Wednesday, October 1, 2003
Four to Play Top Three

Associated Press
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. -- The Atlantic Coast Conference came up with a football schedule Wednesday that forces four schools to play all three of the conference's powers in each of the next two seasons.

The additions of Miami and Virginia Tech gives the ACC three of the top programs in the nation. Miami is No. 2, Virginia Tech is No. 4 and current ACC member Florida State is fifth in the ESPN/USA Today coaches' poll and The Associated Press media poll.

The schedule, approved in meetings that included athletic directors, senior women's administrators and faculty representatives, maintains eight conference games against the same eight schools in the next two years.

Under the plan, Wake Forest, North Carolina State, Virginia and North Carolina will play all three marquee programs. Miami will play Virginia Tech and Florida State, while the Hokies and Seminoles will not meet. The other four teams will play two of the powerhouses home-and-home.

The schedule announced by ACC commissioner John Swofford is flexible enough to work in one division or two, if the NCAA allows the conference to stage a championship game despite not having the mandatory 12 teams.

"It can work for us over the next two years in either scenario," Swofford said. The only way the league would split into two divisions is if the opportunity to hold a championship becomes reality, he said.

The decision to have a championship, if it becomes available, will be made at the ACC meeting in Greensboro, N.C., in December, Swofford said.

If needed, one division would include Maryland, Clemson, North Carolina State, Wake Forest and Florida State, and the other will include Virginia, Virginia Tech, Miami, Georgia Tech, North Carolina and Duke.

The conference did not discuss adding a 12th team during its two-day meetings, and Swofford declined to discuss further expansion afterward.

"Right now we're dealing with what's real, and what's real is that we're an 11-team league," he said. "I'm not here to talk about a 12th."

The formula maintains the home and away rotation in place now and will be evaluated for fairness and balance after two years, Swofford said.

Most of the athletic directors left when Swofford went to meet with reporters, but North Carolina's Dick Baddour said he was satisfied.

"We feel great about the meeting," he said. "We'll be anxious to hear everyone's reaction to the schedule. It's going to be a lot of fun."

Virginia athletic director Craig Littlepage, the chairman of the league's ADs, also was pleased with all that was accomplished here.

"I like what we have right now. Who knows what our conference will look like in a year, two years and beyond, but I think we've done very well with what we have and we'll make it work," Littlepage said.

The meetings marked the first time that officials from Virginia Tech and Miami have participated since they agreed to join the ACC in June. The schools do not become voting partners until July 1, 2004, but their delegations were praised, along with the others, for working together.

"The tone of this meeting was superb," Swofford said. "The sense of cooperation was outstanding. A lot of progress was made of a substantive nature in terms of scheduling decisions with an 11-team league."

The league also announced that its men's basketball teams will play a 16-game conference schedule in 2004 and 2005, and its women's teams will play 14-game conference schedules, meeting each team at least once.

All 11 league teams will play in the conference basketball tournaments, with the top five schools earning a first-round bye.

For the men, the schedule will include annual home-and-home series against two "primary partner" schools, home-and-home series against four other schools and single games against the league's other four schools.

The following year, men's teams will play home-and-home series against the four teams they played once the previous year, home-and-home series against their partner schools and single games against the other four.

The women will play home-and-home series against four primary partner schools and single games against the other six teams in both seasons.

The primary partners are not necessarily the same for the men's and women's teams, but are based on rivalries that have developed over time.

 

Who's happy? Who's unhappy?

By ROB DANIELS, Staff Writer
News & Record

Q: What does all this scheduling stuff mean?

A: It's a two-year arrangement that will be re-examined in 2006. Sooner if the ACC adds a 12th member.

Q: Is the annually guaranteed basketball round-robin among Duke, North Carolina, N.C. State and Wake Forest dead?

A: Not necessarily. Wake knows it's playing Georgia Tech and N.C. State twice in both years, for example, but the full schedule won't be released until January. Everybody has two perpetual opponents and will play four other schools twice in both seasons. The identity of those four "round-robin" teams will be released in January. Each team will play the remaining four clubs once. That adds up to 16 conference games.

Q: What's the football format going to be?

A: Everybody plays eight conference games per season and avoids two teams -- the same two teams -- in both years covered under the agreement.

Q: What's the women's basketball format?

A: Everybody plays 14 league games. Each team will face four other "primary opponents" twice a year and the remaining six once per season.

Q: Nobody's going to admit they dislike their deal. But who's got to be happiest?

A: North Carolina basketball retains the guarantee of twice-a-year meetings with Triangle rivals Duke and N.C. State. The Maryland football team is spared Miami in 2004 and '05, and Virginia Tech won't have to tangle with Florida State in those years.

Q: And who's unhappiest?

A: In football, Carolina, State, Wake and Virginia play the powerful triumvirate of Florida State, Miami and Virginia Tech in both seasons. N.C. State won't see Duke, the league's worst team lately, in either year.

Q: Why aren't the women playing as many conference games as the men in basketball?

A: Among other reasons, the league's coaches were concerned that a 16-game schedule was compromising their NCAA tournament chances. Less equals more, in other words.

Q: What about the schedules in other sports?

A: Their formats won't change. Miami and Virginia Tech will be plugged into the schedules of every sport in which they field teams. ACC schools play each other once in everything except for volleyball (twice). Baseball will play 30 conference games -- 10 series of three games apiece.

Q: What's up with expansion?

