Notre Dame to the ACC

This morning it was announced that Notre Dame is going to join the ACC in all “non-football sports”, or should I say all money sucking sports plus basketball.  Anyways, joking aside, I think this is a good move for the ACC and here are 4 reasons why.

1) Any association with Notre Dame is good publicity.  Notre Dame is one of the most respected and admired schools in the country.  Before you go all crazy on me hear me out.  This isn’t because they are the best school or have the best athletic department or are particularly relevant recently; it’s actually just a simple issue of supply and demand? Any chance you remember learning that in college? Well, that is what is happening here.  Notre Dame has been and will continue to be the most demanded school in college sports solely because no one can have them. They're football program is "not for sale". And, this has caused their value to soar through the roof.  Today, that value remains high because no conference (including the ACC) has yet to “own” their football program.  But, they do have their other sports and 50 million+ buyout.  The ACC will have the Notre Dame association for a long time and Notre Dame will continue to be valuable making the ACC more valuable. 

2) The addition of Notre Dame will bring in more money.  I saw it written today that the ACC expects each team to earn an extra 1-2 million dollars by adding the Irish.  I’d do that in a heartbeat! I would bet that money could be well used in funding a few cool new facilities around campus or to pay a top level coach.  More money is always good and will be good for the schools in the ACC.

3) The ACC will get to play Notre Dame five times each year in football.  A game with Notre Dame is a huge coup for any school and will draw a lot of media attention to the ACC.  I do realize that this is really only one more game per year for the ACC, but the best part is that teams like Clemson, Florida State, and Virginia Tech will get a chance to play another nationally televised game.  Also, many lesser teams will have a chance to host the Irish, dramatically increasing average ticket sales for non-conference games. 

4) Non-football sports will be better.  Notre Dame has been traditionally good in many sports, particularly men’s and women’s basketball, women’s soccer and lacrosse.  The addition of another quality opponent will both help current ACC schools to perform better as well as increase the public perception of the ACC overall.

College Football Picks: Week 1

It’s the first week of the season and I have my first set of picks against the spread.  I don’t bet these picks, but I feel pretty confident about them and would if I had some spare coin.  I’ll star (*) 3 or 4 that I’m the most confident in.  I am also forcing myself to pick all top 25 matchups and any conference ACC or Big12 games. 

Tomorrow, I will be submitting a sweet new post that I am super excited about! I will be getting my incredibly witty wife, Mrs. dallas hokie, to share her thoughts on the upcoming College Football season.  You’ll see that she really knows what she is talking about.  I know guys; I totally hit it out of the park with this one.  In the meantime, check out her blog here.  

This post is Day 4 of college football preview week.  Check out Days 1-3 here:

1) Conference Race Projections
2) BSC Bowl Projections
3) Power Rankings

Enough with the intro, here are the picks!

Michigan State -7.0 over Boise State – Boise lost too much talent last year and while they have a decent team filling those spots, MSU is just too big up front on defense and will win big at home. 

* Navy +15.5 over Notre Dame – While Navy still loses this game, Notre Dame isn’t back and they don’t have a proven QB.  This first game will be rough for ND against a Navy team that has given them fits over the past few years. 

* Penn State -6.5 over Ohio – The betters have pushed this line down significantly over the week.  That is due to their lack of confidence in Penn State coming out of their off season probation mess.  I don’t think they are going to be that bad and will easily beat Ohio by a TD. 

Miami -2.5 over BC – Miami is bad… BC is terrible.  I don’t see BC winning a conference game this year.

* Clemson -3 over Auburn – I am really high on Clemson this year.  Sadly this means I think they beat VT later in the season, but it also means they beat Auburn in Atlanta. 

* Duke – 3 over FIU – Duke is back! Well, not really, but I think this is the year they finally put together some ACC wins.  They won’t beat anyone good, but will surely beat FIU by more than a FG.

Michigan +14 over Alabama – Alabama will win this game.  But, since I am high on Michigan this year, I’ll take them to make this game closer than expected.  Also, it should be noted that this line has risen 3 pts over the week, meaning that Vegas thinks Michigan will make it closer than 14 pts.  And Vegas is usually right…

Virginia Tech -7 over Georgia Tech – I will put out a full game preview this weekend and break down this game a little more.  But for now, I think VT comes out strong.  I think their offense shines and outscores GT.  I can see a score similar to last year.  Right now I’d say VT 31 GT 21.  That could change over the weekend though.