The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) is a collegiate athletic league in the United States. Founded in 1953, the ACC's twelve member universities compete in twenty sports in the NCAA's Division I. Its football teams participate in the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS; formerly Division I-A), the higher of two levels of Division I college football.
Contents
1History
2Members
3Sports
3.12006-2007 ACC Champions
3.2Basketball
3.2.1History
3.2.2Today
3.3Football
3.3.1Divisions
3.3.2National Championships
3.3.3Bowl Games
3.4Lacrosse
3.5Soccer
4Facilities
5Rivalries
5.1Intra-conference rivalries
5.2Extra-conference rivalries
6See also
7External links
History
Charter members of the ACC were Clemson, Duke, Maryland, North Carolina, North Carolina State, South Carolina, and Wake Forest. The seven ACC charter members had been aligned with the Southern Conference, but left primarily due to the league's ban on postseason play. After drafting a set of bylaws for the creation of a new league, they formally withdrew from the Southern Conference at the Spring Meeting on the morning of May 8, 1953. The bylaws were ratified and the ACC officially came into existence on June 14, 1953. On December 4, 1953, officials convened in Greensboro, North Carolina and admitted Virginia into the conference.
* Division I Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I-A) football is the only sport for which the NCAA does not sponsor a championship. Instead, major-college football championships are sponsored by various third parties, such as the Bowl Championship Series and the Associated Press. The championship totals presented in this table do not include football championships.
Sports
Member universities compete in the following sports:
Historically, the ACC has been considered one of the most successful conferences in men's basketball. The early roots of ACC basketball began primarily thanks to two men: Everett Case and Frank McGuire.
North Carolina State coach Everett Case had been a successful high school coach in Indiana who ironically accepted the Wolfpack's head coaching job at a time that the school decided to focus on competing in football with Duke University, then a national power in college football. Case immediately started winning and became the fastest college basketball coach to reach many win milestones; records that are still relevant today as coaches like Roy Williams and Bruce Pearl chase Case's "first coach to win x amount of games" milestones.
Case became known as “the grandfather of ACC basketball." Despite his success on the court, he may have been even a better promoter off the court. Case realized the need to sell his program and university. That is why he organized the funding and construction of Reynolds Coliseum in Raleigh as the new home court for his team. At the time, Reynolds was the largest on-campus arena in America, and it was therefore used as the host site for many Southern Conference Tournaments, ACC Tournaments, and the “Dixie Classic”, an annual event involving the four ACC teams from North Carolina as well as four other prominent programs from across the nation. The Dixie Classic brought in huge revenues for all schools involved and soon became one of the premier sporting events in the south.
At the University of North Carolina, Frank McGuire was hired as the men’s basketball coach to counter Case's personality, as well as the dominant success of his program. McGuire began recruiting in his home area of New York. McGuire knew that basketball was the major high school athletic event of the region, unlike football in the south. Case and McGuire literally “invented” a rivalry. Both men realized the benefits created through a rivalry between them. It brought more national attention to both of their programs and increased fan support on both sides. For this reason, they often exchanged verbal jabs at each other in public, while maintaining a secret working relationship in private.
In 1957, when McGuire’s North Carolina team won the national championship, an entrepreneur from Greensboro named Castleman D. Chesley noticed the popularity it generated. He developed a five-station television network which began broadcasting regular season ACC games the following season. From that point on, ACC basketball gained immense popularity.
In women's basketball, the ACC has won two national championships: North Carolina in 1994 and Maryland in 2006. In 2006, Duke, Maryland, and North Carolina all advanced to the Final Four, the first time a conference placed three teams in the women's Final Four. Both 2006 NCAA women's finalists were from the ACC, with Maryland defeating Duke for the title.
Today
With the expansion to 12 teams in the 2004-2005 season, the ACC schedule could no longer accommodate a home-and-away series between every pair of teams each season. In the new scheduling model, each team is assigned two permanent partners and nine rotating partners over a three-year period. Teams play their permanent partners in a home-and-away series each year. The rotating partners are split into three groups: three teams who are played in a home-and-away series, three teams who are played at home, and three teams who are played on the road. The rotating partner groups are rotated over the three-year period.
