Fire John Swofford now. I can’t imagine the rest of the ACC having much confidence in him at this point. Perhaps a firing and a “come together moment” for the other conferene members can buy the ACC an extra year before schools start bolting or even save the conference completely.

As I see it, the ACC needs to re-evaluate some of their long standing bi-laws, namely equal revenue sharing and their stance on partial membership….at least until this foolish contract expires.

The ACC is also a some what difficult parner as far as bowls are concerned. It’s the reason why the Gator bowl dropped the ACC. The problem arises is because bowl executives want to choose certain schools out of the ACC because the fans travel well, they draw more eyes, etc. To do bussiness with the ACC, these bowl executives some times have to take teams they really do not want. For example: The CFA, Music City and Champs bowl has to take the conference champ runner up at least once every 4 years. Boston College was the runner up twice, you can only guess what the Champs and Music City bowls were thinking when they were forced to take them.

And with the ACC stuck with this lousey deal for the long haul, the conference needs to figure out how to save money and generate additional revenue to compensate for the weak contract.

I would start by re-aligning the divisions North and South with a few exceptions if a certain school seems to fit better. Some of the inconsequential, existing rivalries may need to be broken up (UVA vs Duke, UNC vs Duke), but it will save money traveling and give fans some games that will be more meaningful within the region.

Schools like Duke, Wake Forest and BC with their tiny stadiums and small fan base need to think about playing VT, Clemson and FSU on a “neutral site” when it’s their turn to be the home team. I will give you an example how it was done before: In 1999 Duke played their home game against FSU in Jacksonville, FL in front of 70,000 or more. You can see how if the gate revenue is divided equally, 70,000 tickets sold is > than 25,0000 tickets sold.

All schools should be able to keep a bigger chunk of their post season revenue. Of course FSU, Clemson, VT are going to get invited to the better paying bowls. Schools who missed the post season in that sport for that year get none of the share. This will encourage schools to invest in their athletic programs rather than being content to being a welfare recipient. This is basically the extent of unequal revenue sharing.

The ACC headquarters also takes a (will be) 1/15 share of all conference revenue. Time for most of this money to go back to the schools athletic department.

The ACC should think about partial membership. Take Navy in football and Georgetown for everything else, combined you have a pretty solid addition. You can probably figure out another Franknstein member with some imagination.

Then there is a matter of cutting off some dead weight. It may be time to cut off Wake Forest and Boston College from the ACC tit. I would give until the next “look-in” clause under the new ACC structure that I outlined to see if they are pulling their weight in revenue stream, if not then bye-bye, 1 or 2 less mouths to feed.

Putting aside all the razamataz and angst, if all of these concessions were made, would you hope your school would stick around for another year or 2 to implement these ideas before deciding to bolt?

Just off the top of my head….

No way Georgetown leaves the Big East under any circumstances. And WF has won as much as anyone in the ACC and no way can you cut them off.

Fire Swoffard yes… should have been long ago. But it’s likely to late. With the Big 16 vs SEC 16 and the B1G vs Pac 16, the ACC and Notre Dame unless ND blocks MD out of the B1G are screwed.

I was using Georgetown as an example, it could be Villanova for all I care.

Wake Forest could go to a the Orange bowl 5 years in a row, but if nobody is watching and tickets are not being sold, then they are dead weight. Cutting them off is basically the last ditch effort after the conference is molded into my plan, hopefully for their sake they can make enough money for the conference to make themselves useful. As of right now, they are dead weight and tv rating show it.

Wake Forest has won as much “what” as anyone in the ACC?  Just curious.  Let’s put this into perspective; WV did not regularly out-distance the otherBig East teams, so would UCONN have been a more attractive choice for the Big 12?  The ACC could cut WF and no one else would notice/care.  Of course that will not happen due to conference lineage.

The ACC will be looking to add probably 6 more basketball teams now. That is their future, basketball and they are lucky to have a 12 million dollar contract if it holds up after several teams leaving.

Get in the car there is no time to explain

SWVADON - 18 May 2012 11:42 PM

Wake Forest has won as much “what” as anyone in the ACC?  Just curious.  Let’s put this into perspective; WV did not regularly out-distance the otherBig East teams, so would UCONN have been a more attractive choice for the Big 12?  The ACC could cut WF and no one else would notice/care.  Of course that will not happen due to conference lineage.

SWVADON- I recognize this is an emotional time for you and your Hokies likely losing any chance to play with the big boys and all. Especially when it comes to putting ‘things’ into perspective. Did you really say WV, meaning WVU, did not regularly out-distance the other Big East teams, comparing WVU to UConn? You certainly spoke without thinking….

For WVU the past ten seasons have yielded the most prolific era of Mountaineer football to date, culminating in a 95-33 record since 2002.[9] During that span the Mountaineers have participated in ten bowl games, finished ranked in at least one of the AP or Coaches’ Polls on seven occasions, won six Big East Conference titles, and produced three BCS bowl game victories. West Virginia is one of only three FBS programs to have won at least nine games in each of the past seven seasons,[10] and its 95 victories over the past ten years rank 8th amongst FBS programs.[1

Ummmm… UConn? lol….. NOT

TB12…No, I was thinking when I wrote the post.  If you want to get technical, I didn’t speak per se, I wrote the comment.  As for VT, no, not an emotional time at all.  I’ll check some of your figures, however I am sure that you are correct.  Just didn’t realize WV…U was tearing up the BE so much.

How to save the ACC?  Build a time machine and hire a competent commissioner instead of Swofford.  It appears the 4 superconferences are on the horizon, and the ACC aint one of them.

Ding ding ding, Benjammer wins.

It is kind of funny I have screwed with TBE for years and never thought FSU and WVU might end up in the same division.

The Irony of the whole situation is that by the ACC NOT inviting WVU into the ACC may be the thing that destroys the ACC…....I say this because the Big 12 was on shaky ground when aTm and Missouri, Nebraska and Colorado left.  By adding some good fresh programs like TCU and WVU, the Big 12 has rebounded so nicely that if it picks up FSU, Clemson and adds couple more quality football centered schools, that league will be running neck and neck with the SEC….

In short, the academic snobbery of the ACC may be the thing that blows it right out of relevance in football.

If Swofford and the NC Mafia could have checked their academic egos at the door and brought WVU into the ACC, the league would have probably been able to lure another decent football program like Louisville and the ACC probably would have been fine.