Can the flagging ACC survive in a football-driven industry?
Georgia Tech celebrates the 2009 ACC title, since vacated. (AJC photo by Johnny Crawford)
The ACC has long been the nation’s most prestigious basketball league, but at a time when college football grows ever larger, basketball counts for less. The almighty SEC figures to try and poach a team or two from the ACC and the Big East and the Big Ten likewise could make entreaties. Is it possible that the ACC could, in the not-so-distant future, cease not just to matter but to exist?
It was in 2003 that the ACC snatched Boston College, Miami and Virginia Tech from the Big East, which appeared bound for oblivion. But the Big East, in a deft bit of damage control, grew to 16 teams and became the nation’s best — as opposed to the most prestigious — basketball league. The ACC, by way of contrast, has reaped next to nothing from its expansion.
Since the ACC expanded to a dozen, only Virginia Tech has finished a season ranked in the top 10 of the final USA Today coaches’ poll, and in that span the Hokies haven’t cracked the season-ending top five. The SEC has won the past five BCS titles; the last ACC team even to play in the national championship game was Florida State in January 2001, which was so long ago Mark Richt, now the dean of SEC coaches, was the Seminoles’ offensive coordinator.
The ACC’s ballyhooed basketball has suffered, too. It has become a two-team enterprise: North Carolina and Duke have won three NCAA titles between them since expansion, but the last ACC school to reach the Final Four other than the Big Two was Georgia Tech in 2004. Even more distressing, seven of the 12 programs have changed coaches in the past 17 months.
Duke and Carolina stand as the two best basketball programs in the land — Kansas and UConn and Michigan State and Kentucky might quibble — but the balance of the league, once its regionally televised Thacker & Packer hallmark, no longer exists. Also gone are those days where every league game brought a full house at every arena. Five ACC schools saw decreases in home attendance last season, and three more had average increases of fewer than 100 per game
The question, then: If football tepid and basketball is top-heavy, what’s the lure of the ACC? Tradition, yes. Seven of these 12 have graced the conference since 1953, the year it was formed. Academics, sure. In scholastic terms, this is considered the most serious of the six BCS leagues. But are history and academics enough in a business where millions of dollars flow to the schools that play the best football?
The ACC is in trouble. Its image — and the ACC cares about image — has been sullied. Georgia Tech had to forfeit the 2009 conference title and was placed on four years’ probation by the NCAA. North Carolina has been hit with nine rules violations ranging from impermissible benefits to academic fraud. Miami could well get the death penalty in the wake of Nevin Shapiro’s jailhouse accusations.
If you’re Florida State … if you’re Clemson … if you’re Virginia Tech … if you’re North Carolina State … do you want to stay in the ACC and play Class AAA football if you have big-league options? (And surely some among those will.) Are ACC matters apt to improve anytime soon? Is John Swofford the man to save his conference in the way Mike Tranghese did the Big East? And if Swofford seeks to raid some other league before his gets raided, where does he turn? Nobody’s leaving the SEC, and who in the football-playing Big East might be amenable? Louisville? West Virginia? South Florida?
The ACC was a lovely idea more than a half-century ago: Schools of common interest in a tight geographic area. Over time, the conference has sought to broaden its base, which is necessary in a zero-sum marketplace. The reality, alas, is that the base hasn’t grown but thinned. This has become a strange-looking league with one toe in Boston Harbor and another in the sands of South Beach, and the football it plays isn’t very good. And football matters above all else.
By Mark Bradley
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397 comments Add your comment
BigTimeTechFan
August 22nd, 2011
7:11 pm
Based on Mark B’s logic, Tech is a better football program
Last time UGA won national championship was 1980
Last time Tech won was 1990
Even I being a Tech fan thinks that would be stupid conclusion
ACC
Tech is good, last 3 years beat Miss St, Vandy, those are SEC teams last I checked, won 1 lost 2 verses UGA
USC who was in SEC championship game last year got beat by ACC runner up in Chick Fil A Bowl
Florida St beat SEC powerhouse Florida who won 2 of those national titles 31-7
SEC is overall a little better, but saying the ACC is so bad in football it should break up is just stupid.
Stinger 1
August 22nd, 2011
7:11 pm
Tech will be back as a top ranked program in every sport . Time will tell . Took my soon to be step son a tour of Ga to see what they had to offer & The idiots doing the tour talked more about the cafe thn anything else …….Boy did that make him want to go there . Waht losers.
Beast from the East
August 22nd, 2011
7:15 pm
BigTimeTechFan,
Hanging your hat on beating MSU, Vandy and a down UGA team? FSU beating UF for the first time in 7 years. Yeah, the ACC is REAL close. LOL!
