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Interesting read from David Teel of the Daily Press who recaps the ACC's discussion topics from last week's annual fall meetings in Charlottesville. Those hot topics included renegotiating with ESPN on the conference's TV media rights deal, number of conference basketball and football games to be played as well as how Syracuse and Pittsburgh affect the current Atlantic-Coastal divisional format.
So will the conference use the additions of Syracuse and Pittsburgh to completely redraw the current divisional lines? Outlook not so good.
Decisions are months away, but the smart money is on the ACC retaining the current Atlantic-Coastal division structure and adopting a nine-game conference schedule for football, 18 for basketball.
[snip]
As for divisions, [Virginia Tech AD Jim] Weaver and [Virginia AD Craig] Littlepage agree: Keep the Atlantic and Coastal, adding Syracuse to one, Pitt to the other.
"The reason is we've gotten brand identity with that model," Weaver said. "I don't know if that's the way it will go. I hope it goes that way. It doesn't make sense to me to start over."
I guess both Weaver and Littlepage didn't approve of any of my four ACC divisional realignment proposals.
Now while I understand both Weaver and Littlepage's rationale behind building on current ACC divisions brand awareness, does this really make the most sense for the ACC? Ask your average college football fan to name the ACC programs in the Atlantic and Coastal Divisions today and my guess is over half of them couldn't give you the complete picture. This is after six years of football under the divisional format. Same goes for the Big Ten's Legends and Leaders Divisions, which I still can't figure out.
Would you be OK with the ACC standing pat with its current divisions?
More importantly, which program goes where? Syracuse in the Atlantic? Syracuse in the Coastal? My guess is most Boston College fans would stump for Cuse over 'Pitt, but which program do you think the rest of the Atlantic favors? Your thoughts?