CuseLegacy
Moderator
- Joined
- Aug 26, 2011
- Messages
- 94,354
- Like
- 146,515
In Jim Weaver’s 15 years as athletic director, Virginia Tech has played three regular-season football games against Southeastern Conference opponents. Weaver hopes to make future SEC encounters annual events not only for the Hokies but also the entire ACC.
With three intrastate ACC-SEC rivalries — Florida State-Florida, Clemson-South Carolina, and Georgia Tech-Georgia — permanent schedule fixtures, Weaver’s idea is for the remaining 11 schools in each conference to rotate home-and-home series. A complete cycle would take 22 years, an eternity in this era of hourly realignment.
But if, and it’s an elephantine if, both leagues remained stable at 14 members, the annual games could provide compelling games for fans and networks, and scheduling continuity for administrators.
Sure, you’d have occasional clunkers such as Duke-Alabama. But it’s not like those disparate programs are opposed to playing. They played a home-and-home in 2006 and ’10.
Virginia Tech-Tennessee, North Carolina State-Auburn, Virginia-Ole Miss (who would John Grisham root for there?), Wake Forest-Vanderbilt are matchups that probably would sell.
“I think it would be neat to have all the SEC teams coming through the ACC and vice-versa,” Weaver said.
With football scheduling done so far in advance, finding a mutually agreeable start date for such an undertaking would be, to say the least, challenging. The Pacific 12 and Big Ten announced a similar arrangement in December, to debut in 2017. Less than six months later, the conferences scrapped the idea.
“We recently learned from Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott that the complications associated with coordinating a non-conference football schedule for 24 teams across two conferences proved to be too difficult,” Big Ten commish Jim Delany said in a statement last month posted by ESPN.com. “Those complications, among other things, included the Pac-12's nine-game conference schedule and previous non-conference commitments.”
The ACC and SEC would be coordinating their 22 teams not already in an interconference rivalry. And like the Pac-12, the ACC is set to adopt a nine-game league schedule, while the SEC remains at eight.
“I’ve talked to one or two ADs about it,” Weaver said. “It doesn’t have any legs yet. But I would think the three teams in both leagues would want to have that happen” to create non-conference scheduling equity.
Cool idea worth exploring, but don’t hold your breath.
In addition to the three traditional ACC-SEC matchups, the leagues have met at least twice in 13 of the last 15 regular seasons. They also are contracted to play in the Chick-fil-A and Music City Bowls.
This year, N.C. State plays Tennessee, and Clemson faces Auburn, with both games in the Georgia Dome opening weekend. Also, Wake Forest closes the season against Vanderbilt.
Virginia Tech’s most recent regular-season SEC opponents: The Hokies lost to Alabama in 2010 and split with LSU, winning in 2002 and losing in 2007.
Tech swept Texas A&M, then in the Big 12 now in the SEC, in 2002 and ’03.
Virginia’s last regular-season series versus the SEC was a home-home with South Carolina in 2002 and ’03. Each team won at home.
This article caused a little stir in the ACC SEC Twitter universe.
With three intrastate ACC-SEC rivalries — Florida State-Florida, Clemson-South Carolina, and Georgia Tech-Georgia — permanent schedule fixtures, Weaver’s idea is for the remaining 11 schools in each conference to rotate home-and-home series. A complete cycle would take 22 years, an eternity in this era of hourly realignment.
But if, and it’s an elephantine if, both leagues remained stable at 14 members, the annual games could provide compelling games for fans and networks, and scheduling continuity for administrators.
Sure, you’d have occasional clunkers such as Duke-Alabama. But it’s not like those disparate programs are opposed to playing. They played a home-and-home in 2006 and ’10.
Virginia Tech-Tennessee, North Carolina State-Auburn, Virginia-Ole Miss (who would John Grisham root for there?), Wake Forest-Vanderbilt are matchups that probably would sell.
“I think it would be neat to have all the SEC teams coming through the ACC and vice-versa,” Weaver said.
With football scheduling done so far in advance, finding a mutually agreeable start date for such an undertaking would be, to say the least, challenging. The Pacific 12 and Big Ten announced a similar arrangement in December, to debut in 2017. Less than six months later, the conferences scrapped the idea.
“We recently learned from Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott that the complications associated with coordinating a non-conference football schedule for 24 teams across two conferences proved to be too difficult,” Big Ten commish Jim Delany said in a statement last month posted by ESPN.com. “Those complications, among other things, included the Pac-12's nine-game conference schedule and previous non-conference commitments.”
The ACC and SEC would be coordinating their 22 teams not already in an interconference rivalry. And like the Pac-12, the ACC is set to adopt a nine-game league schedule, while the SEC remains at eight.
“I’ve talked to one or two ADs about it,” Weaver said. “It doesn’t have any legs yet. But I would think the three teams in both leagues would want to have that happen” to create non-conference scheduling equity.
Cool idea worth exploring, but don’t hold your breath.
In addition to the three traditional ACC-SEC matchups, the leagues have met at least twice in 13 of the last 15 regular seasons. They also are contracted to play in the Chick-fil-A and Music City Bowls.
This year, N.C. State plays Tennessee, and Clemson faces Auburn, with both games in the Georgia Dome opening weekend. Also, Wake Forest closes the season against Vanderbilt.
Virginia Tech’s most recent regular-season SEC opponents: The Hokies lost to Alabama in 2010 and split with LSU, winning in 2002 and losing in 2007.
Tech swept Texas A&M, then in the Big 12 now in the SEC, in 2002 and ’03.
Virginia’s last regular-season series versus the SEC was a home-home with South Carolina in 2002 and ’03. Each team won at home.
This article caused a little stir in the ACC SEC Twitter universe.