Spin it however you’d like, but the SEC has no equal in football currently. Could that change in the future? Yes, but that remains to be seen.
BigTimeTechFan
August 22nd, 2011
7:16 pm
Auburn who beat all SEC schools, played Clemson who was at best 3rd team in the ACC, game went to overtime.
Guess every team in SEC who can’t beat Auburn should leave there so bad
Supersize that order, mutt
August 22nd, 2011
7:17 pm
I would like to see Tech back in the SEC because of the traditional rivalries. I would much rather play Auburn, Bama, and UT every year than UNC, Duke (although we played them every year anyway), and the likes of Wake, NC State, and BC. Now if they would realign the ACC so that Clemson and FSU were in our division, that might make a difference. But as it stands now, we really have no traditional rivals in the ACC whom we play every year other than Clemson, and they are not in our division.
BigTimeTechFan
August 22nd, 2011
7:20 pm
Beast From the East – Are Miss St and Vandy SEC teams, yes.
ACC gets dogged because it can’t beat Auburn in one given year, well no SEC team could beat them
Same for Bama the year before, Florida the year before that, If the SEC was so powerful there is no way these teams could go undefeated in conference
I’m not even saying ACC is better, but people talking like the conference should break up are crazy.
Delbert D.
August 22nd, 2011
7:23 pm
Beast – I doubt that Miami would get the death penalty; they don’t have the guts. I agree with your overall premise, however. The NCAA is in a tricky position currently because of the ACC teams. How can probation for Georgia Tech be justified without nuking Miami and slamming UNC hard to the mat?
Supersize that order, mutt
August 22nd, 2011
7:23 pm
Beast, the key word in what you just posted is “currently.” College football is very very cyclical. The Big 10 (or however many) had their day, and may again. What was the Big 12 had their day in the 70s and sporadically since then. The Pac 10 (though mostly only USC) had their day. The now-defunct SWC had their days. The SEC is obviously at the top now, but that can and probably will change. But it still has only been Bama, Auburn, UF, and LSU. Nobody else in the SEC has done much in the past 4 years. USC (east) is trying, UT is way down, and Georgia has only been relevant in their own minds.
Supersize that order, mutt
August 22nd, 2011
7:25 pm
Delbert, if they hit Tech with 4 years probation, etc for nothing, then they HAVE to come down incredibly hard on both Miami and UNC. It’s ironic that a man with close UNC connections was primarily responsible for Tech’s probation. I hope that comes back to bite him in the butt.
Atlantan
August 22nd, 2011
7:31 pm
Mark you like to kick’em while their down. GT’s probation is bogus and they’ll probably win on appeal. What comes around goes around – in the past 10 years both bama and Auburn have been on significant (no bowl for you!) probation and only a matter a time before Auburn is b-slapped.
The ACC might or might not survive in it’s current state, but it isn’t like the SEC is a conference of saints – grey shirt lately? Has the AJC even covered this beyond a trite column or running an AP story? It was in the WSJ, but since the SEC “owns Atlanta” – just askin?
Greenhulk
August 22nd, 2011
7:33 pm
Ga Tech would be a better fit in the Big Ten. It will increase the Big Ten footprint into the south. Look for this to happen when the SEC makes their first move.
Beast from the East
August 22nd, 2011
7:41 pm
Delbert,
If the goings on at Miami don’t warrant the Death Penalty, what does?
Beast from the East
August 22nd, 2011
7:44 pm
Supersize,
That’s exactly why I used the word “currently”. I know that no one stays on top forever, but for BigTimeTechFan to argue that the ACC is even close right now is just wishful thinking.
George P
August 22nd, 2011
7:45 pm
This article is horrible and is just designed to elicit a reaction. More reason to stop reading the AJC.
Alabama Jack
August 22nd, 2011
7:52 pm
Wish we could get decent sports writers. That would solve a lot of the problems.
SEC
August 22nd, 2011
7:53 pm
No ACC team in final top five for 11 years, only Va tech has finished in top 10, 3 times since joining the conference and someone thinks the ACC is close? Wishful thinking is kind ,delusional would be a more accurate assessment.
Ramblin Man
August 22nd, 2011
7:54 pm
It is funny that so many UGA fans hate the idea of GT getting back in the SEC. Do you fear that recruiting might get a little more even? I guess that is the same reason that the UGA controled board of regents does not want GT to expand the cirriculum.