There is no regular season championship awarded. The champion of the ACC is the winner of the ACC tournament.
Football
Divisions
In 2005 the ACC began divisional play in football. Division leaders compete in a playoff game to determine the ACC championship. The inaugural ACC Championship Game was played on December 3, 2005, in Jacksonville, Florida, at the stadium then known as Alltel Stadium. Florida State defeated Virginia Tech to capture their 12th championship since they joined the league in 1992. This division structure leads to each team playing the following games:
Five games within its division (one against each opponent)
One game against a "permanent rival" from the other division
Two rotating games against teams in the other division
In the table below, each column represents one division. Each team's "permanent rival" is listed immediately to the left or right in the other column. (These are not necessarily the school's closest traditional rival).
Though the NCAA does not determine an official "national champion" for Division I-A football, several ACC members have achieved a national championship through the Associated Press, the Coaches Poll or the Bowl Championship Series. Schools that have won national championships in this manner as ACC members include:
Within the Bowl Championship Series, the FedEx Orange Bowl serves as the home of the ACC champion against another BCS at-large selection unless the conference's champion is selected for the national championship game.
The other bowls pick ACC teams in the order listed above, generally adhering to the overall order of the conference standings. Under ACC rules as of the 2006 season, the ACC championship game loser cannot fall below the Music City Bowl (5th pick); furthermore, a bowl game can bypass a team in the selection process only if the two teams in question are within one game of each other in the overall ACC standings. This rule was instituted in response to concerns over the 2005 ACC bowl season, in which Atlantic Division co-champion Boston College fell to the last-pick MPC Computers Bowl.
Women's Lacrosse, a sport in which the national champion has only been determined since 1982, has seen much dominance by the ACC, specifically by The University of Maryland. In all, the ACC has won 12 women's national championships. The University of Maryland accounts for nine of those championships (1986, 1992, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001), and the University of Virginia won the other three (1991, 1993, and 2004).
Soccer
In men's soccer, the ACC has won 11 national championships, including 10 in the 22 seasons between 1984 and 2005. Five have been won by Virginia (1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994). The remaining six have been won by Maryland (1968, 2005), Clemson (1984, 1987), Duke (1986), and North Carolina (2001). During the 2006 season, each of the nine ACC men's soccer teams was in the top 25. Seven teams were selected for the NCAA Tournament.
As with most ACC traditions, the conference's classic rivalries began on the (men's) basketball court. Before the 2003 expansion, the ACC was able to maintain a full home-and-home double round-robin basketball schedule, meaning each team played each other team both at home and away each season. Coupled with the conference's geographic compactness (especially before Florida State joined in 1991), this enhanced conference cohesiveness and built a strong, interlocking web of rivalries, as each school could generally find something historical to be upset with each other school about. Some rivalries were, of course, stronger than others — notably those among the four "Tobacco Road" schools located in North Carolina.
Lesser-known are the ACC's football rivalries, with the exception of Florida State-Miami. With the recent expansion, intra-state rivalries in Florida and Virginia that have always been more significant in football than basketball are now under the conference banner. This gives them added meaning, as these games will have more direct impact on postseason bowl game invitations.
Boston College and Miami: These two former Big East colleges have a heated rivalry dating back to the "Hail Flutie" game in 1984, although BC hasn't beaten Miami since that game.
Clemson and Georgia Tech: In football, this series has been very close of late. Between 1996 and 2005, 9 of the 10 games were determined by fewer than 7 points. This rivalry is also born out of their proximity (approximately 100 miles).
Duke and Maryland: Traditionally a lopsided men's basketball rivalry; reached heightened status in the 2000-01 season when the teams played four times in ESPN "Instant Classics." Each school won a national championship in 2001 (Duke) and 2002 (Maryland). As noted earlier, the school's women's basketball teams met for the 2006 national title, with Maryland winning.
Duke and North Carolina: Their men's basketball rivalry is widely considered the best in the country. (See UNC-Duke rivalry) The women's basketball rivalry is equally intense, though without the national profile of the men's matchup. Notably, when the two women's teams first met in the 2006-07 season, both were the last two Division I unbeatens; Duke won. In football, the two schools play for a trophy: "The victory bell". It is often colored in the shade of blue of the team who won it last.
