVa/etc. simply maintain position as potential teens-at-best, 20-25 or just outside the rankings teams, then I'd say you could dub the merge as an outright fiasco, due to the overall negative impact on hoops... That's the frightening prospect, I suppose--that the ACC continues to field 2/3-loss, good but not great football teams in its championship game, leading the truly strong FB conferences to eventually ask the unthinkable question: "Do the ACC and Big East champions really deserve an automatic place at the BCS table?" That would be a disaster... Ultimately, if you really fail to cash in on the FB dollars, then the exercise was largely pointless, wasn't it?

    Like I said, though, I find it hard to believe that the conference will continue to be mired in mediocrity... Someone's got to [re]emerge as a powerhouse eventually, right?

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Raleigh, NC
    A fiasco. The game itself is a failure, all the consequences of getting the game are a complete fiasco. Not worth it at all. In fact, I can't see that we've gained anything. Is it too late to change our minds? By which I mean change the ACC's mind?

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Skinker-DeBaliviere, Saint Louis
    First of all, if the ACCCG is so insignificant, why was it necessary to start a third thread about it?

    I'm somewhat divided on whether I'm optimistic about the ACCCG in the future or not.

    I think a big reason for its struggles is simply the lack of elite teams in the leauge over these five seasons. If FSU were still FSU, if Miami were still Miami, if Clemson and Carolina weren't such football underachievers, if Virginia Tech managed to avoid those 1.5 embarrassing upsets per year, then we'd have some top 10ish teams every year. And if we had some top ten teams, the game would sell out and the game would be a lot bigger deal nationally. If Alabama and Florida were both 8-4, the SECCG wouldn't be the lead story of the sports week. Miami is supposed to stop sucking pretty soon. That would benefit the ACCCG a lot. Presumably, the league won't lack elite teams forever, so that's some cause for optimism about the game.

    OTOH, the ACC has at least four factors, besides a lack of elite teams, working against a successful championship game, all relating to the fact that the league is full of schools that don't travel worth crap.

    --School size. Four is a lot of private schools for one conference. Two have made three appearances in the game in five years, and Miami presumably will at some point. And some of the state schools aren't very big either, at least compared to Texas, Minnesota, Florida &c. USC and Notre Dame travel, but most private schools don't.

    --A partial (Carolina) or nearly complete lack (Duke) of understanding of football culture at some of the schools. Everybody in SEC country this week is watching that Bama-Florida game--the other ten schools as well.

    --The conference is too damn spread out. I'm not going to look up how far it is from Boston to Tampa, but my guess is around 1300 miles. And even from the center of the conference, it's a haul to central or south Florida.

    --The Florida locations are ill-thought out. The thinking here was that Miami-FSU would be the perennial matchup. Betting on two teams isn't a good strategy. This probably seemed a good idea with a decade of FSU dominance in recent memory during expansion. But FSU is one of the few decent traveling schools in the league. When they're in the game, they'd go even if you put the game somewhere other than Florida. So put the game nearer the schools that don't travel as well. That sounds backwards, but it makes sense.

    The game needs to be in Charlotte, which is pretty close to eight of the schools in an Atlanta-to-Charlottesville swath. Virginia Tech has been in all but one of the five ACCCSs so far (3-1), and while that won't always last, it's a lot easier to afford a shorter trip. I don't know the ACC brass have noticed or not, but Florida's a long narrow peninsula and it's not close to anything but Cuba and south Georgia. The SEC doesn't put their championship in Louisville or Shreveport, way on the periphery of the territory. Atlanta's somewhat remote from Arkansas and Louisiana, but reasonably close to everybody else.

    Some of these things can be fixed more easily than others. Start with putting the game in Charlotte. (And don't give me the weak excuse about weather. Football is played outdoors in Green Bay and Buffalo in January. We're talking about the South in December).

    A movie is not about what it's about; it's about how it's about it.
    ---Roger Ebert


    Some questions cannot be answered
    Who’s gonna bury who
    We need a love like Johnny, Johnny and June
    ---Over the Rhine

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Washington, DC area
    Quote Originally Posted by Acymetric View Post
    A fiasco. The game itself is a failure, all the consequences of getting the game are a complete fiasco. Not worth it at all. In fact, I can't see that we've gained anything. Is it too late to change our minds? By which I mean change the ACC's mind?
    I think we need to add four more teams, then have the original 7 or 8 (if we keep Tech - the real Tech) withdraw to form a new conference.

    They do say history repeats.

    Otherwise, we're stuck with it, and we can just keep grousing the way Julio does about USC leaving decades ago.

    -jk

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Raleigh, NC
    Quote Originally Posted by throatybeard View Post
    Some of these things can be fixed more easily than others. Start with putting the game in Charlotte. (And don't give me the weak excuse about weather. Football is played outdoors in Green Bay and Buffalo in January. We're talking about the South in December).
    The problem is I don't even know if I have faith in the ACC to fix the easy stuff like where to have the game. And even if they do, are some teams going to actually step up? Maybe. The fun answer is "Duke could always do it!" but of course, in reality, I'm pretty sure that isn't the answer. I'm sure things will get better, but so far expansion is a net loss.

