Greensboro, GA - The ACC Pre-Season Poll was released on Monday, with Clemson predicted to win the Atlantic Division and Virginia Tech to top the Coastal Division. In the three years of divisional play and the ACC Championship Game, the media has only picked three of the six championship game participants. They have found more success predicting the ACC champion, however, getting it right two of the three years. I’m sure Tommy Bowden hopes that holds true this year as his Tigers were picked to win it all.
2008 ACC Football Pre-Season Selections....
ESPN.com news services
The start of recent college football seasons has brought the same question for Florida State's Bobby Bowden -- is this his last campaign?
Bowden turns 79 in November and has a named successor, Seminoles offensive coordinator Jimbo Fisher, waiting in the wings once he decides he's had enough.
But Bowden, whose 373 victories are the most in Division I college football history -- one more than Penn State's Joe Paterno -- is not done yet.
"I'm still the head football coach," he said Monday at ACC media day. "But I know we've got to win more than we're winning now. I'm not interested in getting out, though. I plan on getting this thing back to where it ought to be, and go on from there. Time will tell."
Bowden downplays retirement talk....
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A longtime sports arena in Philadelphia is shutting down.
Comcast-Spectacor chairman Ed Snider says the 42-year-old Spectrum will close at the end of the 2008-09 hockey and soccer seasons and be demolished.
The arena had been used for Philadelphia Flyers and 76ers games until 1996. The Wachovia Center now is home to the pro hockey and basketball teams.
The Spectrum is currently used for a minor-league hockey team, the Philadelphia Phantoms, and an indoor soccer team, the Philadelphia Kixx. It is also home to an Arena Football League team, the Philadelphia Soul.
Philadelphia's Spectrum to be demolished....
By MARK SNYDER • FREE PRESS SPORTS WRITER
Last summer, Adidas signed Michigan to the largest known college licensing agreement in the country.
The deal is for eight years and $60 million, and expectations will be appropriately outsized.
Today will be the first public evaluation, when the company introduces its new Michigan football jerseys.
Michigan set to show off Adidas jerseys....
by FOXSports.com
Billy Packer has called his last Final Four, according to a report in Monday's Miami Herald.
CBS is expected to announce Packer, who has called 34 consecutive Final Fours, will be replaced by Clark Kellogg after 28 years with the network.
Jim Nantz will stay on as the other half of the lead team.
CBS parting ways with Billy Packer....
Five Years After the ACC's Expansion, Is Bigger Really Better?
0 comments Posted by Dstall at 7:53 PM
By Steve Yanda
Washington Post Staff Writer
When the Atlantic Coast Conference extended membership invitations to Virginia Tech and Miami in June 2003 and to Boston College four months later, ACC officials offered visions of soaring revenue and heightened national prestige for a conference known traditionally for men's basketball. The plan was to make the ACC more like the Southeastern Conference and the Big 12, with conference championship games, opulent television contracts and national renown for its football teams.
In the five years since realignment was initiated the ACC, with its expanded roster of 12 schools, has signed a seven-year, $258 million contract with ABC and ESPN -- which nearly doubled the annual income of its previous TV deal -- and hosted three football conference title games at the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Fla.
ACC Commissioner John Swofford said expansion "has met expectations in every way," and several officials inside and outside the conference say the overall level of play of both football and basketball has improved. Others, however, say the benefits of growth have in many ways fallen short of predictions.
Five Years After the ACC's Expansion, Is Bigger Really Better?....
