An Edge poster let me know that my first suggestion (which wasn’t supposed to be in order of importance) wouldn’t crack his top 10. I asked, and he provided this interesting list* (sub. req.) earlier today:

1. Drop academic standards.
2. Cheat. Get caught, but not too badly.
3. Get better stadiums. The SEC has 10 stadiums as good as or better than any of those in the ACC. Duke and Wake are a joke and Maryland, BC, and GT aren’t much better.
4. Shift away from NFL markets. Miami, GT, Maryland, and BC aren’t the biggest stories in their own city. For the conference to be successful, the teams in college towns need to be the strength.
5. Engage the Big 10, not the SEC. Stop trying to go toe to toe with the SEC for now. Set up bowl bids and non conference matchups with a more vulnerable conference.
6. Get a legend as a coach. Bowden is yesterday’s news. Beamer is the closest thing the conference has to a legendary coach. Perhaps Davis fits this category.
7. Find a way to sell out the conference championship. Forget about making money for now. So far the conference championship has been a non-event on the local and national stage. This probably means moving
it to Charlotte.
8. Take a mulligan. Boot BC and replace them with ECU, WVU, or some other team that fits the region.
9. Get some swagger from the NFL guys. Right now the most famous former ACC player is Vick and VT wasn’t even in the ACC at the time. The conference could use a face.
10. Hotter cheerleaders. Separate competitive cheerleading and dance lines. The cheerleaders are an important face of the program. Most ACC cheerleading squads don’t measure up (pun intended?) to the competition.

None of these are going to happen, but that is what it will take.

Good list. Of course, the absolute non-starters like cheating and blowing academic standards up and booting BC are fun to think about in an alternative-reality sort of way. But the rest of the list is pretty darn good and worth discussion, A couple on there I was planning on talking about already, but most are worthwhile ideas that I’ll add to the list going forward.

*message board link that will expire

Turtle Waxing is realizing that Fridge has been a mediocre coach lately, and he finds this “surprising.”

Regarding Part I, HooDad makes a good point* (sub. req.) that I should address:

I can see the Beamer types pressuring guys who were once below the radar and have blossomed into top notch performers, or guys who can’t meet our academic standards, to come on over. I don’t ever want to have to compete against good players who transfer from UVA within conference, and I think the 2 year rule does a good job of preventing that.

That’s a legitimate concern — trying to prevent mischief amongst the coaches. However, this rule punishes the players as a result of the concern over what coaches might do. Sure, a lot of NCAA rules are modeled in this fashion, but this one is especially bad: it more or less keeps players from leaving for a fellow conference school, limiting their collegiate choices. (Not to mention sending talent out of the conference). So, I could see rules that prevent coaches from soliciting players on opposing teams (I know, tough to enforce, but severe penalties and the prospect of getting ratted out by a rival player might keep things locked down). Or maybe create other less onerous restrictions on intra-conference transferring that would limit the practice but not basically prevent it from ever occurring: limit the number of game appearances in the second year, for example. There’s no need for such a draconian rule to address its point.

In addition, I think there’s already some barriers to coach mischief. A player would still have to sit a full year, so I don’t see that much room for mischief. It’s got to be one hell of a sell to get a player to decide that it’s in his best interest to sit a full year. Of course, this is on top of all the other roadblocks to transferring: leaving behind one’s school, friends, classes, etc. etc.

I should point out that I know that this is not an earth shattering suggestion when it comes to improving the ACC football product. Football transfers don’t usually make a big splash. But keeping the occasional Jeffrey Fitzgerald in the conference would be a nice boost given the state of things right now.

*message board link that will expire

I’ll be doing the last program update in the next few days — Track and Field is always a tough one to research — and then I’ll be figuring out this year’s ranking of Virginia programs.

And, this year, it’ll be more interactive: I’m going to solicit your thoughts on the board and through email about the ranking of the programs, and then create a composite reader ranking averaging things out as best we can. So, check out all the programs and the background on this whole thing by clicking the “Ranking the Programs” category and scrolling through the posts.

Whether the perception is accurate or not, ACC football isn’t getting much respect these days. So, perhaps it’s time for the ACC officials to maybe think about ways to push the conference in the direction of improvement? Obviously, there’s only so much the brass in Greensboro can do — the teams need better play and coaching, plain and simple. But, there are some things the ACC could do to take a proactive approach to plug the slow (but quickening) leaks in its flagship sport. This will be a series going forward, until I run out of things to say (which could happen at any time, without warning, including right after this post).

1. Repeal the ACC’s anti-transfer rule.

Under NCAA requirements, when a football player transfers to another D-1 school, that player has to sit a year. Under ACC rules, if a player in the conference transfers to another ACC school, that player has to sit two years. Of course, to avoid sitting out two years, almost players never transfer to another ACC school. Thus, the rule has the effect of virtually eliminating intra-conference transfers. So, in effect, it’s basically an anti-transfer rule meant to keep players from hopping from one ACC school to another.

