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October 3, 2012

ACC Schedule Notes

Filed under: ACC,Conference,Conference,Non-con,Schedule — Chas @ 1:03 pm

The ACC is having some meetings up in Boston. Interesting tidbits:

Cue outrage from Clemson and FSU fans over this decision, because, well at this point it seems that whatever the ACC does they feel they are being screwed by it. They complained about the ACC schedule and the non-con scheduling headaches. Then when they went to 9, it was about how they were losing money from not having the extra home game. So, I’m sure they will still find reason to complain.

Really this is great for members that have BCS-opponent rivalry games outside the conference. Clemson, GT, FSU all have to be thrilled. As should Pitt.

For Pitt, it does open the door to either having both WVU and PSU on the non-con. Or more likely setting up some sort of rotation with both. With ND popping on every 3 years or so. It definitely makes the Pitt-Penn State game more likely for an annual game. Penn State will need to schedule better now that the Big 10 has stuck with 8 games and dropped the annual game with the Pac-10.

I saw some suggestions that the Big 10 and ACC should consider a football crossover annually. Just like they do in basketball. Not a bad idea, but I just don’t see that happening any time soon.

For schools with in-conference rivalry games, it is a bit more of a headache. It means finding an additional game. The costs of that, and with the unknown of how much strength of schedule will matter in the future BCS playoff rankings may force scheduling home-and home games against good opponents for the non-con.

The other downside. It means only playing some teams in the conference once every six years, and once every twelve at home. You can forget really any chance of developing a good hate with Maryland if we see them less often than we will see Notre Dame. Syracuse is protected from the other division. That means Maryland, FSU and BC will be rare occurrences.

Regarding the Notre Dame situation. Unlike in the Big East, ND can’t try and force teams to play in a pro stadium or neutral site. Nor can they pick and choose the teams. It is rotating straight home-and-home. Here’s the ACC Commissioner on the matter.

Q: How will you allocate the five Notre Dame football games to your conference members?

A: It’s up to the ACC to do that. Notre Dame will accept whatever five games the ACC gives them on any given year. Conceptually what we intend to do is rotate through the entire membership — 14 schools for those five games. We do have some teams that currently have contracts with Notre Dame and we need to take a look at that. We would like to accomplish this without disrupting those particular games that are currently under contract. But once we reach a clean point the idea is to rotate the games through the membership. So that every school knows they will get Notre Dame once every three years either in their home stadium or at Notre Dame.

That does sound like present contracts with ND-Pitt and other ACC schools get to be honored. So that’s nice.

As for the basketball side of thing. The addition of a 15th team changes the structure of the schedule a little. Rather than one “protected” home-and-home, there will be two. Pitt already had Maryland for twice a year. Syracuse now becomes the second one.

The ACC will continue to play an 18-game conference schedule with the addition of Notre Dame. The scheduling model will be based on a two-partner format.

Each year, teams will play every league opponent at least once with the two partners playing home and away annually. In addition to the four annual games against partners, the remaining 14 conference games will feature home and away games with two rotating opponents and five home-only games and five road-only games.

The two-primary-partner format preserves competitive balance and builds upon traditional rivalries while providing the opportunity to create new ones.

Boston College – Notre Dame and Syracuse
Clemson – Florida State and Georgia Tech
Duke – North Carolina and Wake Forest
Florida State – Clemson and Miami
Georgia Tech – Clemson and Notre Dame
Maryland – Pitt and Virginia
Miami – Florida State and Virginia Tech
North Carolina – Duke and NC State
NC State – North Carolina and Wake Forest
Notre Dame – Boston College and Georgia Tech
Pitt – Maryland and Syracuse
Syracuse – Boston College and Pitt
Virginia – Maryland and Virginia Tech
Virginia Tech – Miami and Virginia
Wake Forest – Duke and NC State

Following the regular season, the ACC Tournament format will continue to feature all league members. The Tournament will begin with three games on Wednesday, followed by four games on Thursday and Friday, two semifinals on Saturday and the championship game on Sunday. The top four seeds will continue to receive byes into Friday’s quarterfinal round.

In the annual ACC/B1G Challenge, the decision was made to include the 12 teams with the best RPI from the previous year.

Mildly surprised Pitt wasn’t handed ND in basketball because of geography. But I really do love having Cuse twice a year.





