Nepotism: Still a Bad Idea

Bad news for new Oklahoma State coaches and beleagured coordinators at Florida State. Joel Waldfogel has an article in Slate on a study of how replacing a CEO with their son hurts the value of the company. Since there would never be a large enough sample size to replicate this in collegiate coaching, this might be th best evidence that one's hiring search shouldn't begin and end at Thanksgiving dinner.

Who's Not Playing Who

As I begin to think about making uninformed prognostications about the upcoming football season, I figure it's good to start by looking at the schedule imbalances within the mysteriously enhanced ACC. So for my own reference as much as anything,

COASTAL DIVISION

North Carolina avoids Boston College, Florida State and Maryland. The latter two have 3 and 4 game winning streaks againts the Heels, respectively, so its a successful break for the Heels, depending on Maryland's squad turns out this year.

Duke also misses out on Maryland, as well as Clemson and North Carolina State. In the end of course, who provides their eight losses isn't that important in Durham, but it's a bit of a disappointment for the Wolfpack and Terrapins.

Georgia Tech doesn't see Boston College, Florida State, or Wake Forest this year. Far and away the best stroke of scheduling luck in the Coastal Division. Tech has never beaten FSU in the ACC, and has yet to face Boston College.

Miami loses out on facing Clemson, North Carolina State and Wake Forest. The last two of those are lost wins for a team hemmoraging players and coaches. This won't be an easy season for the Hurricanes, though ducking Clemson helps.

Virginia doesn't face Boston College, Clemson, and Wake Forest, two good teams and one cupcake.

Virginia Tech ducks Florida State, Maryland and North Carolina State, giving them a small leg up on the schedule.

ATLANTIC DIVISION

I suppose you can put this together from reading the Coastal Division summary, but to quickly recap:

Boston College doesn't play Georgia Tech, UNC, or Virginia. Unfortunate draw for the Eagles.

Clemson doesn't get Duke, Miami, or Virginia. Also unfortunate, but not to the same extent.

Florida State doesn't face Georgia Tech, UNC, or Virginia Tech. The engineer-free schedule is an advantage, but they'll surely miss seeing Carolina blue.

Maryland doesn't see Duke, UNC, or Virginia Tech. The resulting schedule won't give Friegden much of a chance to recover his past glory.

North Carolina State won't meet Duke, Miami, or Virginia Tech. I'm sure Wolfpack fans will focus solely on missing the Blue Devils, but this is the best schedule in the Atlantic.

And finally, Wake Forest won't line up across from Georgia Tech, Miami, or Virginia, an lucky break for a team that could use a couple more of them.

The winners? North Carolina State, Georgia Tech, and Wake Forest. The losers? Boston College, Miami, and Clemson. The latter three have enough talent that the schedule shouldn't be an adversity, but only one of the former group will make much use of their fortunes. As for the Heels, the schedule helps, but as you'll discover I'm typically overly optimistic about the football chances in Kenan to begin with.

Ranking the ACC Stadiums

A month-old article in the Sporting News has generated a fair amount of response debating the relative merits of the various ACC stadiums. The Sporting News bases it on the intimidation factor, while the StateFans Nation appears to judge more on general home field advantage. I'm late to the party, but since I disagree with the consensus, I'll toss them up anyway.

First a caveat. I've been to ten of the twelve stadiums in the ACC, all between 1994 and 1998, when UNC was good enough to bring out rival crowds. As Lane and Alumni are the two I've never seen, we'll leave them where everyone else placed them.

(1) Clemson's Memorial Stadium. I've been here twice and Doak once, and this was just the more imposing place. For stadium surroundings, Tallahassee holds the edge, what with Clemson being in the middle of nowhere, but once you get to where the game is played Memorial gets the nod. There's just to me more tradition, a better setting, and a slightly more intense crowd. Even during the Tiger's long slow decline.

(2) Florida State's Doak Campbell Stadium. I was down there for the 1996 early season game, which may color my judgement, but I never got the same sense of awe I did at memorial. It may have been the game, it may have been the way the stadium was built, but there you go.

(3) Virginia Tech's Lane Stadium. Never been. I'm not all that impressed by a tradition that begins with Enter Sandman and ends with the Hokey Pokey, but everyone else seems to think they're in the Top 3, so there you go.

