Manic Monday

'11 Football ACC & Other ACC Teams College Football12

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September 19, 2011

NC STATE FOOTBALL

Just In Case You Missed It:

J.P. GIGLIO (N&O)
Pack dispatches South Alabama

J.P. GIGLIO (N&O)
N.C. State Wolfpack

J.P. GIGLIO (N&O)
Pack receivers earning keep

GOPACK.COM
Wolfpack Tames Jaguars with Aerial Assault

MATT CARTER (THEWOLFPACKER.COM)
R.J.MATTES, O-LINE SHOWED IMPROVEMENT

Jacey Zembal (TheWolfpacker.com)
Wolfpack offense starting to take shape

Matt Carter and Ryan Tice (TheWolfpacker.com)
Quick Hits from N.C. State’s win

Jacey Zembal (TheWolfpacker.com)
Mike Glennon’s Four TD’s spark Pack

Associated Press
Glennon fires 4 TD passes in N.C. State victory over South Alabama

AKULA WOLF (BACKINGTHEPACK.COM)
NC State 35, South Alabama 13

AKULA WOLF (BACKINGTHEPACK.COM)
NC State 35, South Alabama 13: Media Roundup

ACC FOOTBALL

Brett Friedlander (starnewsonline.com)
FIFTH QUARTER: Three out of four ain’t bad

5. Fumbling Wolfpack: N.C. State showed signs of improvement on both sides of the ball in beating FCS newcomer South Alabama, but still also has plenty to work on before traveling to Cincinnati next week. Of particular concern are the three lost fumbles, including a second in three games by QB Mike Glennon.

Andrew Skwara (ACCSports.com)
ACC Football Power Rankings, Sept. 19

9. N.C. State (2-1, 0-1 ACC)
The Wolfpack disposed of its second FCS foe this season with an easy 35-13 rout of South Alabama. QB Mike Glennon played almost perfect, going 17-of-20 with four touchdowns and no picks. A road trip to Cincinnati for a Thursday night game should give a genuine read on where the Wolfpack stands.
Upcoming Game: Thursday at Cincinnati (2-1)
Previous Ranking: No. 9

JIM YOUNG (ACCSPORTS.COM)
Second Thoughts On ACC Expansion & Week 3

ANDREW JONES (FOXSPORTSSOUTH.COM)
Grading Week 3 in the ACC

N.C. State – If the Wolfpack can’t dominate a South Alabama team that basically is in its second year playing college teams (many of which are Division II) after a week of blistering from its head coach, maybe this just isn’t a very good football team. NCSU beat the Jaguars 35-13, but it wasn’t a blowout by any stretch, as the stats illustrate. State wasn’t as strong at the line of scrimmage as should be expected. Grade: C-.

ACC EXPANSION

CAULTON TUDOR (N&O)
ACC more interested in TV money than fans

Whether constant expansion improves ACC sports no longer matters.

The league’s schools clearly have reached a conclusion that growth for growth’s sake is smart business. That being the case, it made all the sense in the world that the ACC was up and at ’em just after sunrise on Sunday.

After all, television money never sleeps, as Gordon Gekko might say.

Will fans embrace new teams in either sport? Probably not, and certainly not entirely. But it’s no longer about the fans or the players. It’s about ESPN money.

Like it or not, conferences in the traditional sense are on the way out in college sports. They’re being replaced by clumsy collections of television markets.

Ken Tysiac (N&O)
Syracuse, Pitt add possibilities to ACC

Swofford said the changing college athletic landscape makes it certain that strong conferences will continue to be approached by schools hoping to join. He said the ACC has received inquiries numbering in double digits from schools aspiring to become members, but wouldn’t name the schools.

“We’re very comfortable with this 14,” he said. “The only thing I would add to that is that we are not philosophically opposed to 16, but for now we are very pleased with this 14. We think it’s an excellent group.”

Although the Palm Beach Post reported last week that Florida State will establish a committee to assess its long-term conference options, Swofford said he believes the current membership of the ACC is unified.

Caulton Tudor (N&O)
An opening for ECU?

KEN TYSIAC (N&O)
ACC expands by adding Syracuse, Pittsburgh

In a Sunday morning teleconference arranged by the ACC, Pittsburgh Chancellor Mark Nordenberg said his university plans to comply with those bylaws but is open to an earlier, negotiated departure that wouldn’t leave Pitt with an extended, lame-duck status in the Big East.