Back to the matter at hand, let the ACC reach out to other schools that actually have student athletes and form thier own division. The SEC can then throw away the idea of having to send thier athletes to bogus classes and useless majors form a minor leauge division and call it a day.
Ramblin Man
August 22nd, 2011
7:57 pm
ah another lost post.
Somewhere over the Dwayne Bowe
August 22nd, 2011
7:58 pm
Wake me up when SEC schools decide to challenge themselves out of conference.
Ernie McCraken
August 22nd, 2011
8:02 pm
All you retard SEC fans need to get a clue. The SEC doesn’t want Clemson or FSU. It doesn’t expand their TV markets morons, it only weakens them. Ya’ll wish you could have those teams. Clemson gave Auburn the best game they played all year last year. If they ever recruited a kicker they would have won the game. SEC will pursue VT(who won’t leave) N.C. State, or Virginia. They’re in the south, and the SEC has no foothold in those TV markets. Remember, this is all about money, and nothing else. Why would VT leave when they’re dominating the ACC. Can you say easier path to national championship. DUHHHHHHHHHH Retard UGA fans. Hey BAMA Fan why don’t you ride a bike with no seat loser. Like BAMA doesn’t cheat you lying redneck.
SEC
August 22nd, 2011
8:02 pm
Stinger 1 , No ones had to sit around and wait for tech to fail in football. 1 major bowl appearance since Dodd left, .539 winning percentage , as many 1 win seasons as 10 or 11 win seasons,15 wins vs UGA since 1957.
Flat Tire on I-95 in Jacksonville
August 22nd, 2011
8:04 pm
Stinger1
I bet you and your son combined weigh in at around 700 lbs
Thats why all you heard was about the cafe.
You should try thinking about other things than food
Stinger 1
August 22nd, 2011
8:04 pm
bla bla bla .
gtfanfrom1951
August 22nd, 2011
8:05 pm
UGA- Jan Kemp
I can’t keep up with how many times LSU has been and then there Bama at least 3 times
Fla when Charlie Pell was the coach
Mississippi State thanks to Jackie S.
Thugs are in mighty SEC too!
Brave Hokie
August 22nd, 2011
8:07 pm
The ACC gets slighted because it resides in the SEC’s foot print…
Over the past 7 years I’d put the ACC’s middle tier teams against the middle tiers of the Pac 10, even Big 10 ~ but those conferences aren’t playing the SEC all the time {and not faring much better than the ACC when they do…}
Now the ACC “Top” Teams is where the big time disappointment exists…
gtfanfrom1951
August 22nd, 2011
8:07 pm
Before Tech left the SEC UGA was the little school so I can understand why they don’t wants us back in the SEC.
Delbert D.
August 22nd, 2011
8:07 pm
Beast – There is an article on another site that I didn’t bother to read that supposedly shows how much more egregious SMU’s violations were compared to Miami’s. The nytimes article of Aug. 19, however quotes Emmert as saying the death penalty option is on the table. Maybe the NCAA president has a guy carrying around a briefcase with secret codes to launch the Death Penalty, like the President of the U.S. has a Major carrying the “Football” with nuclear missile launch codes. How’s that for synchronicity?
Stinger 1
August 22nd, 2011
8:08 pm
That would be step son & about 125 soaking wet & The idiots that showed him around that pitiful school was some teenybopper idiot who had the professionalism of an ant. Oh Gee look at our history on our newly painted dorm. What about education I ask? Not here …………….We’re very uneducated. Hmmmmm What I figured.
Warhorse
August 22nd, 2011
8:10 pm
The Almost Competitive Conference may survive, but it will not challenge the SEC or any other conference that survives the shuffle. Plus, in a couple of years the SEC will be a better BB league than ACC. It already is better in baseball, as amply demostrated by last year.
Stinger 1
August 22nd, 2011
8:11 pm
S orry E ntertainment C onference
Stinger 1
August 22nd, 2011
8:17 pm
Gee………I live in Alabama duh I ‘ll root for Bama. Uhhhhh I live in Ga I’ll root for UGA ( cuz that’s what my daddy told me to do) hmmm I live in Tennessee I must be a vol, Doesn’t anybody in these states in the SEC have a brain enough to CHOOSE for themselves………………..or they all have to be homers. Nuff said.
Chris
August 22nd, 2011
8:17 pm
The ACC teams academic pedigree are what keeps them together. They are bound by academic standard that are very high where other conferences academic standards are poor.
