Brian: With Florida State winning the ACC Baseball Championship, the ACC’s spring sports season has come to a close. This year marks the first year that an ACC expansion team (Virginia Tech, Miami, BC) failed to win an ACC championship in any sport.
It also marks another year where the Eagles put up another goose egg in the ACC Championship column. Now five full seasons into the ACC and BC has only one ACC Championship to show for itself, a 2007 title in men’s soccer.
True, the Eagles play arguably their best revenue-neutral (ice hockey) and non-revenue sport (sailing) outside of the ACC. But given that BC has the highest number of varsity programs in the ACC, these numbers have to be a bit disheartening, no?
| 2009-10 | 2008-09 | 2007-08 | 2006-07 | 2005-06 | Total | |
| Virginia | 7 | 6 | 6 | 3 | 5 | 27 |
| Florida State | 5 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 21 |
| Duke | 2 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 17 |
| North Carolina | 1 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 16 |
| Georgia Tech | 4 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 10 |
| Maryland | 2 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 9 |
| Virginia Tech | 0 | 1 | 4 | 4 | 0 | 9 |
| Clemson | 2 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 6 |
| N.C. State | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 5 |
| Wake Forest | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 4 |
| Miami | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 3 |
| Boston College | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Do you put any significance into these numbers? And the fact that another year has gone by and BC is ranked dead last in number of ACC Championships won since the conference expanded to 12 teams? Your thoughts?
Jeff: Would anyone really say that Virginia has had the most successful athletic program in the conference since 2005-06? I don't think so. Those who follow the ACC closely probably would've guessed that they were at or near the top in total championships. But UVA has been far from great in the two major sports, football and men's basketball, and has has coaching changes in both those sports as a result.
BC, meanwhile, only has one title but is a small school that no one expected to be dominant across the board. BC has been close in football twice to a championship and real close to a championship in basketball as well. BC has been successful even though more conference championships would be nice, most of the sports that UVA and other schools are racking up titles in, BC either is not currently competing in (i.e. men's lacrosse) or doesn't give scholarships to athletes for (i.e. track). We all know the move to the ACC was about football and basketball and hopefully the other sports at BC will ultimately benefit from extra dollars coming into the athletic department but a lack of championships in those sports will never be the gauge of whether the move was a success for our school.
Thoughts? Should conference championships be a measure of whether the move to the ACC was successful?