2012.02.03
ACC will go to 9-game football schedule when Pittsburgh, Syracuse join the league; crossover rivals remain the same
It’s still unclear when Pittsburgh and Syracuse will become members of the ACC, but when they do, the league will have a new scheduling format.
The ACC announced Friday that it will go to a 9-game football schedule when the two schools join to make it a 14-team league. That is unlikely to be this year.
Pittsburgh will join the Coastal Division, which is where Virginia Tech plays, while Syracuse will join the Atlantic Division. They will become crossover partners, leaving the existing matchups in place. The Hokies’ annual Atlantic Division partner will remain Boston College.
The announcement was made following the ACC’s annual winter meetings.
“We have been engaged in discussions on the various options for integrating Pitt and Syracuse since early fall,” ACC Commissioner John Swofford said. ”It’s a tremendous tribute to the leadership at our schools that we will be able to seamlessly add Pitt and Syracuse at the appropriate time when they become full playing members.”
The nine-game schedule will consist of each team playing all six of its division opponents in a year, its primary crossover partner and two rotating opponents from the opposite division.
It is a six-year cycle that allows each team to play the rotating crossover opponents two times (once at home, once away) in that time.
Here’s the division breakdown:
- Coastal: Duke, Georgia Tech, North Carolina, Miami, Pittsburgh, Virginia, Virginia Tech
- Atlantic: Boston College, Clemson, Florida State, Maryland, N.C. State, Syracuse, Wake Forest
Scheduling formats for other sports can be found here.
The 2012 football schedule is expected to be released sometime next week.
Anyword on the Georgia Tech game moving to Labor day/
Comment by John — February 4, 2012 @ 9:48 am
If the ACC continues with the home and home (consecutive years), scheduling of the six teams in the other division, there will be a four year gap between playing each team. How about putting two years between meetings so a team doesn’t have to wait that long to play each team. Here’s how it would look for the Hokies:
2013: FSU (A), MD (H)
2014: NCst (A), Wake (H)
2015: Clem (A), Syrc (H)
2016: FSU (H), MD (A)
2017: NCst (H), Wake (A)
2018: Clem (H), Syrc (A)
Often in non-conference games the home and home games are not played in consecutive years. In particular, I don’t want to wait four years to play FSU and Clemson in the regular season.
Andy, do you know if the ACC is considering such a model?
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Comment by Greg Bowyer — February 4, 2012 @ 10:00 am
The 2012 football schedule should be out next week, so we’ll find out if the Labor Day game is a go by then. VT officials aren’t biting on anything before then.
From what I understand, the home-and-home with rotating opponents will be in back-to-back years. My guess is they want to do it in an effort of fairness, since teams are generally pretty similar in back-to-back years. If you play Maryland in 2013 and ’14, those are similar matchups. If you play it in 2013 and 2016, those could be completely different teams in terms of makeup/talent. Again, that’s just my guess.
Comment by Andy Bitter — February 4, 2012 @ 10:50 am
Understand the fairness argument, but don’t see how a team can create any kind of respect or disdain for a competitor going four years without playing them. This isn’t the Olympic Games. Also, players will not play two ACC teams in their entire careers. That seems particularly “unfair” and should be rectified by an alternative scheduling model.
Comment by Greg Bowyer — February 4, 2012 @ 11:28 am