The cange to 8 conference games is good news. I would like to see the Pitt-Penn State series renewed. Ufortunately, I doubt that there is any real possibility of playing both Penn State and West Virginia every year. The reality, at best, would probably be playing them on an alternating basis. I also hate to see us only playing Notre Dame once every three years, because of the long time tradition the schools have of playing each other. Apparently tradition doesn’t mean much anymore. At least not nearly as much, as the maximum number of dollars.

Comment by Justinian 10.03.12 @ 1:52 pm

Cuse twice a year a very good thing, yes.

Comment by steve1 10.03.12 @ 1:54 pm

With an 8 game conference football schedule, I would prefer that the ACC drop the protected game with a member of the other division. I would much rather see FSU, Clemson, Maryland every 3 years than every six, and don’t care about playing Syracuse every year in football. Great to see them 2x a year in hoops though.

Comment by Iron Duke 10.03.12 @ 2:19 pm

They ACC can’t drop the guaranteed crossover game, it’s the only way FSU/Miami and NC State/UNC play each other. I doubt they would ever get rid of those games on an annual basis.

Comment by Twink 10.03.12 @ 3:04 pm

The Big 10 had a scheduling arrangement with the Pac12, then just as quickly canceled it because it was going to be too difficult. Can’t imagine them agreeing to one with the ACC

Comment by Jamie H 10.03.12 @ 3:31 pm

Good point Twink. SEC has gone to the 6-1-1 format as well. It’s just that seeing the other division teams once every 6 yrs (12 at home), they may as well be in a different conference. Such is the challenge of the mega conference.

Comment by Iron Duke 10.03.12 @ 3:49 pm

This is great news. No reason not to get the backyard brawl back on the schedule again.

Comment by Kenny Powers 10.03.12 @ 4:05 pm

agree that Cuse twice a year is good especially when considering how we have played vs ND the past few years

Comment by wbb 10.03.12 @ 4:08 pm

Hope the Penn State, WVU thing works out, if it doesn’t, it opens the door to more Gardner-Webb and Buffalo’s!!

Would much rather play another ACC team than any of those teams.

Do like Maryland twice and Syracuse twice now.

Wish the football crossover would have been MD.

As much as I’m all for never playing WVU again and leaving them on an island, if it comes down to WVU or Savannah State, I’ll take WVU.

Comment by Dan 10.03.12 @ 4:10 pm

Some sort of combo of PSU/WVU/ND rotating around- sounds like a good outcome.
Every year we get a big rivalry game- be it home or away.

Comment by ClarkLotTgate 10.03.12 @ 4:32 pm

Not really interested in having anything to do w/ PSU…WVU I could take it or leave it (hate is the only thing going for game, otherwise I have no respect for anything that comes out of that house of horrors). What I would rather see is a Pitt, Ohio State game (not realistic), only because we could compete head to head with our biggest rival for local recruits. It’s a shame 1. we won’t play ND every year and 2. the ACC didn’t learn from the Big East’s mistakes and took ND in under THERE terms. Sigh.

Comment by Get the Glory 10.03.12 @ 4:38 pm

I like it … No excuse to not get one or both on the schedule now…out of conference sched with two true rivalries would definitely help in recruiting as well. kids like playing in those games. And as I’ve said before, since conf champs is the true goal these OOC games can be played more freely and less close to the vest since they matter less in the grand scheme of things. Get it done Pederson.

Comment by Tossing Thabeets 10.03.12 @ 4:56 pm

I’m not sure how it is that we will only play some ACC teams once every 6 years. With an 8 game conference schedule PItt will play 6 Coastal division games every year (Vtech, GTech, Miami, UNC, Virginia and Duke every year). That leaves 8 other teams, including Notre Dame, for two more slots a year. 8 teams / 2 a year= 4 year rotation.

Comment by Tim 10.03.12 @ 5:39 pm

Personally I’d like to see a respectable SEC team on our regular schedule. Looking at future schedules on fbschedules.com I see Missouri, Kentucky and Miss St have open dates over the next few years. That’ll help withe new playoff format and get some recognition. Wisky sounds good too.

Comment by J Bizz 10.03.12 @ 5:44 pm

Leave WVU off the schedule forever ! It is dangerous for Pitt fans to travel to Morgantown when the game is down there. I go all over the country to watch Pitt play football but after the damage to my vehicle and personal threats made to me and my family the last 2 times in Morgantown for the Pitt game I won’t return. And I live less than an hour from Morgantown and can’t (won’t) make the trip ever again. No need for WVU on the Pitt football schedule !

