Football News Spring 2014

[Duvall]

Confirmed from Wake schedule release: Duke plays the Deacs Nov 29, Saturday after Thanksgiving, at Wallace Wade. I also read this morning on CBS that the ACC is trying to make Thanksgiving a permanent rivalry weekend, with Duke-Wake and UNC-State, among others. Expect Duke-Wake again in 2015 that weekend. I recall Cut saying he likes the UNC game not over Thanksgiving, so this bodes well for that at least.

Except that I don't know how you can reconcile that with the proposals to do away with the crossover rivalries.

[Dev11]

Except that I don't know how you can reconcile that with the proposals to do away with the crossover rivalries.

I thought the proposal was to get rid of divisions, but keep some permanent partners? I imagine they would make it two permanent partners, sticking with the ones they chose for basketball. I haven't seen any specific details about how new scheduling would work without divisions.

[devildeac]

Any "rivalry" game that weekend is a bad idea since the students will never be at either school. There is no good answer for it though, no matter who we play (or any school plays), the students won't be there and many ticket holders will be out of town eating at Grandma's house. Hopefully Grandma lives nearby.

Maybe the True Blue Cue Crew and the Omegas could offer to cook turkeys for all in attendance that day and we could bring the fixins.

[Duvall]

ACC votes to send title game legislation to NCAA.

ACC officials have voted to send the NCAA's Board of Directors “a piece of legislation that would grant the conferences the flexibility to determine who played in their football championship game,” ACC commissioner John Swofford told ESPN.com on Tuesday.

...

Swofford said he’s not aware of any other conference that has taken this step yet. Under the current structure, the NCAA requires that each conference have an equal number of teams in each division, and every team must play each opponent in its own division. Should the NCAA lighten its restrictions, conferences would have the option to change the format.

[Acymetric]

ACC votes to send title game legislation to NCAA.

Ugh...don't really like this whole thing being set in motion.

[CameronBornAndBred]

ACC votes to send title game legislation to NCAA.

Did they call it "The Duke Rule"?

[wilko]

Did they call it "The Duke Rule"?

I think its the "Clemson wants to get Punkd 2x by FSU" ammendment.

[94duke]

My guess is that the ACC wants to get rid of divisions. I thought I read that somewhere, but I can't seem to find it right now.

[OldPhiKap]

My guess is that the ACC wants to get rid of divisions. I thought I read that somewhere, but I can't seem to find it right now.

Notre Dame's arrangement kinda makes this necessary from the ACC's POV I assume.

[Dev11]

ACC votes to send title game legislation to NCAA.

The funny thing is, this isn't Duke's fault. It's on Miami for not being the football powerhouse they were supposed to be. The conference would be perfectly happy if Virginia Tech and Miami traded blows every year in the Coastal with occasional appearances by UNC and I guess Georgia Tech, but in over a decade over divisional play, it's been Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech trading blows with a guest appearance this year by Duke.

No choice but to keep getting better. We were probably the third best team in the conference this year, and looking ahead, maybe fourth behind Louisville. Perhaps some of the kids faxing in letters to the Yoh Building today will improve upon on that.

[Faustus]

It's my understanding that this whole division thing in college conference sports was a response to a loophole in NCAA rules the SEC and Big12 noticed that allowed an extra championship game between division winners (and the huge tv revenue windfall that would follow). But you had to have divisions in your conference for this to be allowed. Hence, suddenly, they divided their teams into divisions and CBS paid them lavishly, and other conferences greedily followed suit.

That's all well and good, I suppose, as conferences became so inflated in size that each team no longer played all the others annually anyway. Now I understand Clemson's frustration from sitting at home watching Duke getting worked by FSU in the championship game last year, especially since Duke didn't have to beat Clemson to get there. I'd be very ticked off myself if in basketball the ACC also had divisions and Duke didn't get to go to the championship game to play, say, Syracuse, because in this one year UVa finished ahead of us in the standings.

