November 6, 2006
From: John Swofford, ACC Commissioner
To: All ACC Athletic Directors and Football Coaches
Re: New Standings
Dear ACC Members,
First of all we here in Greensboro would like to express our enthusiasm for the level of parity we have seen during the 2006 football season. The fact we have so many traditionally weak football schools contending for the ACC title ahead of the perennial leaders with their extremely large and well traveled fan bases has given us a sense of excitement unmatched in the history of the Atlantic Coast Conference. The possibility of a Wake Forest/Boston College/Maryland vs Georgia Tech title game in Jacksonville will undoubtedly be everything we thought we were getting when we invited Boston College, Virginia Tech, and Miami into our conference.
And though we are breathlessly anticipating such a matchup the staff here in Greensboro is working tirelessly to make sure the competition on the field is handled fairly and the measures we use to determine a conference champion produce the best team as our BCS representative. To this end we have decided that in this modern era of college football antiquated methods like "standings" should be revamped to take advantage of the newer technology much in the same way the addition of instant replay has enhanced the prospect of fair competition in our conference. So at the behest of my office we have developed a set of computerized rankings for the conference similar to the BCS standings used to determine the national championship game participants. It is the opinion of our competition comittee that determining the two best teams in the conference should be about more than wins and losses or strength of schedule. As a result a specialized formula has been created which not only factors in standings but other pertitnent information as well. And since we are one united conference I am happy to share the break down of that formula.
2006 Record 5%
2005 Record 10%
Points Scored 15%
Location of school in Virginia, South Carolina, or Florida 15%
Percentage of fan base willing to travel to Jacksonville in December 15%
Ratings for previous nationally televised games 25%
Commissioner's choice 15%
Based on the above computation it has been determined that Clemson and Virginia Tech should play for the ACC title in Jacksonville on December 2nd. We deeply apologize to Wake Forest, Maryland, Boston College, and Georgia Tech and congratulate each of them for excelling this season under the old system. It is our hope that this new system will raise the level of performance in the conference and continue to ensure that the ACC is represented by only the best on national television from this point forward.
Sincerely,
John Swofford
ACC Commissioner
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