I think the success initiatives stuff, or whatever the ACC calls it, is essentially the financial version of intraconference relegation. Win and get more $$. Lose and get less.
You could potentially have a “premier league” that sits above the conferences and teams get relegated/promoted back and forth.
Some people call that the playoffs, but we could call it relegation to be cool.
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Not in football. Which is my main problem and with the sport. We’ll see if the 12 team playoff changes things
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A problem with relegation in college sport is that there is a relatively small window of eligibility for athletes and you are largely punishing or rewarding next year’s players for the performance of this year’s (maybe they are new players or maybe they are players who spent a year developing). Relegation works better where there is more control over the longevity and continuity of the team members.
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Future ACC member
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That’s something I always found funny. Growing up in northern California, no one ever called it Cal, because there were lots of UCs and CSUs also in the state and no particular reason Berkeley would specifically be “Cal” (I’m guessing it was sportswriters getting tired of remembering how many "E"s it has). It wasn’t until I went off to college (I went to New England for undergrad then UVA for grad school) that I heard it referred to as “Cal” for the first time and it took ages for me to figure out what school they were talking about.
Don’t their helmets say “Cal?”
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The coach?
Huh. That’s funny. I always thought it was a Bear claw with a big “C” in it, which has actually never been the case. Sometimes there’s a bear claw and sometimes not, and sometimes it says “Cal” and sometimes its just a “C”. But its never been a bear claw with the letter “C” in it.
Edit - Looks like they’ve used ~12 different helmets over the last 15 years, so who knows?
Edit2 - TL;DR - I don’t know what I’m talking about.
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I thought it was Cal because it was the first University of California.
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Heck, I may have been at UVA before I realized the “Cal” I watched play football on TV was the same as the “Berkeley” that was tied with UVA in the US News rankings.
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True! UCSF is technically a little older, but didn’t join the UC system until 1873. Kinda like how W&M is older than UVA but didn’t become public until much later.
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W&M also shut down for a long time and the current institution does not have much in common with its colonial predecessor.
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I had not realized W&M closed for the Civil War and struggled to stay open for the first couple decades after. Learn something new every day.
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are you thinking of Cincinnati? it is precisely as you describe, albeit a Bearcat and not a Bear
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Whew, no. It was entirely plausible, but would have been embarrassing to have gotten those confused. I was thinking of the actual bear paw they had on their mid-80s helmets combined with the vaguely Packer-like letter with an oval around it (but with a “C”) they had in the 70s, which never actually happened.
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I’m gonna speculate out loud here. I think in the 60s, the name Berkeley was associated with anti-war protestors and activists and the guys in athletics administration (all guys back then) were more than likely WWI and WWII vets or age peers and friends with such vets. They didn’t want to associate football (often described using war and battle terminology) and other sports with the anti-war Berkeley name, so since every other University of [State] team was just called [State], it was natural to go with California or Cal since it was the original University of California.
Funny story, one of my ex’s went to UCLA then transferred to Cal. She said that she would meet all these foreign people she met in LA who wore UCLA gear, but when she asked them if they went there, they’d be confused. They just thought the shirts looked cool or whatever. They also called it “uc-la” like not saying the letters, but pronouncing the acronym like a real word.
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Interesting blurb… Clemson's departure from the ACC may come sooner than expected
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I read the rumor with uva as the 4th team. No idea what to make of it
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Seems unlikely. Is it originating from Swain again. He’s like 0 for 5 on these rumors in the last 2years. I would be shocked if something breaks before everyone sees what happens with the playoff revenue. GOR is also a serious chuck of change.
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