As part of Monday's ACC's men's basketball teleconference, Boston College coach Steve Donahue was asked how Patrick Heckmann was dealing with mono and whether there was a timetable for his return.

"The answer to the former, he's doing fine. It's frustrating, because when you have mono, there is really nothing you're allowed to do exercise-wise. I'm trying to get him to look at games and sit back and really take in, now that you're in that competition and try to learn from what's going on out there what you can do better. So I don't know if there is anything physically. The prognosis going forward, I would think that we're going to try to see the doctor this week at some point. Try to start exercising again for another week or so then get them back here a week to ten days, two weeks, maybe. That's, unfortunately, that's not a really direct exactly when, but that's where it stands."

So ... no news.

This week, Boston College faces Florida State (2/8) and at Virginia Tech (2/12), followed by a trip to College Park (2/16) and BC's home game against Duke (2/19). Sounds like Heckmann might not be back until BC's February 25 game in Winston-Salem at the earlier and could very well miss the rest of the regular season.

Heights Sports editor Greg Joyce is reporting that Boston College special teams coach Dave Brock is leaving the Boston College football program to become the offensive coordinator at Rutgers under first year coach Kyle Flood.

"Boston College football coach Dave Brock will be leaving to take the position of offensive coordinator at Rutgers University for the 2012 season. The move has been confirmed by a BC source, though no official announcement has been made yet by either BC or Rutgers."

The move is hardly surprising for Brock, who was tabbed as interim offensive coordinator after Kevin Rogers took a leave of absence after the UCF game. After serving as BC's OC for 10 games, he was more or less demoted to Special Teams coach following BC's hire of OC Doug Martin.

Brock has past offensive coordinator experience, having called the offense at Kansas State (2008), Temple (2002-04) and Hofstra (2000-02). So it only makes sense that he'd jump at the opportunity of going back to being a coordinator at a BCS AQ program.

I liked that Spaz was able to retain Brock and had moved him to Special Teams, as I thought he could breathe new life into a unit that has struggled, particularly in the return game. This feels like a loss especially when it comes to recruiting. Rutgers just hauled in a top 25 recruiting class this past season and Brock should help Flood continue that momentum on the recruiting trail.

Hopefully BC's replacement is a strong recruiter that fits well with the Eagles' recruiting strategy, whatever that strategy may be.

We now know that the Syracuse Orange will be joining BC in the ACC's Atlantic Division, there will be no changes to cross-divisional permanent rivals and that the conference will move to a nine-game football schedule ... whenever Syracuse and Pitt extricate themselves from the flaming wreckage of the Big East.

So, let's pencil in what BC's future football schedule will start to look like starting in 2013.

Obviously we have to make some fundamental assumptions here. The first is that the existing home-road ACC schedule won't change from the 2005-2012 model (specifically with respect to BC's Atlantic Division matchups) and that our non-conference schedule stays as-is.

Slotting Syracuse into the existing Atlantic Division schedule. Currently BC, Clemson and Wake Forest play three Atlantic Division home games in odd numbered years, and just two in even numbered years. Flip that for Florida State, Maryland and N.C. State.

Odd-year ACC Atlantic home games
Boston College -- Florida State, N.C. State, Wake Forest
Clemson -- Boston College, Florida State, Wake Forest
Wake Forest -- Florida State, Maryland, N.C. State

Even-year ACC Atlantic home games
Florida State -- Boston College, Clemson, Wake Forest
Maryland -- Florida State, Wake Forest, N.C. State
N.C. State -- Boston College, Florida State, Wake Forest

The ACC could easily slot Syracuse into this schedule, giving the Orange home games against BC, Clemson and Wake Forest in odd-years and against Florida State, Maryland and N.C. State in even numbered years. Unfortunately, this is the reverse order of BC and Syracuse's remaining nine-game non-conference series, but I'm sure if the Orange do join in 2013, the conference would just switch the order of home games.

This gives every Atlantic Division team three home games and three road games within the Division.

From the Coastal, in order to avoid a rather sizable gap in years between facing Coastal Division opponents, I've assumed that BC's away-home in consecutive years rotation will continue. After plugging in Pitt, that leaves BC with the following non-Virginia Tech Coastal Division opponents:

2012 -- Miami (home) and Georgia Tech (away)
2013 -- Georgia Tech (home) and North Carolina (away)
2014 -- North Carolina (home) and Virginia (away)
2015 -- Virginia (home) and Pittsburgh (away)
2016 -- Pittsburgh (home) and Duke (away)
2017 -- Duke (home) and Miami (away)

Let's get to it.

2013*
Non-Conference (3): @ USC, Army, Stony Brook
ACC Home (4): Wake Forest, N.C. State, Florida State, Georgia Tech
ACC Away (5): @ Syracuse, @ Maryland, @ Clemson, @ North Carolina, @ Virginia Tech

Gene's decision to swap home dates with Army starts to make more sense now if he expects both Syracuse and Pitt will join the ACC a year earlier than expected. That gives the Eagles a sixth home game and a home attendance boost for when (hopefully) the program has improved from last year's 4-8 low water mark.

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Need a great time waster at work? Check out College Hockey Inc.'s College Hockey Matchup tool. Select any two teams to view all the college hockey connections in the NHL.

A total of 22 of the NHL's 30 franchises have at least one tie to Boston College either on the current roster, in the minors, as a draft pick or in the front office. Eighteen players are on active NHL rosters, six are playing in the minors and another nine are draft picks.

After the jump the current list of BC ties in the pros. Go Eagles!

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Everyone is happy with the new ACC Atlantic and Coastal Divisions, yes? Well sounds like you have our school ... and Virginia Tech to thank for this? Via The Daily Press' David Teel:

"Swofford said the "overriding factors" in the division assignments were keeping Virginia Tech and Boston College as partners, and rekindling the Boston College-Syracuse and Virginia Tech-Pitt rivalries that waned when the Hokies and Eagles left the Big East for the ACC."

Wait, huh? Pitt-Virginia Tech? A rivalry 11 games in the making? There has to be more to it than that ...

Officials from Syracuse and Pitt "were full participants (in the discussions)," Swofford said, "short of having a formal vote. They were fully agreeable and supportive of the end points."

Got it. So neither Pitt nor Syracuse had a formal vote in last Friday's divisional alignment. Which is why preserving a 67-game football series between Pitt and Syracuse wasn't officially an "overriding factor" in the decision. Hey, it all worked out in the end and nothing to complain about here. The conference preserved yearly games between BC-Syracuse and Syracuse-Pitt. Virginia Tech also gets their fake rivalry with Pittsburgh back. Cool.

However, it does shed some light on just how screwed both Pitt and Syracuse are as they wait to extricate themselves from the Big East and join the ACC. No vote in the ACC ... no vote in the Big East. If BC and Virginia Tech wanted, the ACC could have just as easily Oklahoma-Nebraska'd Syracuse-Pitt with the divisional alignment, placing Cuse in the Coastal, Pitt in the Atlantic and pairing BC-Cuse and Tech-Pitt as the permanent intra-divisional rivals.

Luckily, it didn't come to that.

I also hope the Pitt and Syracuse football programs enjoy their trips to Boise in late November over the next 1-2 seasons.