    We'll see what next year holds, but we have to be getting dangerously close to losing BCS status. How often can that be reevaluated anyway? I see another BCS loss this year, and my prediction: ugly.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Skinker-DeBaliviere, Saint Louis
    -jk likes the Mountain West solution, it seems.

    Expansion detractors seem to have missed the fact that we'd been even more irrelevant without the three new teams. Heck, most expansion detractors didn't want FSU in the league either. The 1991 ACC wouldn't even be close to sniffing the BCS. We'd be headed either in the direction of the SWC, or in the direction of something worse than the Big East.

    It's kind of silly to complain about VT when they've won the league three out of the five years they've been around. And a 4th year they lost closely to Florida State.

    A movie is not about what it's about; it's about how it's about it.
    ---Roger Ebert


    Some questions cannot be answered
    Who’s gonna bury who
    We need a love like Johnny, Johnny and June
    ---Over the Rhine

  11. #11
    Why are we limiting the topic to the football championship game? The entire league is a failure and a fiasco.

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Quote Originally Posted by hurleyfor3 View Post
    Why are we limiting the topic to the football championship game? The entire league is a failure and a fiasco.
    Because I'm actually optimistic about the near-term future of ACC football. Swapping Johnson, Davis, Jagodzinski and Cutcliffe for Gailey, Bunting, Amato and Roof is a major improvement that is already showing results and should show more in the future. It's the title game that's looks to be an embarrassment for the foreseeable future.

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    Southern California
    First, its all about the teams, you dont see a highly hyped sec title game between Vandy and Miss St. Miami seems to be reloading talent and it looks like they will soon start another 5 year rally of championship appearances. That leaves one more team. Va tech clemson and unc all seem to have chances to be great then blow them with silly losses. FSU just seems to be getting worse. My hope is for georgia tech to be an exciting option offense team that draws peopls eye because of the rarity of that type of offense. All in all, Miami will get better in the future but in order for us to be a power we need 1 more... Duke maybe?

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    imagine if Virginia tech, Boston College and Miami didn't join the ACC?

    Now that woould have been a joke of a football league.

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Norfolk, VA
    Quote Originally Posted by footballfan2 View Post
    imagine if Virginia tech, Boston College and Miami didn't join the ACC?
    I find it extremely easy to imagine. The ACC would be a lot better off without Virginia Tech, Boston College, and Miami.
    Bob Green

  16. #16
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Quote Originally Posted by Bob Green View Post
    I find it extremely easy to imagine. The ACC would be a lot better off without Virginia Tech, Boston College, and Miami.

    Not in football they wouldn't. The ACC wouldn't even be a BCS caliber league without these three teams. Might as well drop the ACC and add the WAC as a BCS league.

  17. #17
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Tampa
    Quote Originally Posted by Bob Green View Post
    I find it extremely easy to imagine. The ACC would be a lot better off without Virginia Tech, Boston College, and Miami.

    And F$U!
    ___________________
    Mike Stein
    Trinity '97, Tent #1 '97
    Tampa

  18. #18
    Without expansion, ACC football would be in the sewer by now (and if you try to make the argument that they are, Jeff Sagarin and 10 bowl committees will disagree with you).

    If the ACC had made the commitment to being small-time in football (i.e.- choose not to expand), and had remained a nine-team league for the past five seasons with FSU's star dwindling, would the following have happened:
    -Paul Johnson to Georgia Tech?
    -Butch Davis to UNC?
    -Tom O'Brien to NCSU?
    and, of course,
    -David Cutcliffe to Duke?

    The answers are No, No, Maybe, and No. The ACC would have become a stepping stone conference for coaches and a fall back option for recruits.

    Now, those who don't think football should be respected as a legitimate sport will consider this kind of post speculative, and it's a darn good thing those people aren't running the ACC.

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by fan345678 View Post
    Without expansion, ACC football would be in the sewer by now (and if you try to make the argument that they are, Jeff Sagarin and 10 bowl committees will disagree with you).

    If the ACC had made the commitment to being small-time in football (i.e.- choose not to expand), and had remained a nine-team league for the past five seasons with FSU's star dwindling, would the following have happened:
    -Paul Johnson to Georgia Tech?
    -Butch Davis to UNC?
    -Tom O'Brien to NCSU?
    and, of course,
    -David Cutcliffe to Duke?

    The answers are No, No, Maybe, and No. The ACC would have become a stepping stone conference for coaches and a fall back option for recruits.

    Now, those who don't think football should be respected as a legitimate sport will consider this kind of post speculative, and it's a darn good thing those people aren't running the ACC.
    of course...those people who ARE running the ACC have made the brilliant decisions to put the championship game in Florida, so maybe we're screwed after all

  20. #20
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Quote Originally Posted by fan345678 View Post

    Now, those who don't think football should be respected as a legitimate sport will consider this kind of post speculative, and it's a darn good thing those people aren't running the ACC.
    i agree with you, but how can anyone not consider football a legitimate sport? the revenue is far larger than basketball... as well as viewership and fan sport. football in this country far outstrips basketball in popularity.

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