A: While nobody will talk about it, the matter almost certainly has to be resolved quickly. The ACC is moving forward with its petition to the NCAA to permit a conference championship football game with fewer than 12 teams, but the future of that request is murky at best. It will either be killed in January or put up for a final vote in April. Either way, that's a long time to wait without knowing if the league can conduct the financially necessary contest. The game is a mandate, because starting in the 2006-07 academic year, when Miami and Virginia Tech become full financial partners, the conference is going to have to divide its revenue 11 ways rather than nine. Every school will take a hit if the estimated $8 million to $10 million from the championship game isn't available. If the ACC adds a 12th member, it can drop the request and play the game.  
Boston College is the most likely choice. Previous opposition to BC, based largely on geography, could fade quickly. Virginia, which played political hardball and managed to get Virginia Tech into the ACC, owes everybody. The three Triangle schools would have to form a solid bloc to turn aside BC again.

Schedule plans are set (for now)
By Dave Johnson
Daily Press
Published October 2, 2003

CHARLOTTESVILLE -- It might be reshaped or even torched in a year, but Atlantic Coast Conference officials Wednesday unveiled a two-year schedule format for football and men's and women's basketball.

In football, each school's eight conference opponents for 2004 and '05 were decided. But whether the 11-member ACC will split into two divisions or remain as one will come down to whether the league is able to play a postseason championship game.

In basketball, each team will play 16 conference games, a guaranteed two each against opponents designated as "primary rivals." Each member will be eligible for the postseason tournament. The schedule, which will assign rotating partners, won't be announced until next year.

Of course, there's the unspoken issue - at least, unspoken by ACC commissioner John Swofford and other league officials in town for the annual fall meetings. Swofford's goal has been a 12-member conference, a goal that was derailed last summer when ACC presidents approved only Miami and Virginia Tech. If the league were to add another school in time for the 2005 football season, or earlier, the entire plan announced Wednesday might as well become scrap paper.

Swofford would not discuss expansion, from the most-basic question (Where does it stand?) to the most-pointed (What about the Boston Globe report that you're interested in Boston College again?).

"Right now, we're dealing with what is real," Swofford said. "And what's real is we have an 11-team league."

Here's how the scheduling takes shape:

In football, each team will play the same eight conference opponents on a home-and-home basis in 2004 and '05. Lucky Virginia will face Miami, Virginia Tech and Florida State - all currently ranked in the top five - each season. The Cavs won't see Wake Forest or N.C. State either year. The Hokies won't play Clemson or Florida State. Miami will play FSU.

"The importance of it is that it's a flexible schedule," said associate commissioner Mike Finn, the ACC's chief football administrator. "A lot's been made of the Big Ten and divisional model - in the first two years, there's virtually no difference. It's after the first two years when you have to make a decision which way you want to go.

"This gives us a chance to be one division if we want to be (or) two divisions if we need to be for a championship game. After two years, we're going to re-evaluate the alignments and divisions ... and the primary scheduling partners just to make sure they're fair and balanced."

Conferences must have at least 12 members in order to play a postseason championship game, but the ACC has appealed to have that minimum lowered to 10. A final ruling by the NCAA is not expected until January at the earliest or April at the latest, but if the appeal is successful - and if the league's presidents agree - the ACC would split into two divisions. Here's how that would look:

Division A: Maryland, Clemson, N.C. State, Wake Forest and Florida State.

Division B: Virginia, Georgia Tech, North Carolina, Duke, Miami and Virginia Tech.

Each school would play four opponents from its division and four from the other division. Also, each member except Virginia Tech, the odd school out, would have a primary scheduling partner. Virginia's would be Maryland.

In basketball, each team was assigned two primary partners they will face twice each season. Virginia has Virginia Tech and Maryland; the Hokies have Virginia and Miami.

In the 2004-05 season, each member will play a home-and-home series against two primary partners and four other schools and single games against the league's four remaining teams. The following year, each will play home-and-home against teams it faced once the previous year along with their primary partners and single games against the remaining four.

Each men's and women's team will be eligible for the ACC tournament, with seeds 6-through-11 playing on the first day and 1-through-5 receiving a bye to the quarterfinals.

The women will play 14 ACC games, a preference expressed by many of the coaches in order to schedule more non-conference games. Each team will play twice against its four primary partners and once each against the remaining six.

Sooner or later, there will be a 12th member
Published October 2 2003
David Teel

For the first time in months, Atlantic Coast Conference presidents showed a sliver of common sense Saturday. Ironically, this rare display merely underscored their previous incompetence and the urgency surrounding their quest for a 12th member.

And which school will it be? Contrary to media reports, not Notre Dame.

And which school should it be? Contrary to conventional opinion, not Boston College.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Back to the ladies and gents in the Ivory Tower.

During a conference call Saturday, the ACC's nine CEOs affirmed that any expansion prospect must agree to full membership. Well, bravo. The notion of welcoming Notre Dame for sports other than football, in hopes the school will forgo its football independence in five to 10 years, is absurd.

The ACC needs a 12th football team now. It needs to enliven basketball and generate additional revenue, lest the presidents' half-baked decision to welcome Virginia Tech and Miami screw up the conference beyond repair.

Now the ACC, the nation's most prosperous conference, didn't need to expand at all. But Chicken Little athletic directors led by Florida State's Dave Hart and Georgia Tech's Dave Braine, certain the ACC was losing national clout, convinced the conference's presidents to add three members - Miami, Boston College and Syracuse.

But well-documented political and legal wrangling, and an 11th-hour, transcontinental reversal by North Carolina State chancellor Marye Anne Fox, prompted the CEOs to invite Virginia Tech and Miami. No matter that 11 schools left the ACC one shy of the NCAA minimum to stage a football championship game. No matter that without a title game, expansion jeopardized conference finances. No matter that the CEOs never consulted their own athletic directors on an 11-school alignment.

