The latest rumors I have heard are that FSU and Clemson will likely leave the ACC to go to the Big 12 starting with the 2013 season. Look for an annoucement sometime in June.
This may be prompted by the rumors that the recently announced end to the BCS and the upcoming 4 team playoff for the national championship may leave out the Big East and the ACC.
Not that I particularly care, but it has to be asked: Where does Notre Dame fit in?
The ACC and Big East have had bad SoS issues because their teams have been so bad lately. Let the ACC start getting the best of the ACC/SEC rivalries (hello Clemson, FSU, Ga Tech) and the SoF will not be so bad.
The ACC plays a lot of OOC games against the SEC and since SEC has been so dominant lately, the ACC looks bad.
I do think it would be a bad mistake, from a recruiting point of view, for Clemson and FSU, to leave the ACC. If they are going to make a move, the SEC makes so much more sense to me.
From what I understand, Florida and South Carolina have both said no to FSU and Clemson to coming into the SEC. There was talk of them lobbying for the SEC back when A&M and Mizzou were being considered.
I think you’re reading your article wrong. The rumors (as reported in your article) are that the new playoff system will do away with automatic qualifiers, and rely heavily on strength of schedule. On that alone, the Big East and the ACC are on the outside looking in, because their football teams traditionally have very weak SoSs.
[QUOTE=notfrommensa]
Not that I particularly care, but it has to be asked: Where does Notre Dame fit in?
[/QUOTE]
As long as conference realignment remains a shuffling game, ND stays put. But the moment things start to consolidate into 16 team superconferences, they’ll join somewhere. There’s far more money in the Big Ten for them right now compared to their current NBC deal - but I think the Irish really enjoy the national spotlight of a broadcast network rather than the opt-in nature of the BTN.
ACC’s Schedules are not weak. The teams are weak. They tend to play more OOC games against BCS schools (on a per team basis) than the Big 12, Big 10 and SEC. One problem, they lose too many of these games.
Clemson has been playing Auburn and South Carolina for the past few years.
Year in Year Out, I’ll put FSU’s OOC schedule against most other BCS conference schools.
The problem with the SoS calculation is that there is sort of ‘snowball’ effect in the SoS calculation. Teams play 8 out 12 of a teams games are inter-conference, forced wins and forced losses. so the SoS is heavily dependent on your conference winning OOC games. When Ga Tech {sigh} loses every year to UGA (and they do), and Maryland loses to West Virgina, and Clemson loses to South Carolina, it hurts the SoS of every team in the ACC.
IMO, There is no problem with the SoS of ACC Teams. All the ACC needs to do is starting winning those OOC and their SoS will go up.
Yeah, that’s kind of the point. For the purposes of this discussion, OOC is completely meaningless, because those games are up to the individual schools to schedule. It’s the in-conference competition that matters when you’re discussing whether schools would benefit from jumping ship to another conference.
That’s great. You are aware that FSU is currently considering bolting for the Big 12, right? That’s because OOC has absolutely nothing to do with this discussion.
Is that all you got out of my post?:dubious: how did “winning” do for Boise St and TCU? Winning never got them into the into the BCS game.
With the BCS formulas being somewhat dependent on the SoS, it not only depends on who you beat, but also on who your opponents beat and who your opponent’s opponent’s beat.
Boise had no chance of getting to the BCS game, because their opponents had a schedule full of games against Portland St type schools. Their SoS was terrible.
[QUOTE=Munch]
Yeah, that’s kind of the point. For the purposes of this discussion, OOC is completely meaningless, because those games are up to the individual schools to schedule. It’s the in-conference competition that matters when you’re discussing whether schools would benefit from jumping ship to another conference.
That’s great. You are aware that FSU is currently considering bolting for the Big 12, right? That’s because OOC has absolutely nothing to do with this discussion.
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The OP made the point that they considering bolting because the ACC SoS is bad. I am making the case the ACC schedules are not bad, the teams are bad. The ACC has a tough OOC schedule and if they start winning those games, it will help the SoS of the entire conference.
ACC played 29 (10-19) OOC games against BCS conference teams + Notre Dame
SEC played 19 (14-5) OOC games against BCS conference teams + ND
Big10 played 19 (10-9) OOC games against BCS conference teams + ND
(includes Bowl Games)
Of the 12 team conferences that play 4 OOC games, the ACC played 10 more games against BCS caliber schools than Big 10 and SEC.
[QUOTE=notfrommensa]
I am making the case the ACC schedules are not bad, the teams are bad.
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Gotcha - that makes sense, and I certainly won’t disagree with you. In fact, if you take OOC completely out of the equation like I first said, every conference is equal, obvioiusly. Yeah - it’s the teams that are bad. And if you take FSU and Clemson out of it, the ACC is an even worse collection of teams.
