When Pittsburgh and Syracuse joined the ACC, I thought the obvious choice of realignment of the conference would be a North\South Division. As I learned on twitter not all ACC fans are in favor of this. The possibility is that conference might turn into football vs basketball schools if that were to happen, leaving the premier football schools on Southern End with the Northern End being the basketball division.
For the conference realignment, I’m in favor of starting with FSU, Clemson, Georgia Tech and Miami in a Southern Division, and Boston College, Pittsburgh, Maryland and Syracuse. This should satisfy the FSU and Clemson rabid football fans. That just created a very competitive southern football division. You know Miami won’t be down forever. They recovered quickly from their mid 90s NCAA sanctions.
How do you split the Virginia and North Carolina schools? I think you have to put Virginia schools in the north for completive football balance. Virginia Tech is going to be good at football for awhile, but give them a yearly game with one of the 4 Southern Schools. Put North Carolina, Duke, (to even up basketball) and Wake Forest in the South. NC State is odd man out headed north. With likely 9 conference games, though I don’t think it will matter much if you are the Hokies and Wolfpack and want to play in the South. You’ll still play Southern Division school every year…
My proposed Divisions
ACC South – Georgia Tech, Clemson, Florida State, Miami, North Carolina, Duke, Wake Forest
ACC North – Maryland, Boston College, Virginia Tech, Virginia, Pittsburgh, North Carolina State, Syracuse
Maybe it’s easiest to just add Pittsburgh and Syracuse into the current Atlantic and Coastal Divisions. How would you like the Divisions splits?
2 pings
Gregory Breitenbeck says:
October 1, 2011 at 1:06 pm (UTC -5)
I’d like to see the previous and current Big East schools in a Northern Division of the ACC, accordingly composed of Boston College, Miami, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, and Virginia Tech. A Southern Division would then include the “old” ACC (pre first Big East expansion) schools of Clemson, Duke, Florida State, Georgia Tech, North Carolina, NC State, and Wake Forest. The Northern most ACC schools–Maryland and Virginia–would necessarily have to join the Northern Division until Rutgers and UConn come on board and then Maryland and UVa can return to their southern roots.
Such an alignment would afford the re-establishment or maintenance of traditional rivalries and, at the same time, minimize travel requirements for all schools in the league. In the 14-team configuration each school would play its six fellow Division members and two schools from the other division affording four non conference games. In the final 16 team configuration, each school would play its division rivals and two schools from the other division and have just three non conference games. This common sense, geographical alignment for the most part solves the problem of long bus rides for non revenue teams with the exception of Miami’s status as a Northern Division team. However, the Canes opted for this situation back when they joined the Big East so that they could play in the region of the nation from which they recruited (their students, not their athletes).
Other benefits include annual games between FSU and Georgia Tech (one the most natural rivalries in the Southern Division), FSU and Virginia (for the Jefferson Epps trophy after the 16-team configuration is in place), between all the former Big East Schools, between all the original ACC schools (16-team configuration), and creates the prospect for very interesting cross divisional “permanent-rival” games such as FSU-Miami, and Virginia-Virginia Tech.
Jfann says:
October 1, 2011 at 1:20 pm (UTC -5)
Thanks for the comments. THe Split of the Fla schools seems to be gaining some traction. Miami even if their in the Southern side has to fly anywhere they go anyways. The idea of having the old rivalries together is an interesting one.