Flat Tire on I-95 in Jacksonville
August 22nd, 2011
8:19 pm
Stinger 1
Let me break it to you bud
When Americans think of academics Oxford, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford comes to their mind first
Not GT and not UGA
So you can live in your small world and pound your chest about academics no one cares about the drunken wreck from GT
The academic bowl doesnt fill up 90,000 seat stadiums or have high tv ratings so please enough with the academics.
Beast from the East
August 22nd, 2011
8:20 pm
Delbert,
If all the things they allege really happened at The U, then I would vote for the Death Penalty. How can any school allow a booster that much access to their recruits and players? How could they not check into it? Total lack of institutional control. I don’t care how cooperative they are being right now….they need to be sat on a corner for a year or two.
Beast from the East
August 22nd, 2011
8:22 pm
Chris,
Does that “academic standard” extend to the Clown College in Tallahasse?
Supersize that order, mutt
August 22nd, 2011
8:23 pm
Jacksonville, I hate to break it to you, bubba, but Tech constantly ranks among the top public universities/institutions in the country and is one of the top technical colleges in the world. You can say what you want about UGA, but GT is always thought of for its academics.
Supersize that order, mutt
August 22nd, 2011
8:25 pm
Beast, you are probably too young to remember this or to have heard of it, but FSU used to bring a circus troup to Atlanta as part of their half-time shows. I have to admit, it was always pretty cool. But to their credit, FSU is much more than that. They have an outstanding plasma physics department.
Flat Tire on I-95 in Jacksonville
August 22nd, 2011
8:29 pm
Supersize that order, mutt
Please re-read what I said moron. What COMES TO MIND FIRST
Kinda like what comes to mind when asked about champions in baseball
NY Yankees
Football
Notre Dame
Alabama
Green Bay
Dallas Cowboys
Basketball
Celtics
Lakers
KY
Duke
NC
Get it stupid or should I call you Bubba
Tobias Funke
August 22nd, 2011
8:30 pm
^^^^ from the pic above.
NOW THAT’S WHAT YOU CALL UGLY UNIFORMS!!!
JASon
August 22nd, 2011
8:34 pm
“The question, then: If football tepid and basketball is top-heavy”
I completely agree if football tepid. Hooked on phonics worked for me.
Paul in NH (formerly RDU)
August 22nd, 2011
8:37 pm
Flat Tire – In your ranking of top academic schools you missed a much better school than any of those wannabe’s – my alma mater.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/sep/08/cambridge-worlds-best-university-harvard
Supersize that order, mutt
August 22nd, 2011
8:38 pm
Jacksonville, every school which you mentioned is primarily a liberal arts university. Tech is NOT a liberal arts university; it is an engineering institute, and it is up there with MIT and Cal Tech, as well as the various engineering schools throughout the world. Academics is not limited to liberal arts. But even as an engineering school, it is still ranked among ALL the universities and institutes. Only Vandy, Duke, and UNC are southeastern schools that are similarly ranked.
Supersize that order, mutt
August 22nd, 2011
8:39 pm
Paul, he’s probably never left the southeast US, so I doubt he’s ever heard of your alma mater
No Class on I-95
August 22nd, 2011
8:42 pm
Paul – don’t bother with Flat Tire, he just wants to know if you want chips with your fish.
Paul in NH (formerly RDU)
August 22nd, 2011
8:44 pm
Supersize,
Had to support my meritocratic alma mater against the public school elitists from Oxford.
Delbert D.
August 22nd, 2011
8:44 pm
Beast – I doubt if any death penalty decision will be made until after this school year. Miami should not play the 15 football players this season that have been named. Otherwise, how can one really call it cooperation, regardless of Dona Shalala’s words? Georgia Tech got 4 years of probation for not sitting 2 players for the Georgia game and the bowl, and one of those guys was found by the NCAA not to have broken any rules.
Paul in NH (formerly RDU)
August 22nd, 2011
8:45 pm
No Class – better have some malt vinegar with it as well!
BCWRECK
August 22nd, 2011
8:48 pm
Mark, I really do not see your point in this article. Do you think that the ACC should aspire to be as good as the Big 10 this year? They are.
Or do you think they should be as good as the SW conference (Big 12 or 10?). They are.
You and others don’t want the league too top heavy today, but next week you will want them to have more marquee teams.
I logically don’t understand your point, but I do understand the point of selling newspapers.
Supersize that order, mutt
August 22nd, 2011
8:49 pm
Paul, so Oxford is public and Cambridge is private? I never knew that.
Just sayin'
August 22nd, 2011
8:49 pm
Typical UGA drivel here. Don’t you guys have some burgers and fries to cook?
Ever get concerned about the state of our society that places so much emphasis on this crap?