Coaches take stand on adding a game

It’s no surprise that the ACC coaches rejected a proposal to add more conference games to their football and basketball schedules during league meetings in Florida this week.
Hooray to the coaches for finally standing up for themselves, because if anyone had something to lose in this deal, it was the 24 head coaches in the two sports. Football coaches were asked to talk to their respective athletic directors about adding a ninth conference game to their schedules, while basketball coaches were requested to think about playing an 18-game ACC schedule instead of the current 16-game slate.
Apparently those were fairly one-sided conversations because the coaches of both sports shoveled dirt on those ideas, at least for now.
Television driving policy
They smelled a rat, which usually means some TV executive figured it would be good for their ratings to add more conference games, which means more money for the networks involved and more money for the college programs. You can’t really blame the athletic directors for at least thinking about it during an age where TV and money rule, and when it is ever-increasingly more expensive to run a college athletic program.
One of the major reasons for expansion of the league from nine to 12 schools was TV exposure and the accompanying dollars. TV execs like to refer to it as more “inventory,” which simply means more conference games, which in turn attracts more viewers.
But the losers in such a deal are the coaches.
Instead of playing eight league football games, five against divisional opponents and three games against teams from the other division, a ninth game could have created a lot of sleepless nights. That’s probably one more tough game than coaches cared to schedule, and also meant schools would occasionally have to play five away games within the conference. Several ACC schools count on playing seven (or more) home games each season in order to bring home the bacon for the athletic department.
Raising a national profile
Most coaches would rather have the flexibility that playing four nonconference games provides. For example, Virginia’s four nonconference games this coming season include only one road game (UConn), and three home dates against highly regarded Southern Cal, followed by East Carolina and FCS’s Richmond. While this is a formidable lineup, at least three are home games.
Do you really think Al Groh or any other coach would dare schedule a game against USC or another major power if they only had three nonconference games, and faced the pressure of playing another ACC must-win game?
With job security for coaches at an all-time low, overscheduling has become a cardinal sin in the two big revenue generating sports. An extra ACC game means extra pressure, another game that coaches have to win.
Sure, fans would like to see more conference games rather than watching some of the cupcakes offered up on nonconference schedules, particularly in modern basketball. But those fans don’t have their necks on the chopping block.
TV execs? They don’t care about coaches getting fired. It just adds to the drama.
Like former UVa assistant Tom O’Brien, now the head coach at N.C. State said, “It probably would be better for us to go play teams out of our conference to build up our national standing.”
He’s right. Playing more conference games only takes away from the league’s ability to get more teams into bowl games. Why beat yourself up?
Frankly, the basketball coaches voting down 18 league games made just as much or more sense than the football coaches rejecting another game.
For the second time in the three years since the ACC expanded, only four of its men’s basketball teams received invitations to the NCAA Tournament. So, the logic is to play more league games?
Huh?
If the conference is considered the toughest in the country (the ACC has been rated as the highest RPI conference in the country four of the last five years) and still can’t translate those high marks to NCAA postseason bids, then something is wrong with the formula. ACC commissioner John Swofford has written a letter to the NCAA Division I men’s basketball committee requesting that conference strength become an added component to criteria considered when selecting teams.
Should his request be granted, perhaps expanding the number of league games makes sense. Then the conference would gain more consideration by beating itself up. Under the current circumstances, there’s really nothing to gain by playing two more conference games.
It’s understandable why fans would rather see their teams play more league
opponents than contests against some hyphenated, directional school that provides no rivalry, no history, and sometimes no competition. I disdain those games as much as the next guy.
However, playing more tough games usually doesn’t accomplish much except getting more coaches fired.
Perhaps the ACC basketball gurus should take a closer look at what their women’s teams have done. Instead of playing 16 conference games, they actually decided to go the other way when the league expanded. They play only 14.
Why?
Because they don’t beat each other up quite as much, can play a schedule with enough quality teams to give individual teams higher RPIs, and thusly get more teams into the NCAA tournament.
As the age-old axiom goes, sometimes less is more and this time the coaches got it right.