Comment by spindler's spirit 10.03.12 @ 6:23 pm

i agree with almost everyone here.

though i like playing more conference games in conference, it creates an unbalanced schedule from year to year. 4 home, 5 away. next year 5 home, 4 away. tough for home and away ooc.

and i would prefer the ooc games played against similar types of teams. i’d rather lose to tennessee than ysu.

also agree with the cuse as our other bb crossover.

and welcome iron duke.

keep calm

hail to pitt

Comment by pittkeith 10.03.12 @ 6:46 pm

don’t know if wisky’s a possibility without a post season possibly.

jaime and ben won’t schedule a regular season game.

Comment by pittkeith 10.03.12 @ 6:49 pm

ps

keep calm

hail to pitt

Comment by pittkeith 10.03.12 @ 6:50 pm

Penn State’s in real dodo and will be for years to come. I would stay away from this no-win situation.

Comment by steve1 10.03.12 @ 8:21 pm

I agree with spindlers spirit. WVU should not be on our schedule even though I live in WV. My son is a freshman at WVU and last week at the Baylor game my wife said that he walked up to some tailgating Baylor fans and politely welcomed them to Morgantown and wished them luck in the game. My other son is a senior in high school and wants desparately to go to Pitt but unfortunately we can’t afford the tuition. Hopefully times will be a changing in Morganhole.

Comment by Panther Fan in Hoopieland 10.03.12 @ 8:40 pm

Penn State is on probation but they have a nationally televised game every weekl-end. Go figure.

I have been to games at Fla. St. and Clemson and if we only play them once every 6 years that will be a trip every 12. It is a treat to go to games at those locations and will be missing that.I would much prefer once every 3 years.

Comment by JP 10.03.12 @ 8:44 pm

dont want to play WVU glad there a thing of the past. if we play them it helps them to recruit
pa the hell with them.

Comment by FRANKCAN 10.03.12 @ 9:58 pm

So FSU is in the same conference and we will see them in PGH one time every 12 years? That is ridiculous. The mega conference demands more league games not less. I say go to 10 games with a 6-1-3 rotation. It’s time for college FB to stop ripping off it’s fans with Pitt/YSU games because “we need guaranteed home games”. A 10 game conference slate leaves room for one MAC type school and one quality noncon opponent.

Comment by HbgFrank 10.03.12 @ 10:50 pm

Right on HbgFrank and JP. That’s what I’m concerned about. I’m ok with playing Duke ever year if I can see FSU, Clemson, Maryland every 3 years, but it is much less attractive to play those teams every six. That means I may see FSU in Pittsburgh 2-3 times in the years that I have left on this earth. Bleh. It feels like we are back in an 8 team football conference with the other 6 teams in the Coastal plus Syracuse. Better than the current Big East, but not by much.

Comment by Iron Duke 10.03.12 @ 11:29 pm

@HbgFrank, absolutely. That’s why I liked the 9 game conference schedule, and my point above.

You have that, you’re locked in to playing at least 9 BCS teams, obviously. Hopefully you get WVU and PSU, or if only one of them, then another BCS team from another conference, and a cupcake.

Now, eight games, you have four spots. Even if PSU and WVU would work out, you have two other spots that will be cupcakes.

What if PSU or WVU doesn’t work out, maybe just one, then you have three open games, who do you think we’ll get???

I don’t like it, don’t like it at all.

And the Notre Dame chipping begins. We can start to keep track.

The first scent of a non-football Notre Dame has appeared. Catching a small scent of the BE.

Hope it doesn’t become a full blown stench.

Comment by Dan 10.03.12 @ 11:30 pm

p.s. I know ND “could” help stop FSU, Clemson et al. from bolting in the future.

That is all conjecture at best.

Actually, the merry go round had seemed to be coming to a stop, and with the extra money each acc school got, it’s my personal opinion, that neither of those schools, or any other were going anywhere.

My personal opinion, was that ND was never going anywhere but the ACC ever. They were never going to the Big 12, and the Big 10 would have made them just another mid western school.

We’ve had these arguments ad nauseum I know, but, so it starts.