Duke and N.C. State: In-state Tobacco Road rivals, also members of the Big Four
Duke and Wake Forest: The two private Big Four schools on Tobacco Road have shared a heated rivalry for decades. Wake Forest and Duke were the first colleges in North Carolina to have basketball teams in the early 1900s.
Florida State and Miami: Arguably the two most successful college football teams of the last 25 years.
Florida State and Virginia: Compete for the Jefferson-Eppes Trophy in football. This game resulted in Florida State's first-ever ACC loss in 1995, but Virginia has only won once since then.
North Carolina and Wake Forest: Another Tobacco Road rivalry, Wake and Carolina have been at it longer than any other two North Carolina schools. The schools first met on Oct. 18, 1888 when Wake Forest defeated North Carolina 6-4 in the first intercollegiate football game played in North Carolina. As with all Big Four rivalries--and each of the four hates the other three--Wake and Carolina have shared a colorful history.
N.C. State and Wake Forest: Lesser known outside of North Carolina, but the original rivalry for both schools, as Wake Forest originally was located in the town of Wake Forest, NC, a few miles north of Raleigh. (The other charter members faced their rivals in their final games of the season: Duke and North Carolina, Maryland and Virginia, Clemson and South Carolina, and State and Wake.) The traditional college baseball game these two played on the Monday after Easter in the 1930s and the 1940s, and the fact so many state legislators attended it, was the reason North Carolina's General Assembly created an Easter Monday state holiday, which lasted until the late 1980s. For a time, the two schools also played one of the few trophy games in college basketball, for something called "The Chair," a chair painted in both State and Wake's colors. The Chair's whereabouts are unknown and the series no longer exists. NC State and Wake Forest have met 224 times in basketball, more than any other ACC schools. The two traditionaly meet as the last game of the regular season for both teams.
Clemson and South Carolina (SEC): Natural arch-rivals based in the state of South Carolina. Prior to 1971, this was an intra-conference rivalry in the ACC.
Clemson and Georgia (SEC): Born of proximity, as the schools are approximately 90 miles apart. This rivalry was intense in the 1980s. Georgia currently owns a 41-17-4 advantage.
Duke and Kentucky (SEC): Although they have met only 19 times, five meetings have come in the NCAA tournament. One such meeting was the 1992 NCAA Tournament East Regional Final, considered by many to be the greatest college basketball game ever played.
Maryland and Johns Hopkins: These schools have a long-held bitter rivalry in men's lacrosse.
Maryland and Navy (independent): An intra-state rivalry rich in history. Dating back to the late 19th century and dormant since the mid-1960s, the "Crab Bowl" was renewed and played again in 2005.
Maryland and Penn State (Big Ten): Dormant since the early 1990s because of expansion by the ACC and Big Ten, there have been talks to renew the series. Like the Maryland-Virginia rivalry, this also has recruiting implications.
Maryland and West Virginia (Big East): The football series was formerly the longest current continuous non-conference series for both schools, as they played every year since 1980. The game is not scheduled for 2008 or 2009, but will resume in 2010.
Miami and Florida (SEC): A now seldom scheduled game with Florida Cup implications. The game is seldom scheduled because teams were only allowed three non-conference games, and the Gators would have only one "true" non-conference game if they had to play both the Seminoles and Hurricanes in the same season.
NC State and East Carolina (Conference USA): A football rivalry that started in the 1980's, made infamous in 1987 when State lost to underdog ECU in Raleigh, and East Carolina fans tore down the goalposts of the opposing team. N.C. State canceled the series the next day, and it was not reestablished until 1995, and even then after repeated threats of legislation by the N.C. General Assembly. East Carolina fans once again tore down goalposts in 1999, but after upsetting #9 Miami, and as the home team. N.C. State allowed ECU to play in Raleigh because of significant flooding by Hurricane Floyd in Greenville.
Since the 1999-2000 season, ACC teams have played Big Ten teams in the annual ACC - Big Ten Challenge men's basketball tournament; the ACC has "won" this tournament every year since its inception (ACC teams have won a majority of the games played in every season).
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