But two points stick out to me for the football situation. First, Clemson had their chance to win their division by beating FSU in the regular season meeting, and they got worked by FSU then. Duke did win their division, even if it was a 'down' year for that division. Sorry, but that's the way it happened this season, and the winner of that division should not be punished just because they won it. Duke didn't beat FSU or Clemson, but they weren't in their division; weren't on their schedule. VT and Miami and UNC were. Duke beat them. No rational reason why Duke should not have advanced to the title game (unlike *some* teams who were on probation the year before, but still dumbfoundingly passed out divisional championship rings anyway while they sat at home pouting and racking up unpaid parking tickets in rental cars given to them).

Which brings us to the second point: if the ACC isn't going to have divisional championship winners play in the final game, WHY are there divisions at all? It defeats the whole point of their existence, which also throws into question the entire scheduling of conference games - like why Duke and State now only meet once every generation or so. If the ACC continues divisional arrangements that matter, then how can they possibly justify not having divisional winners play in the championship game? If not, then they really must stop the current scheduling method and use a more equitable system that allows all conference teams to play each other equally. Clemson fans argue that the two best teams in the conference should play in the title game, and this past year that would have been FSU and Clemson. Well, without a true round-robin schedule, maybe this year Clemson wouldn't have been the second best team. We'll never know that. But we do know there is no rational explanation for the ACC to retain the divisional system and its inherent scheduling, yet not have the divisional winners be rewarded with the championship game. That makes no sense otherwise. Or that's the way I see it, anyway.

[Kfanarmy]

But we do know there is no rational explanation for the ACC to retain the divisional system and its inherent scheduling, yet not have the divisional winners be rewarded with the championship game. That makes no sense otherwise. Or that's the way I see it, anyway.

I'm not so sure this has anything to do with rational (or equitable) rules that lead to a championship game. I'm guessing it has much more to do with $$ associated with putting on the best show in the championship game...This rule probably doesn't get offered if Duke had as large a following in football as it has in basketball.

[DU82]

Note that the current rules say that divisions have to have the same number of teams. Some of the changes may be in case we have an odd number of teams. Perhaps there's a team out there that only plays a partial ACC schedule that will want to join full time. Changing the rules regarding the championship game may allow that team to join without needing to bring in a 16th team that nobody wants.

[wsb3]

Another day of school. A special day with grandpa you'll remember for ages.

Easy choice.

-jk

I agree. The day after Duke beat Butler I had two kids skipping school to be at Cameron for the celebration. In 2001 my son went with me. He also skipped school.

[Duvall]

Officially official.

Duke head coach David Cutcliffe announced on Monday that Scottie Montgomery will change his title to The Baxter Family Associate Head Coach/Offensive Coordinator while switching from coaching the wide receivers to quarterbacks. Montgomery also will become the primary gameday play-caller for Duke’s offensive unit in 2014.

[CameronBornAndBred]

Some think that championship game changes are a very real possibility.

Wake Forest University President Nathan Hatch, who is also the chairman of the NCAA's Division I board of directors, told ESPN.com on Wednesday that he thinks the ACC has a good shot at being granted the full autonomy over its championship game that it has formally requested --

http://espn.go.com/blog/acc/post/_/i...-words-for-acc

[uh_no]

Some think that championship game changes are a very real possibility.

http://espn.go.com/blog/acc/post/_/i...-words-for-acc

I'm hoping it means we can abolish divisions and play NCSU more than once every billion years.

further, it gives us a higher target to shoot for. If we're honest, we were fortunate this year that the two best teams in the conference were in the other division.

change is change, and duke will continue to improve, whatever the ACC sets as the league format.

[CameronBornAndBred]

More info on possible divisional changes.
http://espn.go.com/blog/acc/post/_/i...-acc-divisions

The more I think about this, the more I like it, even as a Duke fan. Who plays the championship game in basketball? Generally, two of the top 4 teams usually face off against each other. Since football obviously can't have a conference tourney, I am more than fine with the two teams going with the best records. Some years, this will get messy with there being more than two teams with equal records, and countless scenarios fulfilling who actually goes, but I think it will usually be the two that most deserve to be there.
Right now, Duke would not be in that mix, but we are obviously making strides, and it would be another goal that we would aim to attain. We've been pretty good about reaching our goals lately.

[Duke of Nashville]

Mail Bag Pins UNC and Duke as early favorites to win the division.

http://espn.go.com/blog/acc/post/_/i...espnapi_public

Go Duke