Boston College Officially Joins the ACC

Boston College officially joins the ACC today, bringing the total number of member
institutions to 12. The ACC is now tied with the Big 12 and the SEC for most teams in a BCS conference, and like the Big
12 and SEC, will start playing a conference championship game in football at the end of the 2005 season. With the
addition of Boston College, the ACC now enters the Brave New World of college athletics.

(Note: We’ve been using the ACC’s new logo for months, but today, it’s now the official
logo.)

The Eagles bring a solid overall sports program to their new conference home. A total of
nine Boston College teams finished their respective seasons in 2004-05 ranked in the top 25.

Being ranked in the Top 25 in football, as well as men’s and women’s basketball, is
pretty good. The Eagles stand out in sports that are played mostly in the north, such as ice hockey and sailing. They
will also add two solid soccer programs to an already strong ACC.

Joining the ACC will likely be tough on BC in some sports. There will certainly be
increased competition in football. The Eagles never fared very well against Miami and Virginia Tech in the Big East, and
that’s not likely to change in the ACC. They’ll have to start playing Florida State as well. Throw in Virginia,
Georgia Tech and Maryland, and that’s a tough group. Much tougher than Syracuse, Rutgers and UConn. Even Wake Forest,
who has played BC each of the last two seasons, has beaten the Eagles twice in a row.

But don’t let that fool you into thinking that Boston College is going to take a big
hit. They probably will not. Tom O’Brien has proven to be a very good coach, and the Eagles’ physical play will
likely surprise more than a few ACC teams. Here’s your fun fact of the day on BC…they have the longest active bowl
winning streak in the country. They have played in six consecutive bowl games, winning the last five.

Boston College will likely represent itself very well in most sports. They generally did
well in most Big East sports, and tied for first place in football and men’s basketball in 2004-05. The Eagles’
basketball program will add yet another quality program to the nation’s best basketball league. Just like their
football team, the past five years have been the winningest five years in the history of the basketball program. Things
appear to be on the rise in Chestnut Hill.

Like Virginia Tech, Boston College hasn’t quite been able to get over the hump in the
Directors’ Cup standings. The Eagles aren’t putting up terrible numbers, but they will find themselves at or near
the bottom of the ACC. Here is a look at their Directors’ Cup rankings for the past five years.

This year’s Directors’ Cup ranking would have placed the Eagles 11th in the 12-team ACC,
just one place ahead of 58th-ranked Virginia Tech. (The Hokies 58th-place finish is their highest ever but still left
them last in the ACC.)

Boston College offers a wide variety of sports, ranging from football to women’s ice
hockey. There are a total of 14 men’s and 17 women’s varsity sports. Unique sports, such as sailing and skiing, can
be played at BC. Here is a full list of sports played at Boston College.

Not all of those sports will compete in the ACC. For example, the ice hockey teams can’t
move to the ACC because no other ACC schools have ice hockey.

Some are predicting Boston College to finish as high as second place in their first year
on the gridiron in the ACC. They have a difficult schedule to overcome. They begin ACC play with Florida State, and
three of their last four games are road trips to Virginia Tech, North Carolina and Maryland.

Despite their bowl winning streak, very good basketball and a large number of sports
teams, the most important thing that Boston College brings to the ACC is not themselves, but rather the ability to play
a conference championship game for football. Such a championship game makes more money for the league, but most
importantly, raises the prestige of the ACC in the eyes of critics who have seen it as an inferior football conference
for many years.

The ACC Versus Other BCS Conferences

The bowl landscape could change dramatically following the 2005 season. Bowl contracts are up, and conference and
bowls alike are scrambling to renegotiate to receive better deals. The Gator Bowl has already decided not to stick with
the Big East. The ACC now has a much better calling card, with Miami, Florida State and Virginia Tech all being
attractive candidates for New Year’s Day bowls. Expect the ACC’s bowl payout to increase following the rounds of
negotiations.

With the addition of Boston College, the new divisional formats and increased
competition, the ACC has become a brave new world. This isn’t the Big East anymore. There is only one bad football
team in the ACC…Duke. Almost every week, the Hokies, and everyone else, will be playing a team they can lose to.

In football, the ACC will be broken down into two divisions…the Coastal Division and
the Atlantic Division. The Hokies will find themselves in the Coastal Division, along with rivals Virginia and Miami.
Here’s a look at how the divisions will break down.

The first thought that comes to mind is that Florida State is going to win the Atlantic
Division just about every year. There is no other team in that division that will be able to consistently knock them
off. Maybe in a year that FSU plays both Miami and Virginia Tech, and loses to both, will another team win the Atlantic.
But even then, no other team in that division has shown the ability to go 7-1 in ACC play, so it will probably take a
5-3 year in the ACC by Florida State for another team to snag the Atlantic Division title.

Right now, it looks like Miami and Virginia Tech will fight it out in most years for the
Coastal Division championship. Of all the rest, Virginia has the most potential to pose problems for the Hokies and
Hurricanes.

The schedule model is fairly simple. Each team has a primary opponent from the opposite
division that they will play every year. The primary opponents are listed opposite each other in the table above; in
Virginia Tech’s case, the primary opponent is Boston College. Each team will also play two other non-divisional
opponents every year. One non-divisional opponent will rotate on and off a team’s schedule every year. Over a ten year
period from 2006-2015, each team will play every non-divisional opponent an equal number of times, with the exception of
the primary opponent.

For example, the Hokies will play at Wake Forest and host Clemson in 2006. In 2007, Wake
Forest rolls off the schedule and is replaced by Florida State, who will travel to Tech. The Hokies will then play on
the road at Clemson. In 2008, Clemson rolls off the schedule and is replaced by Maryland. Tech plays at Florida State,
who rolls off the schedule in 2009, etc. You can check the TSL
future schedules page for a detailed look.

The ACC basketball schedule will be similar to the football schedule, except that teams
are not divided into two divisions. Each team will have two primary opponents that they will play home and away every
season. For Virginia Tech, the primary opponents are Virginia and Boston College.

Each team will also play three teams other than their primary partners in a home and away
every year. Those three teams will vary every season. The remaining six opponents will be played once each, three at
home and three on the road. Virginia Tech’s home and away partners for 2005-06 are Duke, Clemson and Florida State.
The Hokies will host Georgia Tech, UNC and NC State, and must travel to Wake Forest, Maryland and Miami. For a look at
future basketball schedules, see TSL’s basketball
future schedules page.

The ACC is also known for its quality in all sports, not just the moneymakers of football
and basketball. The ACC offers a wide variety of sports for both men and women.

Here is a list of men’s sports that the ACC offers, as well as the number of ACC teams
that play the sport.

The ACC offers 12 sports for women.

Boston College will bring some very strong Olympic Sports programs into the ACC,
including men’s and women’s soccer, as well as field hockey. BC is also very good at sailing, but that sport is not
offered by the ACC.

The Hokies have a ways to go to catch up in most of these sports, but generally competed
well in 2004-05, despite the lack of ACC caliber players throughout their sports programs. Now part of a conference that
is natural to its geographic location, Virginia Tech should continue to close the gap in the coming years.