“I would think that in the weeks ahead, everyone will be looking at the transition period and trying to determine whether the 27-month notice period really serves everyone’s best interests,” Nordenberg said.

Swofford said the move bridges the ACC’s geographic footprint from Maryland to Massachusetts so the conference’s reach extends over the entire Eastern Seaboard, from Boston College to Miami.

Adding Pittsburgh and Syracuse also opens up new possibilities for the ACC. Expanding membership by two schools allows the ACC to reopen negotiations with TV rights holder ESPN in a move that Swofford predicted will more than pay for the additional two schools.

RICK BONNELL (N&O)
What do Syracuse and Pitt bring to the ACC?

The ACC gets:
Two great basketball schools with strong, if somewhat dated, football traditions. Syracuse men’s basketball coach Jim Boeheim has the second-most wins among active coaches (856, behind only Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski) and Pitt’s Jamie Dixon has won 20 games in each of his first seven seasons. Dixon has great recruiting connections in the New York City area.

Syracuse and Pittsburgh get:
An escape from the Big East, whose football relevance is eroding by the minute. The Big East is an uneasy confederacy of football and non-football schools, and it might be time to splinter the two factions permanently.

Brett Friedlander (starnewsonline.com)
Baddour: ACC was ready to move quickly on expansion

According to outgoing North Carolina athletic director Dick Baddour, a committee was formed more than a year ago to help prepare for just such a possibility. The panel, which is comprised of four league athletic directors, four faculty representatives and four university presidents, was empowered by commissioner John Swofford to keep track of the rapidly changing college sports landscape and forumlate a plan in case the ACC needed to act or react.

He said that while the subject of keeping existing members in the fold was discussed, more of an emphasis was placed on playing offense and seeking new members for expansion. He that a number of schools were specifically mentioned as possible additions, though he declined to name names.

Brett Friedlander (starnewsonline.com)
It’s official: Pitt and Syracuse are in the ACC

There was no dissent and no bickering over which schools should be invited. Ironically, the chairman of the committee that put the approval of Pitt and Syracuse on the fast track was Duke president Richard Brodhead, whose school was one of two (with UNC being the other) that voted against expansion eight years ago.

That, Swofford said, is a reflection of the ACC’s solidarity changing times and philosophies in the college sports landscape.

“Everybody was on the same page as to what’s best for our conference going forward,” Swofford said. “Everybody was on the same page in terms of these two institutions and what terrific additions they would be in many ways. Quite frankly, we have a much better process right now than we’ve had before, and from an internal standpoint, it worked absolutely beautiful.”

The key to that process was a committee — called the 4-4-4 Committee because it is made up of four athletic directors, four faculty representatives and four university presidents — that began looking into the possibility of expansion more than a year ago.

The sequence of events that led to Pitt and Syracuse joining the league, however, took less than a week to complete from start to finish.

Brett Friedlander (starnewsonline.com)
This time, the ACC’s break from tradition helps preserve its tradition

I admit it. I’m a dyed-in-the-wool, card-carrying old fogey who clings to tradition like a sock stuck to a shirt that just came out of the dryer.

That’s why I was so passionately opposed to the ACC’s decision to add Boston College, Miami and Virginia Tech to its ranks the last time it expanded in 2003-04.

Ironically, it’s the very same reason I am so excited now about the league’s membership growing again.

No, I’m not emotionally attached to Pittsburgh, Syracuse or any of the other schools under consideration to eventually fill the ACC’s two presumed remaining vacancies. Nor am I particularly infatuated by the current race toward 16-team super conferences.

It’s just that by breaking with tradition, this time, the ACC has actually done something positive to help preserve it. In the process, it has succeeded in reversing a troubling downward trend by firmly reestablishing itself as the nation’s premier college basketball league.

Associated Press
Realignment Heats Up With Pitt, Syracuse To ACC

SAMMY BATTEN (FAYOBSERVER.COM)
ACC adds Pittsburgh, Syracuse from Big East

AKULA WOLF (BACKINGTHEPACK.COM)
Pittsburgh And Syracuse Officially Join The ACC

About 1.21 Jigawatts

Class of '98, Mechanical Engineer, State fan since arriving on campus and it's been a painful ride ever since. I live by the Law of NC State Fandom, "For every Elation there is an equal and opposite Frustration."