This rule was probably created by coaches who don’t want their talent to escape to a rival (and then wreck vengeful havoc on his old team). So, if a player is suspended or expelled or passed over on the depth chart or otherwise in a situation that might cause him to want a change, he won’t be leaving for a team that’s highly likely to face the original school in the foreseeable future. It’s basically a defensive rule by the ACC coaches, meant to save a coach from spending resources recruiting and training a player so that the player will turn around and beat that same coach in the future. And, in effect, this rule could be said to protect the weaker programs from the stronger programs in the conference — if an unheralded player at Duke, for example, turns into a superstar, he won’t just up and leave for the greater TV exposure at a Florida State or a Clemson or for the NFL pipeline at a Miami or UVa.

But, all of that rationale is nonsense. First of all, ACC coaches are also harmed by this rule: there’s a giant pool of potentially talented transfers that are unavailable to them. In fact, this could have been a likely pool of transfers too, given that ACC players are certainly most aware of the opportunities at other ACC schools. Further, weaker programs also suffer under the rule. While their stars stay put, how many stars do these schools ever really have that can find space at a stronger ACC school? On the flip side, a school like Duke won’t ever get the castaways of another conference rival that could have actually helped the ACC’s worst team win a game here or there. And, of course, nothing is stopping the Duke star from fleeing for other schools in the NCAA, so it’s not like a talented player looking for a bigger stage can’t (and won’t) leave anyway. He just won’t stay in the ACC.

So, ACC talent ends up going to the Big XII or the SEC or somewhere else, which is obviously a drain on the talent pool in the conference. If a quarterback at BC needs a change of scenery, why not let them try and improve things at Duke? If a talented linebacker gets nailed with an academic suspension at Carolina, why not let them give the less stringent classroom environment at, say, FSU a try? If an academically minded second stringer at Maryland wants to improve his academic surroundings without losing years of playing time, why not let him try to transfer and play (and earn a degree) at Virginia? Why force all of these guys to leave the ACC?

Maybe it’s time for a serious rethink of the ACC’s anti-transfer rule. Regardless of whether other conferences have this rule, it’s the ACC that is in dire need to keep its talent from fleeing.

UPDATE: More thoughts on this proposal here.

New Duke coach David Cutcliffe really nails one of the key reasons for his team’s suckitude:

You know what we have to learn …. We have to learn how to earn the right to win. And that’s probably the best way I can sum up our team. Because I think they have a misconception that it was easy to win at other places because they were at Duke and Duke was the only place it was that hard to win … that’s not the case. So I’m not worried right now about teaching them how to win. They’ve got to learn how to earn the right to win.

Exactly right. And once they’ve taken care of this missing awareness of their entitlement to win athletic contests, then they can start working on some of the other less important reasons for their struggles: having crappy players, crappy coaches, crappy facilities, and a crappy fan base.

Gobbler doesn’t like Wake’s chances at winning the conference title. OG&B retorts: “I will admit that their ‘dirt’ on Wake is pretty weak.”

Looks like Peyton’s infected bursa sac was contagious. Tom Santi has the same problem and will be PUPed to start camp, but is expected back soon.

With Virginia’s athletic season wrapped up, it’s time to look at how all the UVa programs fared this year and rank ‘em based on their performance. In this post, I’ll focus on women’s tennis. Check the links at the bottom for previous reviews, with a little talk about the surrounding context of expectations sprinkled in too.

Could the men’s team lend the women a few wins? Is there another pair of men’s and women’s sports with such a disparity in the successes of the programs? A near-national champion versus a losing record? Yikes.

Even though a losing ACC record and .500 overall record got this team an NCAA invite last year, no such charity this year. Not much else to say here. Let’s hope for some improvement next year.

Regular season: 5-6 ACC record, 10-13 overall
Post-season: ACC quarterfinals
Individual awards: Amanda Rales named to All-ACC Team

Previous wrap-ups
Men’s Tennis
Rowing
Men’s Golf
Women’s Golf
Women’s Lacrosse
Men’s Lacrosse
Baseball
Softball
Wrestling
Women’s basketball
Men’s basketball
Women’s swimming
Men’s swimming
Football
Cross country
Men’s Soccer
Women’s Soccer
Volleyball

Man, I didn’t think after my last “Thoughts on UVa law-breaking athlete of the week” post, that this would become a series. But here we are, with another knucklehead move by a likely starter creating more thoughts from me on this sort of thing.

Because everything I said before about not doing stupid blatant stuff continues to be operative, I’ll turn to another relevant issue. No, not the faux-hawk mugshot or the gay nightclubbing (not sure if one of those had to do with the other). I’m talking about whether stealing these brews warrants a boot from the Honor Committee under its single-sanction.

The Honor Code will send students a-packin’ if they lie, cheat, or steal. So, stealing some beers from a cooler in a bar could be seen to trigger the “steal” part of the Honor Code. In fact, a number of athletes may have been shown the door for stealing something — though I’m not sure if they fled before actually facing the Committee’s gavel (Olden Polynice, Scott Johnson, Daryl Presley).

However, in this case, I’d be surprised if this ever became an Honor Committee issue.

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