ACC football schedule preview
Column by Will Ojanen
will@accnation.com
The ACC recently released the 2008 football schedule, and to be honest, I really don’t like what I see. Each team has four non-conference games and, according to my math, that’s 48 non-conference games. Out of those 48 non-conference games, 15 are against FCS (or I-AA, take your pick) schools. That’s nearly one-third of the entire non-conference schedule. Only one team (Wake Forest) decided to challenge itself and schedule all four non-conference games against legitimate D-I schools.
Why is this a big deal? Because in its quest for national respect, this is not going to help the cause of the conference in general. In reality, the athletics directors are finding a cheap way to get their teams bowl eligible. I know it’s not going to matter to a team like Virginia Tech, but, if for some reason, Virginia Tech struggles, they have these games against these weaklings to fall back on. I know there could be an Appalachian State-Michigan type upset, but there’s a reason these kind of upsets rarely ever happen. They aren’t that good.
Also, of these 48 non-conference games, only 11 of them are on the road. Only one team (Miami) scheduled multiple road games. Once again, the athletic directors are doing a masterful job of getting their football teams as much of an advantage as possible in terms of chalking up wins and getting to that six win, bowl eligible territory. I’m not saying that you can’t play FCS schools in your non-conference, but for competition’s sake, it would be nice to watch a game in September and not know who’s going to win before the first quarter ends. Normally, we would know how good a team is three or four games into the season. I’m not so sure we’re going to know how good some teams are until near the end of the season.
Despite all the ripping, I do have some shred of positivity. There are some really good games to look forward to. The SEC, supposedly the best football conference around, makes a lot of appearances on the non-conference schedule, as both Miami and Florida State play Florida, Clemson plays Alabama and South Carolina, Duke and Wake Forest play Vanderbilt, Georgia Tech plays Mississippi State, NC State plays South Carolina, and Wake plays Mississippi. Other than Virginia playing USC, Miami playing Texas A&M, and Florida State playing Colorado, there aren’t a whole lot of games that look to be very enjoyable.
I would hope in the future that the athletics directors decide to schedule teams most of us have actually heard of. It would be nice to hear the ACC in conversation with other conferences like the SEC, the Pac 10, and the Big 12 amongst the college football elite. But when you schedule half of your non-conference games against teams a whole level below, you’re not going to earn respect.
Filed under: 01-Football, 14-Will's World, Boston College, Clemson, Duke, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Maryland, Miami, North Carolina, North Carolina State, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest | Tagged: ACC, atlantic Coast Conference, Blue Devils, Cavaliers, Demon Deacons, Eagles, FSU, Hokies, Hurricanes, N.C. State, Seminoles, sports, Tar Heels, Terrapins, Tigers, UNC, UVa., VA Tech, Wolfpack, Yellow Jackets
You forgot to mention that Georgia Tech plays @ Georgia.
So Jimmy how do you feel about that game with the new coach at Tech?
Yeh, I know its really early for that kind of prediction but I’d really like a fan’s gut feel on this one.
The lack of knowledge about Tech’s O, D, & ST leaves me with no feel as to expectations. I like the idea of the Tech Spread as an offense and also a defense that will be aggressive including CB.
That being said, I think UGa will be loaded.
Oops…I did forget that one.
The ACC and football? lol Stick with what you do best…basketball. App could beat at least half the teams in the ACC. By the way, there is no way App could possibly be considered a weakling. If they were, why did Carolina, GT and Wake turn us down to play us?
Interesting question and conjecture Drew.
No doubt the ACC is a super basketball conference and we’ve been lacking in the trenches. With that I’ll say that keeping an eye on ACC football and watch the growth. There may be some stumbling on the way but the changes in coaches and a more concerted effort by the head cheese to beef up the package is noteworthy.
Appy is definitely not a weakling….at least from one other perspective.
And Jimmy I appreciate that input on GT/UGA.
The Noles are guilty of some shenanigans with the sched. They had two spots to fill, and usually they fill those spots with quality opponents. In December they announced they filled the spots with Western Carolina and UT-Chatanooga. They also placed those games the first two weeks of the season. A week later the academic debcale came to light, that would amount to several prominent players being suspended, not only for the bowl game, but the first few games in 2008. Coincidence, I think not.
You left out VT at Nebraska. That will be a very interested matchup.
Good point. VA Tech will still be a good, maybe great, team this season. Nebraska will be one huge question mark. I want to say Tech will win, but I can’t fully convince myself to say that.
C’mon man….the ACC is hardly alone in this tactic of playing powder puff non-conference games. Look up Ohio State’s schedule last year….7 home games. Non conference games against such national powerhouses as Akron, Youngstown State and Kent State. Clearly they were the best team in the state of Ohio. They did travel to Washington though….they were a good team like 15 years ago.
In 2006 they also played 7 home games and their non-conference included one tough team - Texas - at The Horseshoe. Northern Illinois, Cincinnati, and Bowling Green completed their non-conference schedule. What was their reward for scheduling a bunch of weaklings and playing in the weakest of the BCS conferences? Yup, you got it…back to back appearances in the BCS title game.
And you wonder why AD’s want to schedule this way?
Lastly, to include the PAC-10 in the same sentence as SEC and Big 12 is disgusting. Aside from USC, that conference is as soft as they come.
No conference is immune from scheduling the FCS schools. They all do. But with the lower tier FBS conferences (MAC, C-USA, WAC, etc) raising their fees for coming and losing by four touchdowns, schools are resorting to scheduling to FCS schools more and more. I don’t like it, and I would rather see a ninth conference game for the ACC than another matchup with Wofford.
In doing some research, I checked the schedules of the six major conferences, and compiled a list by conference of matchups against these FCS schools. Of course, the ACC was on top. This is just my math, and it could be wrong, but here’s my unofficial list:
ACC-15
SEC-11
Big 12- 10
Big 10- 9
Big East-7
Pac 10- 2