Should ACC Football be Restructured?

[4decadedukie]

Perhaps because our impending football campaign requires play against a disproportional number of top-25 rated teams and because the ACC's two divisions are currently so talent-skewed (our Coastal Division including Virginia Tech, Miami, Georgia Tech and UNC), I wonder if it would be wise for the Conference to consider revising its current Divisional approach? While keeping the two Divisions -- perhaps with some periodic changes -- the ACC could easily increase inter-divisional contests to enhance aggregate parity. This would likely mean that not every divisional opponent would be played annually, especially if traditional rivalries (e. g., Duke-UNC, UVA-Virginia Tech. Georgia-Georgia Tech, Clemson-USC, and so forth) were maintained (as they absolutely should be). My overall goal is to ensure (recognizing that this will not always be possible) that the two Divisional Champions are the best teams in the ACC, which is clearly unlikely in the forthcoming 2010 season.

[sagegrouse]

Perhaps because our impending football campaign requires play against a disproportional number of top-25 rated teams and because the ACC's two divisions are currently so talent-skewed (our Coastal Division including Virginia Tech, Miami, Georgia Tech and UNC), I wonder if it would be wise for the Conference to consider revising its current Divisional approach? While keeping the two Divisions -- perhaps with some periodic changes -- the ACC could easily increase inter-divisional contests to enhance aggregate parity. This would likely mean that not every divisional opponent would be played annually, especially if traditional rivalries (e. g., Duke-UNC, UVA-Virginia Tech. Georgia-Georgia Tech, Clemson-USC, and so forth) were maintained (as they absolutely should be). My overall goal is to ensure (recognizing that this will not always be possible) that the two Divisional Champions are the best teams in the ACC, which is clearly unlikely in the forthcoming 2010 season.

It is worth considering, especially after a few years of the original set-up. I believe there were several basic ideas in setting up the divisions:

A. Separate the two putative perennial powers -- FSU and Miami. Only thing is, they haven't turned out to be the best teams, year-in or year-out.

B. Separate the four NC teams. Fair enough.

C. Preserve within divisions the two most obvious rivalries: Duke-UNC and VT-UVa. Except potentially for Miami-FSU, which were separated for competitive reasons, these are clearly the two most important rivalries in the conference.

I suppose the alternative that could be looked at is to trade Miami for one of Clemson, BC, or UMd. clemson or Maryland would be my choice.

Only thing is, I suspect that division realignment would take a super-majority of teams to agree.

sagegrouse

[Bob Green]

B. Separate the four NC teams. Fair enough.

I realize I'm being unreasonably selfish; however, the number one result I would desire to see out of any realignment would be the four NC teams in the same division. My proposal:

1. Duke, UNC, NCSU, Wake Forest, Clemson, Maryland

2. BC, UVA, VT, GT, FSU, Miami

My proposal places the six remaining original members of the ACC in one division (long gone South Carolina was the seventh original member), while placing the teams who joined later in the other division.

[Duke09]

I realize I'm being unreasonably selfish; however, the number one result I would desire to see out of any realignment would be the four NC teams in the same division. My proposal:

1. Duke, UNC, NCSU, Wake Forest, Clemson, Maryland

2. BC, UVA, VT, GT, FSU, Miami

My proposal places the six remaining original members of the ACC in one division (long gone South Carolina was the seventh original member), while placing the teams who joined later in the other division.

I understand this is your personal preference, but it leaves us with the same problem, one side is stacked, this time it is the FSU, Miami side is stacked. GT, BC, VT, FSU have all played for the ACC Championship recently.

Wake and MD have been good, but the only perennials on the other side are Clemson and Carolina, and neither has never been dominate for a lengthy period of time.

If there are going to be 6 traditional good teams, (VT, UM, UNC, GT, VT, FSU, and Clemson) it'd be best to have 3 on each side. Its possible to split these and keep rivalries. Here is my stab at it

UM
VT (both from big east
UNC
Duke
State
Wake

FSU
Clemson
GT
BC
Virginia
Maryland

You keep the Carolina schools together and have a much more balanced conferencee. The UM side is a bit tougher, but overall it's pretty even. You have to defeat 2 other powers and the 3 up and down teams to make the championships

Top 6 schools are split, wake and BC are similar, and then you split Duke more or less equal to UVA (though we might be close to being good) and State = Maryland