(4) Virginia's Scott Stadium. Superman's a mean drunk and so are Wahoo fans. And believe me, they're drunk. I've seen state troopers directing traffic wave through cars with open fifths of Daniels. There's a reason Florida State lost its first ACC game here.

(5) North Carolina's Kenan Stadium. I'm horribly biased, and I realize the crowd doesn't show up for games with sub-0.500 teams playing, even if its the home team that fits that description. But I;ve been there for the good years, and there's no other crowd I'd want at my back. But again, biased.

(6) Georgia Tech's Bobby Dodd Stadium. It's a decrepit, concrete blight in a city not known for its architectural beauty, but the fans show up. It's just not quite as scary for visiting temas as the thought of having to play there as the home squad.

(7) Miami's Orange Stadium. A good place for Dolphins games. A good place for bowl games. It just wasn't that great for Miami games unless there's another local team at the door.

(8) N.C. State's Carter Finley. They can tailgate, they can drink, they can't keep the grass from dying before October. This from a school with a turf management program. I've been there when bowl games are on the line, I've been there for their biggest rivalry game of the year, and I've never heard the place come close to shake.

(9) Maryland's Byrd Stadium. Someday, an enterprising college student will boost the tortoise statue outside the stadium. That will be the most exciting thing to ever happen at Byrd.

(10) Boston College's Alumni Stadium. Like I'm going to make it up to Boston.

(11) Duke's Wallace Wade Stadium. While typing this an ad for some bed manufacturer came on TV, claiming to have been proven better in studies performed at Stanford and Duke. I think this is where they tested the beds on campus. But even though it's now a place to hold folks suffering from battered football fan syndrome, the onetime Rose Bowl site has rocked in my lifetime. And at least its a somewhat senic place to spend an afternoon, unlike...

(12) Wake Forest's Groves Stadium. Seems like a nice enough place to play a game of high school football, I guess.

Jumping the Football Shark

Having given up on my fantasy baseball team, as well as all interest in sports that involve raquets, clubs, and bicyces, I'm getting the urge to slip back into college football. And just when I have the urge to pretend people still read this, Gregg Doyel comes along to explain how expansion killed the ACC. Or at least the Maryland, N.C. State, and Virginia portions of the ACC. Ah, the hubris.

Except Virginia isn't faring all that worse under expansion. They've gone 8-8 in conference in the last two seasons, about the same as Al Groh's first three years of 3-5, 6-2 and 4-4. The only easy win their schedule's lost has been Wake, who they were barely squeaking by before expansion. (They've also seen less of Clemson and N.C. State. Oddly enough, Virginia was having better luck against Clemson than the Demon Deacons or the Wolfpack in the Al Groh era.)

N.C. State, despite the love Amato was getting from the Wolfpack, hadn't made it through a conference slate with less than three losses before the barbarians reached the gates. The post-expansion years haven't been pretty, going 3-5 in both seasons, but their wins over Florida State have hidden some bad losses. Sure, they've missed having Duke on their schedule, but excising the new ACC teams wouldn't even get them to 0.500 play. It's almost as if they lost a star quaterback the previous staff recruited right before expansion, and haven't been able to recover. Or something like that.

And Maryland, dear Maryland. The team showing the greates drop-off, after Friedgen's initial 19-5 conference start. And again where expansion happens to coincide with the classes he personally recruited. Of course, in that first expansion season, the only new face on the schedule was Virginia Tech, and they only saw the Hokies after Gerogia Tech, N.C. State, Clemson, and Virginia had already knocked them off. The Terps scored 195 points that season (after three 400+ years) and 100 of them were against the mighty defenses of Duke and Temple. They were bad before they ever saw Miami. Hell, they still haven't seen Miami.

A number of factors pushed these teams above the average from 2001-2003, including the revitalization a coaching change can bring (see Goldsmith, Fred). But its a short term fluctuation that can be dampened by other things - not only expansion, but UNC's resurgence[*], Georgia Tech's steady improvement and internal coaching decisions. Amato, Friedgen, and Groh's fates do not hinge on whether the ACC flew too close to the sun, they depend on their own skills and talents. And this year we'll see where those talents lay.

[*] Yes, resurgence. I know it sounds silly to "resurge" to six-loss seasons, but the Heels are 9-7 in conference, following back to back 1-7 performances. It makes a difference.