That was a rumor going around at the time, but it doesn’t really make sense. The whole point of expansion was adding TV markets to the SEC. If A&M hadn’t been interested, no expansion would have taken place. Missouri doesn’t really fit in to the conference, but they add some huge TV markets that would not have otherwise cared about SEC sports.
Boise’s problem isn’t who their opponents play. It’s that they are playing Portland St type schools. I’m sure they’d love to join a better conference too. And it’d be nice to see them play against some real competition week-in and week-out to see how good they really are.
The schedules are bad because the teams are bad. Your conference schedule makes up 75% of your schedule. Even if some teams do an admirable job making up for it out of conference, you still have most of your schedule against bad teams.
Although for the record, in 2012 Florida State is playing Murray State, Savannah State, South Florida, and Florida in their four OOC games. Clemson is playing Auburn, Ball State, Furman, and South Carolina. Doesn’t sound like they are trying that hard to compete with the big boys in terms of SoS. (Of course, they playoff system isn’t in place yet. The current system rewards going undefeated more than beating good teams, so long as your schedule isn’t completely awful. ACC teams, even Va Tech who never plays anyone decent OOC, have a shot at it if they go 12-0 in the current system.)
I heard earlier today that ESPN and the ACC announced their new television deal…the newly anticipated amount is $17 million per school per year. I pretty sure that just sealed the deal for Clemson and FSU to bolt. Big 12 schools get close to $30 million per school per year, in their deal with ESPN and Fox.
I’ve heard this a lot lately on various Big 12 relate boards, but I’m convinced this rumor is either just some Big 12 fan’s wet dream that they keep posting in whatever forum they can get in to or some semi-clever negotiating chip by the two schools to get something. What they want, I have no idea. Sure the Big 12 is a better football conference but why take the effort to go to a more challenging conference that’s often on the verge of collapse when you can stay in the cushy, stable, and geographically logical ACC.
That being said, I’d love to see them in the Big 12. I just don’t see it happening anytime soon. I think the Big 12 staying at 10 or picking up BYU and Louisville as much more likely. I personally kind of like the 10 team round-robin schedule. When there was a championship it was usually just OU or Texas facing off against the 4th or 5th best team in the conference.
Savannah State was a last minute replacement for WVU who cancelled on us (due to their conference switch). That would have made 3/4 BCS OOC games. We tried. Too bad the Mountaineers pussed out.
ETA: FSU leaves the ACC for the SEC or the Big10. Nobody else.
I had heard $20 million for the Big 12, but it is still just a rumor. I think the $30 million comes from a very generous valuation of “Tier three” rights on top of the ESPN/Fox deal by some overly zealous West Virginia fans (if you can find a way to make a profit on paying $10 million to broadcast the least desirable games played by WVU teams, you’re probably in the wrong line of work).
The main problem with this scenario is that ESPN is on both sides of the transaction – why would ESPN lift a finger to help Florida State (or any ACC school for that matter) leave the ACC, where ESPN has all of the rights to all of their conference games in all sports until 2026, for the Big 12, where they only get first pick (Tier One) and share the rest with Fox (Tier Two) and FSU itself (Tier Three, ie the Savannah State game and FSU wrestling). The deal would depend on ESPN agreeing to pay the Big 12 tens of millions more than they already do if they take FSU or Clemson (to increase the per-school take while adding schools), and I don’t see how that is in their interest at all, when except for possibly a few games (FSU/Clemson vs Oklahoma/Texas) the product is much less compelling.
The rumor about Clemson and FSU and the new Big 12 contract has usually included the detail that ESPN and Fox included a list of schools to add that would prompt automatic escalations in the payout of $2 million/school/year. Given ESPN’s interests in the two conferences (the ACC is basically a wholly owned subsidiary at this point, they even might sell ESPN the naming rights to the college basketball tournament), how likely is it that if that list exists, it includes any ACC schools? If there is such a “hit list,” or “hunting license” that would suggest to me that it doesn’t – ESPN would want to add new revenue streams, not to dilute current ones like FSU and Clemson while damaging the value of their other ACC “partners.”
Also, the ACC is definately down in football the last decade, but still is one of the top three conferences in football TV ratings (I think because it still makes more geographic sense than most conferences), which at the end of the day matters more for these kind of decisions than success on the field.
All of this is, of course, disgusting (except for the part about conferences making geographic sense).
I think we can all agree that geography, non-football sports, historical rivalries, and common sense have nothing to do with the recent conference realignment moves.
It’s a [del]chess[/del] game of chicken to ensure that when the super conferences do eventually arrive, that you are in one and that you have a chance to compete.