Relax, the true believers said. One, or both, of two scenarios will save the ACC: The NCAA will lower the championship-game minimum to 10; Notre Dame, the object of most every conference's affection, will accept full ACC membership.

Goes to show how little this run-amok bunch understands athletics.

Sure, the title-game minimum is arbitrary and senseless. But NCAA members are not inclined to change it.

Sure, the cash cow that is Notre Dame football would erase the ACC's financial concerns. But absent Vatican edicts, the Irish aren't interested in conference affiliation for football.

What to do?

The presidents first need to mend relations with their athletic directors. For months the CEOs have acted brashly on their own, leaving the ADs neutered in public and seething in private.

In consult with the athletic directors, the presidents then need to agree - quickly - on a 12th. Quickly because the ACC needs the income from a football championship game, quickly because the Big East, home of the ACC's most viable targets, is primed to fortify its membership.

Stung by the defections of Virginia Tech and Miami, and the near-departures of Boston College and Syracuse, the Big East is considering a bylaws change that would increase a school's exit fee from $1 million to $10 million. If the ACC remains interested in Boston College or Syracuse, or might court Connecticut or Pittsburgh, time is paramount.

Smart money says the ACC will return, hat in hand, to Boston College, a national leader in graduating athletes. Most ACC expansion advocates also covet the Boston television market, although college sports hardly register in a town that worships its Red Sox, Celtics, Patriots and Bruins.

Then there's the guilt. The ACC fawned over Boston College last spring, and the school returned the affection, only to be jilted by Fox's still-unexplained "no" vote. Many within the ACC want to make amends.

But the smart money ignores three issues: Has Boston College forgiven the ACC? Will Fox accept Boston College? Can the ACC afford to further dilute its men's basketball?

Answers are uncertain, but ACC officials would be wise to consider, for once, basketball - long the conference's calling card. Last season, for the first time since 1979, no ACC team reached an NCAA regional final, and Virginia Tech and Miami do nothing to upgrade the product.

Boston College? Oh, the Eagles occasionally make noise nationally, but more often than not, they're a middle-of-the-pack Big East program.

Which brings us to Syracuse, Connecticut and Pittsburgh.

Reigning national champion Syracuse or 1999 titleist UConn would be basketball godsends. The downsides are Syracuse's remoteness and UConn's pedestrian academic reputation. Pitt, a national basketball force the last two seasons, lost coach Ben Howland to UCLA, but private-school academics, new playpens for basketball and football, a large media market and hub airport make Pitt a compromise worth exploring.

Alas, ACC officials have little time to explore. They need to be decisive. They need to be smart.

Don't hold your breath.
 

Woeful times around Chapel Hill
By Dave Johnson
Daily Press
Published October 2, 2003

Is North Carolina really that bad? That was the first question for Virginia coach Al Groh during his weekly radio call-in show, courtesy of Rob from Norfolk. (Technically, it was Rob's second question. His first was, "Who do you play this week?").

Groh, of course, gave the diplomatic answer by praising UNC's passing game, which ranks 12th in the nation at 308 yards per game. But the truth is, the Tar Heels are pretty bad these days, as their 0-4 record would suggest. The only other winless teams in BCS conferences are Mississippi State and Temple. And any time you have something football-related in common with Temple ...

So what has happened to this program, which six years ago finished 11-1 and beat the daylights out of Virginia Tech in the Gator Bowl? Since a Peach Bowl victory over Auburn in 2001, the Tar Heels have lost 13 of 16 games. Carolina is 0-4 for the first time since 1988, Mack Brown's first year in Chapel Hill, and for the fifth time in 115 seasons.

"We're doing some good things," said UNC coach John Bunting, who has a gifted quarterback in Darian Durant and the nation's third-leading receiver in Jarwarski Pollock. "We're just not doing enough as a team to get a 'W.'"

The decline of Carolina football can be traced to Brown's departure following the '97 regular season. Carl Torbush lasted three seasons as Brown's successor, going 17-18 before his dismissal in 2000. Bunting's first team finished 8-5 after an 0-3 start, handing Florida State its worst-ever conference loss (41-9) in the process. But Carolina slipped to 3-9 last year, its worst finish in 13 years, and goes into October's first weekend without a win.

How did this program sink so quickly? Bad defense, poor recruiting and high attrition, of which often the last two go hand-in-hand - especially amid two coaching changes in a three-year period. Of the 18 players who signed with Carolina in 1998, three finished their careers there. Of the 22 who signed a year later, seven remain in the program as fifth-year seniors.

Poor recruiting has hurt the defense the most. Carolina's offense scores enough points to win most games, but its defense, once one of the strongest in the country, is now the weakest. Out of 117 schools that play Division-IA football, the Tar Heels are last in scoring defense (42.8 ppg) and total defense (522 ypg).

Bunting has four years remaining on his contract with an annual base pay of $260,000, so his job is secure. Durant and Pollock, the ACC's second-best passing combination behind Philip Rivers and Jerricho Cotchery of N.C. State, are both juniors. This season's true freshmen were part of a recruiting class that ranked among the nation's 15 best.

"I have to continually remind them that we're a work in progress," Bunting said. "We're trying to get better and we're staying focused and positive on the good things we're doing."

JUST UNCANNY. Two full months remain in the regular season, but has there been a better player in college football to this point than Philip Rivers?

Sure, Texas Tech's B.J. Symons threw for 661 yards last week, and Pittsburgh wideout Larry Fitzgerald is the most exciting wideout in the nation. But Rivers has been so good on a weekly basis that it's almost scary. In five games, he has completed 77 percent of his passes for 1,748 yards - No. 1 in the nation in both categories. His numbers last week vs. UNC: 23-of-30, 423 yards, one touchdown, no interceptions.

