Thursday, October 04, 2012

The good news and bad news of future ACC scheduling

With Notre Dame set to join and most of the teams locked in due to the punitive exit fees, the ACC felt comfortable adjusting future basketball and football schedules. This is what it means to BC.

Basketball
BC loses permanent rivals Miami and Virginia Tech in exchange for Notre Dame and Syracuse. The conference schedule will remain at 18 games and the other opponents will be a rotating mix of home and aways and one offs per season. BC will play every team at least once per year. From a marketing standpoint, gaining Notre Dame and Syracuse is very good news for BC basketball. Both are better programs and have more cache with our fanbase. From a basketball standpoint, our schedule just got tougher. While Miami and Virginia Tech have had the better of us in the past few years, traditionally neither is a basketball power. I was confident that once Donahue got the program back, we would dominate both. That is less likely to happen with our two new partners.

Football
The ACC has decided not to pursue nine regular season conference games. The idea of nine games and five teams forced to play Notre Dame every year, crowded out many ACC schedules, especially if you have a permanent non-conference rival. I liked the idea of nine ACC games for BC. My hope was that it would add to the attractiveness of the schedule and help our Strength of Schedule rating. Now BC will have to find new opponents and potentially pay for lessor teams to come to us. I hope the new AD uses this new found schedule flexibility to find attractive partners for home and home series. The conference also announced that the divisions will not change and neither will the cross division rival. I was hoping a shift would allow us to ditch Virginia Tech or realign under old Big East and ACC divisions. Keeping the current alignments is less interesting but easier to execute.

7 comments:

Ry said...

Now that Miami's AD has officially flown the coop for Corncountry, does that make Golden more likely to be seeking greener pastures as well? I know the money might be an issue, but that would be a perfect storm for us in a lot of ways.

Walter said...

Is strength of schedule really an issue for us in football?

The only way we're making it to the national championship is by being undefeated (and it's still the rare case that an undefeated team gets shafted (and the ACC hasn't fallen that far)).

For the Orange Bowl, win the ACC remains the same.

For the lesser bowls, until our fanbase wakes up, we'll always get picked lower despite our record....

chicagofire1871 said...

I like playing VTech, but not as much as playing Miami. I always hoped that when/if ND ever joins the ACC in football that a new division format would have to be created specifically to ND's liking. Perhaps something like this:

ND Team 16
BC Clemson
Pitt VTech
Cuse WF
Miami FSU
GT UNC
Duke NCSU
Maryland Virginia

mod34b said...

It won't be Frazier as AD -- Good

As mentioned on EO, his tweet:"Sean T. Frazier
@SeanTFrazier Understanding how important it is to me to have a commitment to both academics & athletics, supports my decision to stay at Wisconsin!"

Big Jack Krack said...

I was hoping that we could replace our crossover with VT with Georgia Tech.

Boston - Atlanta - two teams in pro sports cities, etc. A trip to Atlanta has so much more than a trip to Blacksburg - no comparison.

Miami was my other choice.

Also, I agree with Chicagofire - if there was ever a realignment, BC in the same division as GT and Miami makes a lot of sense to me.

It will take several years at least post-Spaziani to get back on track - probably more.

While I was rooting for the guy when he got the job, deep down I knew that it wouldn't work. We have to go 6 and 2 or 7 and 1 for the rest of the season for me to be happy. What are the chances?

That 2 year extension from GDF is looking like (and always did) highway robbery of Boston College.

So for this year, I will enjoy watching our offense - Chase and Alex especially.

Go BC.

NEDofSavinHill said...

Always thoght the ideal non conference schedule was ND, Penn St. an FCS team and anyone else. But ND is onle once every three years. If you could get a BIG10 school every year that would be ideal. If not I would schedule U Mass.( 2 at BC and 1 at Gillette), U Conn home and away(if you can't get Army long term) BYU and Boise St. Even years you would have seven home games. Odd years would get you six but the away game would be Army or U Conn. easily accessible. Strength of schedule would not be a problem with FSU, VT, Clemson, Boise and BYU.

mod34b said...

"BC in the same division as GT and Miami makes a lot of sense to me."

BJK - Why?

What special connection is there btw BC and GT? GT seems like the most alien of all ACC school to BC.

Northern v Southern
Private v Public
Liberal art/biz v Engineers
Humble v Arrogant
Catholic v. Protestant
MAsshole v Redneck
BJK is only person with a relative that is alum of both!
(I do not know a single GT alum and possibly have never met one)