Comment by Dan 10.03.12 @ 11:34 pm

Hey, if ol’ Smug Smile Steve can get a schedule like…………

PSU
WVU
1BCS Team
1 cupcake
8 ACC games, hat’s off to him, I will love it too.

If it ends up

PSU OR WVU
1 BCS and 2 cupcakes or 3 cupcakes
8 ACC games

it’s a loser.

Only time will tell, hopefully Jamie isn’t scheduling the OOC football games!!!

I love Jamie, a spade’s a spade.

Comment by Dan 10.03.12 @ 11:39 pm

Panther Fan in Hoopieland, what were the Pitt/WVU games like in your household. I can’t begin to imagine.

Comment by Vulcan Rob 10.04.12 @ 12:57 am

Well Dan most likely the schedule will be

PSU or WVU
1 BCS game
1 MAC or CUSA
1 FCS
8 ACC games

That way Pitt can make sure that they have 7 home games each year. If they go with an annual rivalry of both WVU and PSU they wouldn’t be able to do that.

Comment by Twink 10.04.12 @ 9:35 am

Will Notre Dame count as 1 of the 8 ACC games?

Comment by rayhpgh 10.04.12 @ 9:42 am

No more Hoopies. Ever! Please let us be done with them, those classless buffoons.

Comment by longsufferingpittfan 10.04.12 @ 10:22 am

ND joining the ACC provided stability by upping the exit fee. However, the move actually hurts Pitt. Not only does Pitt see FSU and Clemson less often but Pitt also is going to play ND less often about once every 3 years instead of almost anually.

ND years will be:
8 ACC games
1 ND game
1 FCS game
1 Mid Major game
1 Major conference team

Non-ND years
8 ACC
1 FCS
1 Low level along the lines of at FIU (how exactly is that a scheduled game by the way?)
1 Mid Major
1 Major Conference team

Comment by Wardapalooza 10.04.12 @ 10:34 am

[…] follow-up on the new/old ACC scheduling plan for football. Pitt now finds itself a game short for 2013. And having, once more, to start scrambling to find […]


@Twink, point taken, I realize schools do need the home games.

I was hoping with the 9 conf game schedule, it might make it easier, to not have to schedule cup cakes, on the “5” year, you allready have 5 home games. On a “4” home year, maybe you could line it up to have your other BCS games be home that year.

A lot of work of course, but, this is the business they’ve chosen!!! LOL

Comment by Dan 10.04.12 @ 12:37 pm

As a fan of the game itself, I far prefer the NFL. The playing field is far mor level. However, as a fan of the sport of FB, I far prefer college football. There is something personal about it when you are rooting for your University. The problem is, college football takes its fans completly for granted. Lame excuses like “we have to have 7 home games every year to cover our costs” are just BS. That works for Alabama when you know 90k are going to show up no matter who you play. In Pittsburgh, all that seventh home game does is guarantee an ESPN3 “yellow-out” at Heinz Field. I guarantee you if you drop Gardner Webb and replace them with a quality opponent on a home and away basis, you will sell more tickets in the long run. Not just for the every other year seventh game, but for season tickets also. College FB is a business, and the Universities must begin to consider the product they are putting on the field. Most teams get 12 chances per year to put a product on the field…12. And yet most schools continue to intentionally put what they full well know are 1 or 2 lousy products out there every year. No other business could do that and survive. Let’s say your business is tomatoes. You sell them in a 12 pack. Every pack has one rotten tomato and one that is well on the way there. A customer calls to complain, and you tell them “Well you see, we just can’t afford a high scrap rate, so we have to include a few clunkers in every pack”. How long will that company be in business. College FB has no competition offering a similar product, hence we have no place else to go for our “tomatoes”. All 12 games should be against Division One opponents and it should not be automatic that a team seeks to schedule the bottom of Divsion One. Here is a suggestion, if you want to keep playing FBS schools, then do so as a non-counted, pre-season exhibition that must be played prior to the start of the school year. Make the tickets cheap and the parking free. I’d bet you would have the same number of people in the seats as we did for Gardner Webb.

Comment by HbgFrank 10.04.12 @ 12:38 pm

p.s. I’m okay with a cupcake. Everyone does it, it is a “have to do.”

When you start scheduling 2 or 3………….

Comment by Dan 10.04.12 @ 12:44 pm

@HbgFrank, good points!

Comment by Dan 10.04.12 @ 1:36 pm

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