(10-17-2016 12:31 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  

(10-17-2016 11:13 AM)ecuacc4ever Wrote:  

(10-17-2016 09:55 AM)H.U.S.T.L.E. Wrote:  I think people need to understand that realigning divisions even halfway geographically is never going to fly in the ACC. First off, it's too important that every team play a game in Florida every year so FSU and Miami will always be in opposite divisions.

I did a quick check - every NC school has about a dozen guys from Florida on their football roster. So, by reducing your footprint, you're also limiting your recruiting base. You might play every team in NC every year, but you're also conceding major recruiting grounds in FL, GA and SC.

The size of the ACC makes it impossible to please everybody. Honestly, I think the best thing that could be done is to provide incentives to schedule "out-of-conference" matchups when teams don't play each other within the conference that year. ESPN would love that from an inventory standpoint. More frequent matchups of Clemson-Miami, Clemson-VT, FSU-VT would be easy to sell on ESPN or ABC, and more Pitt-Syracuse, Pitt-BC, VT-Syracuse, and cross division NC matchups would be excellent for the ACC Network.

+1

More of the following:

Clemson / North Carolina
FSU / North Carolina
FSU / Georgia Tech
Virginia Tech / NC State (if only for gate receipts)
Syracuse / North Carolina
Louisville / North Carolina
Louisville / Virginia Tech

Why? It's not a Clemson rivalry and evidently not on the UNC side either since they don't travel to Clemson and there's always plenty of empty seats in Chapel Hill.

I took that comment to refer to TV matchups, more than gate attractions. I don't think UNC travels well anywhere (except maybe Charlottesville). But, despite decades of football mediocrity, ESPN still loves them, so they must figure somebody is watching. If that puts more eyeballs on Clemson, that's a good thing.

In my suggestion (above) I assumed that State would want to continue playing Clemson often (Textile Bowl and all that), but I'm not sure the feelings are mutual. What is your sense of that?

(10-17-2016 12:48 PM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  UNC/FSU should be played more often, but not necessarily UNC/Clemson. Obviously FSU would also benefit from playing GT and VT, plus probably UVA more often too.

From the Coastal division, Clemson benefits most from playing Miami and VT (maybe Pitt, tbd).

VT would sell-out games against FSU, Clemson, Louisville, Syracuse, probably NC State and Wake Forest - in other words, every Atlantic team except the one we play annually (BC)!

JMO.

Considering the number of comments on this subject, you would think the league would consider swapping the permanent crossovers for UVa and VT. Is Virginia (or BC) vehemently opposed to this?

(10-17-2016 01:00 PM)ken d Wrote:  

(10-17-2016 12:31 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  

(10-17-2016 11:13 AM)ecuacc4ever Wrote:  

(10-17-2016 09:55 AM)H.U.S.T.L.E. Wrote:  I think people need to understand that realigning divisions even halfway geographically is never going to fly in the ACC. First off, it's too important that every team play a game in Florida every year so FSU and Miami will always be in opposite divisions.

I did a quick check - every NC school has about a dozen guys from Florida on their football roster. So, by reducing your footprint, you're also limiting your recruiting base. You might play every team in NC every year, but you're also conceding major recruiting grounds in FL, GA and SC.

The size of the ACC makes it impossible to please everybody. Honestly, I think the best thing that could be done is to provide incentives to schedule "out-of-conference" matchups when teams don't play each other within the conference that year. ESPN would love that from an inventory standpoint. More frequent matchups of Clemson-Miami, Clemson-VT, FSU-VT would be easy to sell on ESPN or ABC, and more Pitt-Syracuse, Pitt-BC, VT-Syracuse, and cross division NC matchups would be excellent for the ACC Network.

+1

More of the following:

Clemson / North Carolina
FSU / North Carolina
FSU / Georgia Tech
Virginia Tech / NC State (if only for gate receipts)
Syracuse / North Carolina
Louisville / North Carolina
Louisville / Virginia Tech

Why? It's not a Clemson rivalry and evidently not on the UNC side either since they don't travel to Clemson and there's always plenty of empty seats in Chapel Hill.

I took that comment to refer to TV matchups, more than gate attractions. I don't think UNC travels well anywhere (except maybe Charlottesville). But, despite decades of football mediocrity, ESPN still loves them, so they must figure somebody is watching. If that puts more eyeballs on Clemson, that's a good thing.

In my suggestion (above) I assumed that State would want to continue playing Clemson often (Textile Bowl and all that), but I'm not sure the feelings are mutual. What is your sense of that?

You might have a point if the past Clemson/UNC games in the regular season all had prime networks and slots but they haven't.

And NC State is just another game to us, no different than any of the other ACC teams regularly on our schedule not named FSU or GT.

(10-17-2016 01:04 PM)ken d Wrote:  

(10-17-2016 12:48 PM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  UNC/FSU should be played more often, but not necessarily UNC/Clemson. Obviously FSU would also benefit from playing GT and VT, plus probably UVA more often too.

From the Coastal division, Clemson benefits most from playing Miami and VT (maybe Pitt, tbd).

VT would sell-out games against FSU, Clemson, Louisville, Syracuse, probably NC State and Wake Forest - in other words, every Atlantic team except the one we play annually (BC)!

JMO.

Considering the number of comments on this subject, you would think the league would consider swapping the permanent crossovers for UVa and VT. Is Virginia (or BC) vehemently opposed to this?

I don't think that UVA cares. In fact, they may see it as an upgrade in some ways - potentially a more winnable game, but also one between universities with more similarities (despite the private vs. public status).

I think BC would be the one who complains the most about switching the permanent cross-division rivalry though. The VT series is important to them.

From a VT perspective, I think we'd rather play anybody else in the Atlantic division. With the exception of a few years with Matt Ryan, VT doesn't gain much by playing BC. VT doesn't have much of a northeast presence on the roster outside a few kids from New Jersey & Pennsylvania, so it's really just a holdover rivalry from the Big East that means nothing to pretty much any VT fan under the age of 30.