"Glad I'll never see him again," Bunting said.

Georgia Tech's Chan Gailey, the next coach to watch Rivers completely destroy his secondary, will echo that statement next week.

AND FINALLY... Checking this week's NCAA stats for total defense, we find N.C. State 101st, Wake Forest 102nd, East Carolina 106th and North Carolina 117th. Duke is 71st, which begs the question: Does anybody play defense in the Tar Heel State?
 

By DOUG DOUGHTY
THE ROANOKE TIMES

   CHARLOTTESVILLE - Virginia Tech will not play perennial ACC football power Florida State until the 2006 season, according to a schedule distributed Wednesday at the end of the ACC's fall meetings.

    The ACC released a list of conference games in the 2004 and 2005 seasons, during which each ACC team will not face two other teams.

    Tech will not play Florida State and Clemson during those seasons.

    "It's what the computer spit out," ACC assistant commissioner Mike Finn said.

    In 2004, Tech will have home conference games with Maryland, North Carolina State, Virginia and Duke. The Hokies will play Wake Forest, Georgia Tech, North Carolina and Miami on the road.

    "Well, I'm just glad to be in it," Tech coach Frank Beamer said. "I think when you're talking about Maryland, N.C. State and Virginia, you're still talking about teams that are very good."

    Virginia will not play Wake Forest and North Carolina State during the next two seasons. The Cavaliers will play host to Miami next year. UVa will play three teams currently ranked in the top five (No.2 Miami, No.4 Tech and No.5 Florida State).

    Miami and Virginia Tech, in attendance at the meetings this week but not able to vote, will join the ACC officially on July1, 2004.

    The ACC also announced plans for a 16-game men's conference basketball schedule and a 14-game women's conference schedule for 2004-05.

    Tech's "primary" men's basketball partners, with whom the Hokies will play two games in 2004-05, are Virginia and Miami. Virginia's primary partners are Maryland and Virginia Tech.

    Each men's basketball team will play a minimum of three games against all of the other conference teams over two years.

    Each women's team will have four primary partners with which they will play two games annually. They will have one game with the other six teams.

    Tech's primary women's basketball partners are Miami, Maryland, Florida State and Virginia. Virginia's primary partners are Maryland, Duke, North Carolina and Tech.

    The football schedules were prepared by Finn and approved without any changes by the ADs.

    Virginia athletic director Craig Littlepage said he was sure that Virginia fans would notice that the Cavaliers' in-state rival won't have to play the Seminoles, who have won or shared the ACC title in 10 of their 11 seasons.

    "Eventually they will," Littlepage said. "Hopefully, it's not in the championship game."

    The Cavaliers would be in the same division with the Hokies if the ACC wins its appeal to hold a title game with 11 teams.

    An NCAA committee already has rejected one appeal by the ACC to waive a rule requiring 12 teams for a championship. However, the ACC has formed divisions that will enable it to move quickly if the original decision is overturned.

    Maryland, Clemson, N.C. State, Wake Forest and Florida State are in Division A. Tech and UVa will be joined in Division B by Georgia Tech, North Carolina, Duke and Miami.

    Swofford declined on at least four occasions to discuss the possibility of adding a 12th team, an issue that has gained steam since the NCAA ruling last week.

    "Right now, we're dealing with what's real," said Swofford, turning testy, "and what's real is that we're an 11-team league. We've been working with the decisions, from a policy standpoint, that will move us ahead as an 11-team league.

    "I'm not here to talk about a 12th team. You're asking [about] things that haven't happened [and] may not happen. If they do happen, we'll deal with them as a league, if and when they do."

    Littlepage, who said last week that the committee defeat had put expansion back on the "frontburner," denied Wednesday that the process is frustrating.

    "I think the priorities to get the schedules done and the immediacy of that were the short-term goal," Littlepage said. "We had to get that done and make sure that everybody had a chance to weigh in about these different options.

    "Who knows what the conference will look like in a year, two years or beyond, but I think we've done very well with what we have and we'll make it work."

Questions and answers on the ACC schedule
By NEIL AMATO : The Herald-Sun
namato@heraldsun.com
Oct 2, 2003 : 12:12 am ET

Question: How will the ACC Tournament in men's and women's basketball be changed?

Answer: Not much. Basically, two games will be added to the first day of the tournament, which previously had one game between seeds 8 and 9. Beginning in 2005, seeds 6 through 11 will play the first day, with the winners advancing to the quarterfinals. In the men's tournament, that would mean three games Thursday, followed by the customary four on Friday, two Saturday and one Sunday.

Ticket allotments will change, though gradually. For the 2005 tournament at the MCI Center in Washington, Miami and Virginia Tech will receive one-third of the tickets that the other nine get. In 2006 in Greensboro, it will be two-thirds. In 2007 in Tampa, Fla., Hokies and Hurricanes fans get their full complement. In Greensboro last season, each school received about 2,000 tickets.

Q: What are the potential divisions in football if the league is allowed to have a championship game with 11 teams?

A: The current names for the divisions are Division A and Division B. Division A is Clemson, Florida State, Maryland, N.C. State and Wake Forest. Division B is Duke, Georgia Tech, Miami, North Carolina, Virginia and Virginia Tech. If a 12th member joined the league before the end of this two-year schedule, it would go into Division A.

If there are divisions in the future, they could be named after former ACC commissioners Jim Weaver and Jim Corrigan.

Q: Who gets the worst of the football scheduling?