'11 Football ACC & Other ACC Teams College Football

12 Responses to Manic Monday

  1. Wufpacker 09/19/2011 at 10:36 AM #

    Can’t wait to hear the Big East’s “official” presser regarding Pitt’s and ‘Cuse’s defections. I’m sure they’d like nothing more than to enforce their 27 month notice rule and delay the change by more than two years, but doing so would likely be just as harmful to themselves, perhaps even moreso. Right now I think it’s in their own best interests to try and quickly plug the holes as fast as possible (and as effectively as possible) and put this whole episode behind them.

    Also, if they want to survive at all as a conference, they better quickly decide who they want to be….a comprehensive all sports conference or an essentially basketball only conference which is forced to include football and some other sports against their wishes.

  2. Gene 09/19/2011 at 10:55 AM #

    In the end, I think the easiest path in this new era of Super Conferences, would be for the ACC and Big East football & basketball schools to merge.

    Let the Big East basketball only schools form their own conference.

  3. albunde6 09/19/2011 at 10:58 AM #

    Does the ACC need a West Virginia, Rutgers or a UConn? Could the ACC benefit from the addition of Penn State? Kentucky? Florida? Notre Dame?Texas? or even my wild card Georgia? I see the benefit of Pitt and Syracuse with the TV market as well as fit with existing ACC institutions.

    I look at future expansions to benefit existing universities or fill TV market share holes. Just as SEC and Pac 12 will try to create a complete sports market package. It appears that the ACC will be in the final mix with the SEC and super conferences.

  4. Plz2BStateFan 09/19/2011 at 11:10 AM #

    No schools from the SEC or Big Ten are interested in joining the ACC.

    ND will joing the Big Ten if it ever stops being independent.

  5. logarithm 09/19/2011 at 11:14 AM #

    I was one of the meek ones who wasn’t crazy about ACC expansion but figured that if the trend nationwide was going to be bigger conferences, the ACC should be one and not be an odd-man-out. We’ll save the buy-out, buy-in and not have to start from scratch with new opponents.

    My only concern is how it’ll affect Gottfried’s efforts at basketball. Gottfried won’t mind more stiff competition and the coaches can now sell recruits on playing in the premier basketball conference without tempering it with the word “historically.”

  6. 61Packer 09/19/2011 at 11:48 AM #

    It looks like last place in the ACC power rankings will be held by BC until November 12. But afterward, how will they determine who’s last? We don’t (as usual) play Duke this season.

  7. heavy 09/19/2011 at 11:58 AM #

    Darn, Jiggy. You are giving me 80’s flashbacks w/ that picture up top. (I still don’t remeber much from those days…)

  8. gotohe11carolina 09/19/2011 at 1:14 PM #

    can we start putting the blame for expansion where it really belongs and start blaming the sec. if memory serves wasn’t it the sec that blocked the vote on changing the rule for number of teams required to have a championship game that kicked all this expansion nonsense off a decade ago…

  9. Plz2BStateFan 09/19/2011 at 2:14 PM #

    “UNC response to NCAA NOA. NCAA has not ruled on it. UNC will vacate 08 and 09 wins entirely. 3 scholarships for 2012-13, 2013-14, 2014-15 seasons. 2 years probation and $50k fine.”

    On Dave Glenn Show

  10. TruthBKnown Returns 09/19/2011 at 3:06 PM #

    To me, that sounds like the bare minimum they could have offered as their self-sanctioning. I think they offered just enough to MAYBE stave off deeper sanctions from the NCAA. Any less, and the NCAA may have come back with more. Any more may have been overkill that the NCAA would have accepted anyway (kind of like State’s own scandal under Valvano).

    I think they offered a SMART amount of sanctions. It won’t surprise me if the NCAA accepts it.

    I also think this will encourage future bad behavior because it’s a slap on the wrist. At least Butch and Blake are gone, too. That was a pretty stiff penalty, as well.

  11. TruthBKnown Returns 09/19/2011 at 4:38 PM #

    The more I think about it, the more I think their “low-ball” offer leaves the door open for the NCAA to add to their proposed punishment. I think that’s what UNX didn’t want to happen. So they may have been better off to “up the ante” somewhat, in an effort to prevent the NCAA from adding more punishment to their plate.

  12. sundropdrinker13 09/20/2011 at 12:06 AM #

    That’s what happened with Boise State. I think that the NCAA just added a few lost scholarships though.

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