Debbie Yow Disagrees With ACC’s Decision

Yesterday the ACC Athletic Directors voted to keep the current 8 +1 Power 5 Non-Conferrence Opponent) ACC schedule format intact. Much speculation had swirled around whether or not the ACC Schedule would change with the looming arrival of the ACC Network in 2019.

The other two options on the table were 8 +2 Power 5 Non-Conference Opponent) and 9 +1 Power 5 Non-Conference Opponent. ESPN would have preferred that they choose either of these options instead of sticking with the status quo, because these schedules would have provided games that would bring in more revenue. In fact, Brett McMurphy reports that each school will be losing at least $500,000 in potential TV revenue by keeping the schedule as it stands.

NC State Athletic Director was the only one who openly shared her vote with the media, which was to move to 9 conference games.

“Right now, we play Duke twice in 12 years,” she said. “There’s something wrong about that. A nine-game schedule would have cut that in half, (twice) every six years.” (N&O)

The 9 game conference was almost certainly shot down by the likes of Florida St., Clemson, and Georgia Tech, who play big rivalry non-conference games each year against an SEC rival (Florida, South Carolina, Georia). The 8 +2 has its issues because other conferences have 9 game conference schedules, and there are a limited amount of Power 5 opponents available to schedule. What the ACC would like to do to address the messy divisional configuration is simply eliminate the division’s all together, but other Power 5 conferences stopped this from going through.

Joe Ovies of 99.9 The Fan brought up a good point addressing Debbie Yow’s concerns about not playing Duke. No one is stopping NC State and Duke from signing a deal to play each other as ‘non-conference’ opponents, outside of the current conference schedule.

Sometimes punting is the wisest and best thing to do, and punt they did. We will have to see if the ACC schedule or the Divisional Organization is changed before the ESPN backed ACC Network kicks off in 2019.