Two ways to look at it. In terms of competition, four schools will have the toughest slate -- UNC, N.C. State, Wake Forest and Virginia. All have to play Florida State, Miami and Virginia Tech the same year. Those three are 60 percent of the current AP top five.

A: The other way to look at it is ticket sales. It will be easier for Wake Forest and North Carolina to fill their stadiums when at least 15,000 Virginia Tech fans make the trip.

Q: In ACC basketball schedules, was 20 too many?

A: Apparently so. The women's coaches wanted more leeway in nonconference schedules. Having 20 ACC games left schools with only seven nonconference games. Having 16 allowed for more home games against non-league foes.

Also, it cut down on the physical and mental strain, according to associate commissioner Fred Barakat: "When you play 20 games, you kind of beat up on each other. ... I think if you polled the coaches, 20 games would be more than any conference would expect of its members."

Q: How will the schedule of other sports be affected?

A: Basically, all teams have been added to the schedules. In women's soccer, for example, each of the 10 teams (Georgia Tech doesn't have the sport) will play each other once. Baseball teams will play a 30-game conference schedule.

In volleyball, the double round-robin format was retained for all 11 members, meaning they will play 20 ACC matches, 10 home and 10 away. The ACC baseball tournament will have a preliminary round for seeds 8 through 11. The winners of 8-vs.-11 and 9-vs.-10 would play one game for the right to join the other seven teams in the double-elimination bracket.

 

ACC's New Look Alters Schedules
11-Team League Unveils Football, Basketball Plans
By Barry Svrluga
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 2, 2003; Page D01

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Oct. 1 -- Atlantic Coast Conference officials today announced a two-year schedule plan for football in the recently expanded 11-team league, and a pair of potentially marquee matchups -- Maryland against Miami and Florida State against Virginia Tech -- won't take place until at least 2006.

The ACC's athletic directors concluded their two-day meeting at the University of Virginia by unveiling scheduling concepts for football and men's and women's basketball. Even with the addition of Miami and Virginia Tech in 2004, each football and men's basketball team will continue to play the same number of league games as they did in the nine-team format -- eight for football and 16 for basketball.

But the larger league means an unbalanced schedule for the first time in the conference's 51-year history. In football, that means each team will have two league opponents it won't play every year.

"The conference is committed to its teams playing all of the other teams in the conference on a regular, consistent rotation," ACC Commissioner John Swofford said. "Obviously, everybody can't play everybody in a short time frame, but as things rotate out, every effort is going to be made . . . to have people playing each other as frequently as possible."

Swofford and others said the meetings declined to address the prospects of adding a 12th team in the near future, a decision that would have to be made by the universities' CEOs, not their athletic directors. Swofford would not comment on whether the league is continuing to pursue Boston College, though league sources said that remains a possibility.

"We're dealing with what's real," Swofford said, "and what's real is we have an 11-team league."

The athletic directors said the potential of adding a 12th member -- and thus ensuring a championship game in football -- wasn't a point of discussion as the schedules were worked out.

"I'm focused on 11," North Carolina Athletic Director Dick Baddour said. "That's what we have. That's what we're dealing with. I don't think there was much distraction. There's always that potential, but we were focused on what we have."

Since the league expanded to nine members with the addition of Florida State in 1992, each school has played the others once annually in football and twice annually in basketball. When the conference expanded by inviting Miami and Virginia Tech in July, athletic directors, coaches and league officials knew they would sacrifice that traditional format.

"I liked it when it was 16 games, because then you found a true champion," Maryland basketball coach Gary Williams said. "Nobody got any breaks. Nobody had a favored schedule, which can happen any time you don't play everybody twice. Depending on the year, one team might get two games against teams that are a little bit down, but not have to play some of the stronger teams twice. You hope that balances out over a period of time."

The conference announced the football schedule -- without dates -- for 2004.

Maryland won't play Miami, which won the national title two seasons ago and lost in the championship game last season, in 2004 or 2005. The Terrapins also won't play North Carolina in either of those years but will have a game at Virginia Tech next season. The Hokies will come to College Park in 2005. Maryland Coach Ralph Friedgen pointed out that his team will be young next year, so missing out on Miami might not be a bad thing.

"I mean, every year it's going to be tough," Friedgen said. "N.C. State's no slouch. Florida State's no slouch. Virginia's pretty good. They're all pretty good."

Competitively, Virginia got a tougher draw in the first two years. The Cavaliers won't play Wake Forest or North Carolina State in 2004 or 2005 but are one of four teams -- joining Wake Forest, North Carolina and N.C. State -- that will play traditional powers Florida State, Virginia Tech and Miami in each of those years.

In addition to not having to play Florida State in what would be a rematch of the 2000 national championship game, Virginia Tech won't play Clemson in 2004 or 2005.

The new football league isn't broken down into divisions but would be if the NCAA lowers the threshold that mandates that a league must have 12 teams to stage a championship game in football. An NCAA subcommittee last month recommended that the rule not be changed. But that decision is non-binding, and though it's unlikely, the change could be approved in April by the NCAA's board of directors, which has the final say.

If the NCAA allows for a championship game in football and the ACC's presidents decide to stage one, the league will have two divisions, one made up of Maryland, Clemson, N.C. State, Wake Forest and Florida State, the other consisting of Virginia, Georgia Tech, North Carolina, Duke, Miami and Virginia Tech.

Each school would play four teams from its division and four from the other.

Other than the Hokies, each team would also have a "primary partner" in the other division that it will play annually. Maryland, for instance, would always play Virginia.

