ACC expansion: Watered-down rivalries and random divisions

Remember all the great moments from the Wake Forest-N.C. State rivalry? Neither do we.

When the ACC raided the Big East a few years ago in a desperate attempt to become a football power, it ended one of the things that I used to love about the conference — every team played every other team once a year in football and twice in basketball.

I especially miss the double round-robin in basketball. The added familiarity with opponents better prepared ACC teams for March Madness, and it made conference rivalries stronger. If N.C. State lost its first game against one of the Big 4, I always knew there would be a rematch.

With the expansion to 12 teams, it was bad enough that N.C. State was no longer guaranteed to play Duke twice in basketball (or at all in football). With the conference growing to 14 in a year or two, it was inevitable that more rivals would play each other less frequently.

Under the new scheduling format announced last week, each basketball team gets one primary rival to play in a home-and-home every year. In N.C. State’s case, it’s Wake Forest. No offense to the Deacons, but the one home game that Wolfpackers care about above all others is against Carolina. Once every three years, the Tar Heels won’t have to come to Raleigh.

Getting expansion right

Would Bill Stewart's Mountaineers be the logical replacement for Boston College if the Eagles left the ACC? (AP Photo/Jeff Gentner)

This past summer, there was a rash of speculation over Boston College’s possible exit from the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Whispers among Big East officials led to a series of stories positing that Boston College could leave the ACC and crawl back home to its former conference. The N&O’s Caulton Tudor gave a nice rundown of the (admittedly tepid) case for BC to walk.

Caulton also gave us nice fodder for a little thought experiment. In the unlikely event that BC does leave, who should replace them?

One stipulation, before we begin: we’re only addressing revenue sports here. We love non-revs as much as anyone, but they’ll never drive conference affiliation decisions.