(12-16-2015 08:44 PM)Kaplony Wrote: (12-16-2015 08:25 PM)ken d Wrote: (12-16-2015 07:15 PM)Kaplony Wrote: (12-16-2015 06:54 PM)ken d Wrote: (12-16-2015 05:35 PM)Kaplony Wrote: Congrats! You now have the dumbest and second dumbest division plans I have ever seen on this board.
That's what comes from trying to satisfy Florida State and Clemson fans. The reality, of course, is that the schools those fans represent are much more reasonable, and understand why the current divisions make the most sense.
The divisions were put in place when Barker was representing Clemson so I wouldn't read into his compliance too much. There's more than one reason why he was replaced with an athletics friendly president.
And you wouldn't have to worry about Clemson and FSU raising hell about either one of your absolutely ignorant divisional proposals in this thread because Georgia Tech would pitch an absolute fit about not being assured of having Clemson at home every other year and assuring at least one sellout each year without having to give up a precious OOC game. There is a reason that Clemson was the game moved to opposite of Georgia and not any of the other ACC games on their regular schedule.
That's a good one. A Clemson fan calling somebody else ignorant. How ironic. As I have said from the beginning, I have zero interest in realigning the ACC's divisions. The current alignment suits the members of the league as well as any, and better than most. But if Clemson were given the keys to the conference, and allowed to make any schedule they want, then what would you complain about?
Over the past 60 years, Clemson has benefited greatly from its membership in the ACC. They benefited from the money and prestige that basketball provided when Clemson contributed very little to that. The league has grown enormously in wealth and prestige from those early days. You may complain it's only the fifth most powerful conference, but the reality is that moving up to fifth is a major improvement, and may be the best the ACC can realistically aspire to. For years, we weren't even in the conversation except for basketball.
If the league no longer meets your needs, you should go elsewhere, or go independent. If Florida State wants to go with you, that's OK too. We will wish you well, and we will do okay. But if all you want to do is kvetch, well that's really what the internet is for, isn't it?
So I gather from that little diatribe that we should just sit back and shut up about the fact that our conference is being led by a bunch of idiots who think it's still 1991 and basketball is king so we expand by adding a pair of football limited basketball schools, that not maximizing the profitability of football by improving divisions, that not pushing for a conference network when everybody and their brother EXCEPT the idiots in Greensboro knew it was the next big revenue generator and signing an absolute garbage bowl lineup outside of teh Orange Bowl.
Now I understand why you have posted the two absolute dumbest divisional alignments. You simply posted at the maximum you are capable of posting.
What is clear is that when you have to resort to insults, it is because you have nothing of value to add to the conversation. You just don't know what you are talking about, and your faux outrage at the direction the ACC is heading is nothing more than revisionist history.
While schools like Clemson and Maryland were motivated by football reasons to form the ACC, from the beginning it was clearly better at basketball than football. Its national identity was as a basketball league, and a good one.
Since that founding, 8 new schools have joined the league, and two have left. Instead of ignoring the importance of improving its football status, the league added first Georgia Tech and then Florida State. It tried to bring Miami in at the same time FSU joined, but they opted to join the Big East instead.
In 2004, for the first time since its founding more than 50 years before, the league made a play for a school that was good at basketball - Syracuse. But just because they had a strong national reputation in hoops does not mean they were a slouch in football. In the 20 years before they were invited, only one ACC school - FSU - had more wins in football than Syracuse.
And Miami was also added, a school that in that 20 year period was second only to FSU in football wins (one fewer). BC was invited to be the 12th team largely because Miami wanted them to be. While their football success was more modest, they were hardly a basketball school.
As it turned out, politics kept Syracuse out, and brought Virginia Tech in. They, too, were a football first school, with a record in football every bit as good as Clemson's. The Tigers had won 152 games in the previous 20 years, the Hokies 149.
Over the next five years, those three new teams averaged 9 wins a season, compared with FSU and Clemson's 7.8 wins. So they weren't exactly a downgrade.
And finally, after more than 60 years of its existence, the ACC added Syracuse and Pitt. So, one strong basketball reputation added in 60 years, and the ACC doesn't care about football. Right.
Complain all you want. But it's clear that those complaints are just hot air, with no substance. If you no longer want to be part of the ACC, that's fine. Nobody's holding you back. You've had recent success that gives you hope that you could join the upper echelon of college football, and that you could sustain that success against tougher competition. Go for it, but be careful what you wish for.