"I think the importance of it is that it's a flexible schedule," said ACC assistant commissioner Mike Finn, who drew up most of the model schedules for football. "This gives us a chance to be one division if we want to be, two divisions if we need to be for a championship game. After two years, we're going to reevaluate the alignments of the divisions and the crossover rivalries, just to make sure they're fair and balanced."

In men's basketball, Maryland will play home-and-home series against Duke and Virginia each year. The Terps' game against Duke has been the highest-rated regular season game on TV in the nation in each of the past three years, so playing that rivalry twice made sense. Virginia's other annual home-and-home series will be against Virginia Tech. The Hokies also will be paired with Miami.

Women's basketball will play a 14-game conference schedule -- down from 16. Both the men's and women's basketball tournaments will expand to four days, playing three games on the first day. The top five seeds will receive byes into the quarterfinals.
 

You can't always get what you want
By FRANK DASCENZO : The Herald-Sun
fdascenzo@heraldsun.com
Oct 2, 2003 : 12:06 am ET

It must be true what they say about life: You can't have everything, and you can't please everybody.

Just take a look at the ACC's new football schedule format for 2004, and if you're a UNC fan, you've got to be wondering if your lineup of opponents could get any more vicious unless you played the Buccaneers or the Titans.

Good morning, John Bunting. Are you having a nice breakfast?

Now, John, you've lined up against Texas (twice, I remember) and you went to Oklahoma, too. And this year, at Wisconsin. And last year you played Miami (Ohio) against that quarterback with the long name.

John, in 2½ years, I think the only creampuff you've had was SMU. Am I right so far, John?

Next year, UNC gets new ACC faces Miami and Virginia Tech and still has to play the Seminoles. John, don't blame me.

Now take a good look at N.C. State's 2004 schedule, especially at home. Wolfpackers, wherever you are, get your season tickets now and brag about it.

Look, I know Philip won't be around for it. But Ohio State is scheduled to return the favor of this season's triple-overtime thriller and makes that trek into Carter-Finley. So do the Hurricanes and Seminoles. The other three are Wake Forest (can you say revenge?), Georgia Tech and Navy. Geez, I wouldn't mind peddling season tickets for this schedule.

There's good news at Duke, though -- honest. In 2004, the Blue Devils won't have to see that green and orange with the funny looking U on the white helmet, and they won't have to see the Wolfpack, either. But they will have to see the Hokies and the Noles, again. You see, you just can't have everything in life.

UNC athletics director Dick Baddour was quoted as saying: "We feel great about the meeting, and we'll be anxious to hear everyone's reaction to the schedule. It's going to be a lot of fun."

Coach Bunting, I just want to make sure you understand that Baddour said that and I didn't. Unless I've missed something here, the Bunting-coached Tar Heels will have played the toughest schedules in Tar Heels football history by the time the 2004 schedule is completed.

The ACC brass met at Charlottesville, Va., on Wednesday and, like most of these meetings where Commissioner John Swofford discusses the agenda at hand, made some decisions.

As it stands in the 11-team conference, four schools -- UNC, N.C. State, Wake Forest and Virginia -- will play all three of the league's marquee giants -- FSU, Miami and Virginia Tech. As of this moment, FSU is No. 5, Miami No. 2 and Virginia Tech No. 4. Ouch!

Miami will play the Hokies and FSU -- smart move. The Hokies and Seminoles won't play, which might be just fine with Frank Beamer. I mean, have you seen this guy's schedule this season -- Central Florida, James Madison, Connecticut. And the Hokies are at Rutgers on Saturday. Frank, did you make that schedule?

Swofford wants an ACC championship game but won't get it unless the NCAA approves one for a league with 11 teams. The ACC will not split into two divisions unless a championship game becomes possible, Swofford admitted.

Expansion isn't dead; it's just put on hold. Swofford smartly didn't talk about a potential 12th team. Notre Dame always is going to be there, but the Irish aren't coming.

The reality is that the ACC will have 11 teams. If a football championship game becomes available, it will be discussed in December.

During the summer, inquiring minds wanted to know what the ACC would look like if it went to two divisions. It would look like this -- Virginia, Virginia Tech, Miami, Georgia Tech, UNC and Duke in Division A; and Maryland, N.C. State, Clemson, Wake Forest and FSU in Division B.

Ah yes, the ACC also plays basketball with famous coaches named Krzyzewski and Williams (two of the latter now) and Prosser, among others. Nobody knows for certain how the basketball lords really feel about Swofford and the future of the ACC. But remember, you can't have everything and you can't please everybody, right?

There's a 16-game ACC schedule in basketball for men, 14 for women. All 11 teams will go to the ACC Tournament, with five schools earning a first-round bye.

Remember these words -- primary partner. Each school will have them and will play home-and-home series against four other teams and single games against the other four.

My guess is that at first, most loyalists who resist change won't like it. But just think about John Bunting and how he feels about future schedules.

 

Time to consider Plan B
By CAULTON TUDOR, Staff Writer

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA. -- The ACC athletics directors insisted Tuesday that the topic of finding a 12th league member wasn't discussed during day-long meetings on the Virginia campus.
After all, as Virginia's Craig Littlepage delicately pointed out, the presidents and chancellors, not the ADs, have complete jurisdiction over the affaire d'expansion.

"You're talking about a group that we haven't always been in the loop on when it matters," Littlepage said of the school leaders. "I'm trying to be very diplomatic about how I say this. We [the ADs] may not know until the very last minute when they will either meet or plan to talk ."

The only potential member that heats up everyone's heart is Notre Dame. You get it all with the Irish in football -- television money, national attention, academic credibility, unrivaled tradition.

