With the reconfiguration of Big East football, I foresee that the three traditional "big time" programs left in the reconstituted conference (Pittsburgh, Syracuse and West Virginia) are going to have all sorts of trouble recruiting to the level which they have been accustomed to...especially if the Big East loses its automatic BCS bid. (And based on power ratings, it would be next to impossible to justify the Big East keeping it, especially if Texas Christian winds up in the Mountain West -- unless a fifth BCS bowl was added to the mix.) As a result, come 2010 I think SU, Pitt and WVU are going to be seeking greener pastures.

We also know there's talk about Notre Dame joining an all-sports conference, including football, because of the changes in the way college football is organized. While most figure the Irish will end up in the Big Ten, I maintain the ACC remains a real player for ND for this reason: the university has many students and alumni in the east, arguably more than in the midwest, and joining the Big Ten would effectively lock in Notre Dame geographically. The ACC has more of an eastern presence, and adding Notre Dame, Pittsburgh, Syracuse and West Virginia would automatically make the ACC the east's dominant conference in both football and basketball, blowing the Big East out of the water.

Is 16 teams too unwieldy? Remember, the Western Athletic Conference tried it unsuccessfully in the late 1990s. However, the ACC is far more geographically compact than the WAC was (it stretched from the Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston areas to Hawaii), and the programs are stronger.

Here's how the 16-team Atlantic League could work:

There would be four "groups" of four teams: the four North Carolina schools; the four southern schools; Boston College, Pittsburgh, Syracuse and West Virginia; and Maryland, Notre Dame, Virginia and Virginia Tech. (For football, ND and BC could switch every two years.)

Football would have two divisions, with two rotating groups of four teams; for example, one year the four NC schools would be grouped with the four southern schools, the next year with the BC/Pitt/SU/WVU group. (This way, everyone in the conference gets a chance to play Notre Dame, and heck, as things currently stand the football divisions aren't going to be strictly geographical to begin with.) There would be an eight-game conference schedule; several "traditional" games between teams from different groups (NCSU-Clemson, UVa-UNC, BC-ND) could be guaranteed as either within the division or as the lone interdivision game.

Basketball would have a one-division, 18-game conference schedule of home-and-home with your group and one game against the other 12 teams.

Remember, while ACC officials have said they're currently happy with 12 teams, they added further expansion is not out of the question. I think this would make the ACC a true "superconference," both on the playing venue and in TV packages.

Where is Big Pimpin Deac when you need him?

oh boy, here we go again....

Sixteen teams is too much, plain and simple.

What has made the ACC successful throughout the years is its rivalries. Expansion is already walking a fine line on jeopardizing those rivalries -- but I think everything will come out okay. Adding any more teams is a recipe for disaster, IMO.

-JD

Swagger,

You called?

JD,

How's it going?

It's been a long time since I've chatted with you guys. Congrats to both of you on beating my Deacs in football and the way your basketball teams are playing so far.

Fellows, I smell imposter. This can't be the real BlueDevil/Deep Blue/Duke Alum. The real one would never change his tune. He would still be babbling about his 10 team Atlantic League bullsh*t. But, we'll watch closely and see if we can figure it out for sure.

welcome back bpd, it's nice to see you post, looking forward to this year's wake games!
as a side, I got a friend whose looking to go to wake for a phd :)

What's up, BPD! Hope you enjoyed the peaks of this year's football season (State, BC, Clemson) and didn't worry too much about the valleys (us and UConn). Can't say I did the same -- it was a miserable season (once again) to be a Heel. But, I was at the game against you guys and enjoyed that immensely! After watching the debacle in Groves last year with y'all, I'd say that was the least the team owed me....

Basketball should be fun this year -- I think Wake might be the team to beat in the ACC. They've certainly impressed me more than anyone else so far. Can't wait until we meet up in the Dean Dome later this month!

As for DeepDukeBlueDevilAlum, I think maybe he's just happy that BC got invited to the table. Maybe he sees that since they suck so much overall (much worse than any current ACC school), kicking any current teams out would mean kicking them out too.

-JD

JD,

I did enjoy our football season. Just knowing we have a chance to win before every game is all I ever asked for a few years ago. As long as Grobe is here, I believe we will have that.

Your team will be just fine. You have a lot of young talent, including that bohemoth of a running back that ran for like 10,586 yards against us. I, too, was at that game that showcased our masterful special teams' play. :bang:

Basketball will be fun. I remain cautiously optimistic. I learned a long time ago that's the best way to be.

Let's throw him some bait. Hey Blueballs, I hear Maya Angelou is going to be the new head football coach at Boston College. Is that true?

Boston College is an old habit. How about offering Maya Angelou the position at Duke University while she's still alive? She already talks to the freshmen every year, Duke could have offered her a high profile position years or decades ago. With the annual raids on the faculty like Skip Gates by Harvard, etc., and the whining about not enough black faculty, has Duke ever done anything to try to have at least one well known professor on campus, or to hire someone like Dennis Green to be Duke's first black head coach ever? Who the hell's running things at Duke, David Duke? Doesn't K want some great profs and coaches like G on campus?

I'm still not convinced. The real Blueballs would throw the racist accusations at Wake, not Duke. Keep trying.

We have a match!

<a href='http://mb4.theinsiders.com/faccboardsfrm4.showMessage?topicID=3777.topic' target='_blank'>http://mb4.theinsiders.com/faccboardsfrm4....icID=3777.topic</a>

This guy is a Maryland fan, so what are the chances that he is the real Blueballs?

I saw this post on another thread too. Is this guy imitating Blue Devil, or are they one and the same? DeepBlue has posted the Atlantic League nonsense on here too (<a href='http://www.ncaabbs.com/forums/acc/invision/index.php?act=ST&f=17&t=7467' target='_blank'>here's the latest</a>).

You make the call....

-JD