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Meeting of ACC's ADs provided very few surprises
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Published: May 17, 2008
Ron Wellman went to Amelia Island, Fla., earlier this week expecting to hear some heated debate at the ACC's annual spring meetings.
It didn't turn out that way.
The meetings, which are often the scene of significant action, were relatively uneventful outside of the announcement of changes in football bowl tie-ins in the future.
The ACC will have nine bowl tie-ins starting this season, after a deal was reached for a spot in the newly created Congressional Bowl in Washington. Then in 2009, the ACC will end its association with the Humanitarian Bowl in Boise and will instead send either its eighth or ninth team to the GMAC Bowl in Mobile, Ala.
Wellman, Wake Forest's athletics director, returned to campus yesterday. He said he expected debate in particular about adding a ninth conference game to the football schedule, but that discussion didn't last long. The vote to keep an eight-game conference schedule was a unanimous 12-0.
"I thought the football plan might get to fruition, but it was unanimous, and you could see that early on," Wellman said. "There really isn't much interest in that. But that was the only real surprise of the meetings."
The idea of a ninth league football game has some merit in that it would create the opportunity for more intriguing non-divisional match-ups. Some schools can go three-year stretches without playing some league members in the other division. N.C. State and Duke haven't played each other for the past four years.
And, clearly, nine conference games in a skewed schedule comes closer to determining the best teams in each division than eight games in a skewed schedule.
But there was one drawback that trumped all. A nine-game conference schedule inherently means that teams would play five home games some years and four home games some years.
"It really didn't get much consideration, to tell the truth," Wellman said. "I personally liked the concept of nine games, but I don't like the fact that you have to play one additional road game every other year. That was the one factor that I just could not get over the hump on, and that's why we ended up being negative on it."
The decision to sever ties with the Humanitarian Bowl, as Commissioner John Swofford alluded to earlier this week, was done for geographic reasons. The Humanitarian Bowl, over time, had dropped in stature to where the ACC's last bowl-eligible representative went, and fans of those teams were finding it less and less desirable to go to Boise in late December.
"The Humanitarian Bowl has been a very good bowl for us," Wellman said. "Everyone who has gone there has had a wonderful experience, but it is a long ways away for the fans. It's a lot easier for fans to get to a bowl on the East Coast. So that's a factor we weighed very heavily."
The league also voted down a proposal to add two more conference games to the women's basketball schedule, from 14 to 16.
And it continued informal discussions of adding two more conference games to the men's basketball schedule. The ACC's television contracts with the networks are set through 2010, so no changes in the current 16-game schedule will be made until then. The league's scheduling rotation is complete through then.
But Wellman said that he expects an 18-game men's basketball league schedule to be considered in future years.
"It's just that we're in the middle of a TV contract, and we told the coaches we would not be considering an 18-game schedule until the end of that contract," he said. "But I think the 18-game schedule will be on the agenda in future years."
One other significant topic relating to men's basketball was discussed -- the issues caused by early entrant candidates in the NBA Draft who choose not to get an agent and therefore can pull their name from the draft and return to college.
Four ACC underclassmen -- N.C. State's J.J. Hickson and North Carolina's trio of Ty Lawson, Wayne Ellington and Danny Green -- submitted their names. But they have until June 16, after the NBA's predraft camp and individual workouts are held, to pull out of the draft.
The ACC would like for the deadline to be earlier.
"It was something that we discussed, but we're not in control of that," Wellman said. "The NBA would have to do something to change their rules rather than us changing our rules in the NCAA. That doesn't mean we can't talk to the NBA about it, and we will certainly do that, because it puts our programs and kids that we could be offering scholarships to in jeopardy. So we want to resolve that some way, but we're going to need the full and complete cooperation of the NBA."
Wellman said he likes the current system of allowing players to "test the waters" in general, but just wishes that the deadline was moved up.
"I think the concept is good," Wellman said. "Basically it gives the player the opportunity to test the waters. But I don't know that they need two months to do it.
"The NFL does it in, what, two weeks? I don't know if that is feasible for the NBA, but two months seems like an awfully long time to make that decision.
"Especially when the players have probably been talking about it and considering it for a long period of time before that trigger point that starts the two-month period."
■ John Delong can be reached at jdelong@wsjournal.com.
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N.C. Politics
Federal Politics
The Downtown Summer Music Series will begin on Thursday. Ed Bumgardner talks to some of the organizers of the Downtown Jazz lineup, in which a form of music known as "smooth jazz" will play a more prominent role this year.
Thursday's relish stories will appear in the Entertainment section.
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