But as recently as last weekend, Notre Dame officials reaffirmed their commitment to football independence just as the ACC presidents and chancellors were reiterating their conviction that a 12th member would have to be a fully competitive partner in all sports.

Even if both sides were posturing -- the ACC clearly was trying to force a decision by Notre Dame -- that tactic probably will fail.

And the ACC can't afford to wait long for Notre Dame. By January , the 2004 conference football schedules for all teams have to be set . The networks determine their early season telecast dates by mid-February, and most schools have to begin their ticket-sales marketing campaigns by early spring.

Those deadlines bring us to Plan B for the ACC. If not Notre Dame, then whom?

The most viable options all along have been the two Big East schools, Boston College and Syracuse, that the ACC originally targeted in addition to Miami .

Among the ACC's athletic folks, there is more support for Boston College than for Syracuse. Both schools are still willing even though they were left stranded at the alter when the ACC presidents and chancellors chose early long-shot Virginia Tech along with Miami.

There's still no indication that the presidents and chancellors even want a 12th team if it can't be Notre Dame.

But what we're likely to see during the next few weeks is some serious lobbying by the ADs and conference commissioner John Swofford to go for 12 and to do it fast. The bottom line in expansion hasn't changed since spring. It's still a money grab, and there's more money to be grabbed with 12 teams and a championship game in football than with 11.

If there's one thing the presidents and chancellors can appreciate in the long run, it's money. Many of them spend much of their time begging for it -- from state governments, corporate executives and well-heeled former students and fans.

Don't be surprised if a 12th team is identified before Thanksgiving. If it's not Notre Dame, it will probably be Boston College.

Athletically, Syracuse makes a heck of a lot more sense -- remember the national championship in basketball? -- and the Orangemen aren't completely out of the picture yet.

But the city of Boston has a certain lure, particularly for recruiting. Syracuse looks boring on paper .

Whichever school it is, the presidents and chancellors need to make a decision.

An 11-team league is an awkward fit. Just look at that other conference -- the one with 11 members that still prefers to be called the Big Ten. What sort of message are those presidents sending kids who are being taught basic math?



 

ACC drops balanced schedules
In football, conference's shift means some rivals to play every other season
BY JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Oct 1, 2003

CHARLOTTESVILLE - Virginia Tech football coach Frank Beamer probably praised the ACC's Southern hospitality when he saw the league schedules for the next two seasons.

University of Virginia coach Al Groh might not have been as complimentary.

At the conclusion of its fall meeting, for which U.Va. served as host, the ACC yesterday released the scheduling models to be used in 2004-05 and 2005-06 for football, men's basketball and women's basketball.

The ACC will grow to 11 schools with the addition of current Big East members Virginia Tech and Miami in July, but this won't change: Each football team will continue to play eight conference games. At Scott Stadium, ACC officials unveiled the football schedules that will be used in 2004 and, if the league remains at 11, in'05.

The eight ACC foes on each team's schedule will remain the same for both seasons. Conspicuously absent from the Hokies' slate is perennial national power Florida State, as well as Clemson. Virginia, meanwhile, will ACChave to play Miami and FSU each season. The Cavaliers won't play Wake Forest - a team they have dominated for the past two decades - or N.C. State either season.

"This is a two-year schedule," said Mike Finn, an assistant commissioner with the ACC. "That's all it is, and we're going to re-evaluate it after two years. I think it needs to be looked at like that. It shouldn't be looked at like a schedule beyond two years."

A computer generated the schedules, which the league's athletic directors approved, Finn said.

Commissioner John Swofford said the ACC "is committed to its teams playing all of the other teams in the conference on a regular, consistent rotation. Obviously, everybody can't play everybody in a short time frame, but as things rotate out, every effort is going to be made, and the scheduling commitment is there, to have people playing each other as frequently as possible."

The football schedules for 2004 and'05 will work if the 11 teams are grouped together or in two divisions, Swofford said. The ACC plans to split the teams into divisions of five and six if the NCAA allows the conference to stage a championship game despite not having 12 members, the current minimum. In that event, U.Va. and Virginia Tech would be part of the six-team division.

The ACC will decide in December, Swofford said, whether to stage a football title game in 2004, should the NCAA grant its approval. The NCAA's ruling may not come until late April, and the ACC would need to begin planning for a 2004 title game long before then.

During a news conference yesterday afternoon, Swofford fielded several questions about the possibility of the ACC expanding to 12 schools. He revealed nothing about the league's plans.

"Right now we're dealing with what's real, and what's real is that we're an 11-team league," Swofford said. "I'm not here to talk about a 12th."

The Boston Globe reported Tuesday that the ACC is again pursuing Boston College, a school the league targeted earlier this year before inviting Miami and Virginia Tech. Asked if the ACC's Council of Presidents is considering BC again, Swofford declined to comment.

Should the ACC add a 12th team for 2004-05 or 2005-06, the football schedules released yesterday would have to be revised. "All the models that we did are based on 11 teams," Finn said. "If you have 12 teams, you have a totally different model."

Basketball scheduling was addressed yesterday, too. No longer will conference teams play a round-robin every season, a tradition for which the ACC is known. Each ACC men's team will play a 16-game conference schedule, consisting of home-and-home series with two "primary partners," home-and-home series with four other schools and single games against the remaining four schools.

The next season, each team will play home-and-home series with its partners and with the four schools it met once the previous year. It will play a single game against each of the other four. Over a two-season period, then, every school would play each of the others at least three times.

Associate commissioner Fred Barakat said the ACC men's coaches believed their teams would "beat up each other" if they played a 20-game conference schedule.

In women's basketball, each team will play 14 conference games. Each team will have four primary partners with which it will play home-and-home series. It will play each of the remaining six teams once.

The ACC men's basketball tournament will remain a four-day affair. The top five seeds will receive byes into the quarterfinals. The final six seeds will play in the first round, with the winners advancing to the quarterfinals. The women's tournament will follow the same format.

Miami and Virginia Tech will not become voting members of the ACC until July1, but officials from both schools participated in this week's meeting at U.Va. Each of the newcomers will receive a pro-rated allotment of tickets to the ACC men's basketball tournament its first two seasons in the league. Each will get one-third of the full allotment in 2005 and two-thirds in 2006. The league used that formula in previous expansions.

Long before Miami and Virginia Tech become fully vested members of the ACC, in 2006, the conference is likely to have added a 12th member. U.Va.'s athletic director, Craig Littlepage, said Saturday that he believed the conference would be wise to actively begin seeking a 12th school.

Yesterday, however, Littlepage focused on the work accomplished at this week's meeting.

"I like what we have right now," he said. "Who knows what our conference will look like in a year or two years and beyond, but I think we've done very well with what we have, and we'll make it work."
 

Cavs to land small forward
Richmond Times-Dispatch Oct 2, 2003

CHARLOTTESVILLE - Virginia men's basketball coach Pete Gillen is likely to hear welcome news today. Adrian Joseph, a 6-7, 200-pound small forward, plans to commit to U.Va. this morning, his coach said last night.

A native of Trinidad, Joseph "had a great visit" to U.Va. last weekend, said Jason Smith, who coaches the powerful postgraduate team at Brewster Academy in New Hampshire. Joseph, 19, was leaning heavily to Virginia before meeting with coaches from Maryland and Penn State yesterday, and "nothing changed after hearing all the other schools talk," Smith said.

Gillen also visited Joseph yesterday. Before committing to U.Va., Smith said, Joseph wanted to talk again with his family in Trinidad and with a cousin in the D.C. area last night and then sleep on his decision.


Among the Cavaliers' other visitors last weekend was 5-11 point guard Sean Singletary, their first commitment for 2004-05. Joseph attended Bergen Catholic High in New Jersey as a junior last season. - Jeff White
 

Not so fast: This alignment plan won't stand for long
JOHN MARKON
TIMES-DISPATCH COLUMNIST Oct 2, 2003
Contact John Markon at (804) 649-6892 or jmarkon @timesdispatch.com

CHARLOTTESVILLE Fans who've read, reread, parsed and analyzed the ACC realignment formats released yesterday should make certain they do one more thing:

Don't take any of it too seriously. Far from being hewn from granite, these solutions are scrawled in sand.

To their credit, the ACC officials on hand at the University of Virginia's Bryant Hall didn't really pretend otherwise.

"I think you have to look at these as two-year arrangements for an 11-team league," said Commissioner John Swofford. "They reflect who we are and where we are right now."

But maybe not in three weeks, let alone three months or three years.

The 11-team ACC is a concept likely to be obsolete before it's officially inaugurated next summer. Twelve remains the NCAA's magic number for staging a league championship football game and 12 is where the ACC is going, assuming the conference's wild, wacky and multi-agendaed Council of MARKONPresidents can ever agree on a suitable 12th dot on the map.

Swofford and the ADs assembled for this week's round of meetings didn't really want to talk No.12 - for the very good reason that they won't necessarily pack any freight when and if the presidents make a decision.

Expansion monitors had to be content with tidbits and tea leaves. While Swofford felt free to deny last week's report that Notre Dame was coming into the league, all he did was no-comment this week's "insider" dish that Boston College was actually the pick.

Any significance was probably accidental. The expansion candidates, however, are diminishing. After a lot of loose talk over the summer about Florida, Kentucky, Penn State, Vanderbilt, etc., it appears the ACC will look for No.12 in the same place it found Nos. 10 and 11, the Big East Conference.

The day to remember here is Nov.4, when the Big East begins a round of meetings designed to admit Louisville, Cincinnati, DePaul and Marquette into the league. This counter-expansion is likely to be conjoined with a request for solidarity, namely a vote on raising the Big East's exit fee from $1 million to as much as $10 million.

If the ACC presidents fancy BC, Syracuse or any other Big East outpost, the need for fast action would appear to be acute. For $10 million, you can buy a lot of solidarity.

Most of the who-plays-whom formats the ACC unveiled yesterday were flexible enough to be quickly converted from 11 teams to 12. The exception was football, although the key word there was "announced." There's a 12-team football format on somebody's hard drive somewhere.

"With every decision we made," said Georgia Tech AD Dave Braine, an avid expansionist, "we discussed contingencies for a 12th team."

None of yesterday's football plans may last beyond the 2005 season, when the league's current deal for broadcast rights with ABC/ESPN expires.

Under the proposed divisional alignment for an 11-team conference, for example, there will be years when Duke vs. North Carolina and Virginia vs. Virginia Tech would not be scheduled as ACC games. Swofford was among many people willing to step forward and say, "That . . . ah . . . won't be happening any year, any time."

So, if you don't like the football divisions or the basketball "primary partners," don't worry.

"Putting those together went quickly, we had excellent unity," said assistant commissioner Mike Finn. "If everyone had known the arrangements were going to be permanent . . . well, it may not have been so easy."

While yesterday's determinations were necessary in the short term, the bigger decisions are still to be made. They start with the identity of the 12th team, a question that's currently destabilizing the ACC, the Big East and three or four other conferences.

Meanwhile, Virginia Tech might be able to compete for one or two ACC football titles without having to play, let alone win, a game against Florida State.

In the old days, didn't the new pledges get hazed?