Tuesday Night Dawg Bites

by T Kyle King on May 15, 2007 10:30 PM EDT in News

It was a busy day today and it's going to be a busy day tomorrow, so we're going to have to make do with a quick rundown this evening. Here's what you may have missed if you weren't paying attention:

As reported by Sunday Morning Quarterback, the Atlanta Sports Council wants an A.C.C. or S.E.C. team to move a home game to the Georgia Dome and Tampa wants to host the A.C.C. championship game.

As fond as I am of neutral-site games, I question the wisdom of an S.E.C. team playing a regular-season contest in Atlanta, although there may be something to be said for Doug Gillett's suggestion to alternate the World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party between Atlanta and Jacksonville.

As for the A.C.C. championship game, I won't lie to you . . . I honestly couldn't care less where (or even whether) the weakest B.C.S. conference hosts its title tilt, but the five ostensible contenders make widely varying degrees of sense. The three Florida sites (Jacksonville, Orlando, and Tampa) each have their merits, although a Sunshine State venue makes little geographic logic. Charlotte seems like the most sensible choice, but . . . who put Baltimore in the running and what was he thinking? I mean . . . Baltimore, for crying out loud?

If you're like me and you like college baseball, you need to know about this guy.

Paul Westerdawg has the news that Paul Finebaum credited Georgia with having the S.E.C.'s best non-conference schedule. Well, I could've told you that!

Tonight's edition of EDSBS Live featured a fine selection of questions. I made it onto the show this week, but, if you didn't hear it and you're too lazy to listen to the rebroadcast, my answers are available on-line.

Orson Swindle's revolutionary radio program also featured Brian Murphy, the author of the book on Boise State's 2006 season. I have been a bit of a Boise State apologist since shortly before the Broncos opened the 2005 season in Sanford Stadium and that fact causes me to wonder whether football fans naturally are inclined to speak well of out-of-conference non-rivalry opponents because doing so reflects favorably upon their own team.

While we're on the subject of teams of which I am inclined to speak well, Boston College (which beat the Bulldogs in the 1986 Hall of Fame Bowl and in the 2001 Music City Bowl by a combined seven points, doggone it) was well represented on the show by ATL Eagle, whose mention of a SportsBlogs Nation writer and a FanHouse writer co-hosting a radio show may or may not have been an allusion to my recent criticism of AOL's blogging platform (which was not intended as a criticism of the bloggers themselves). In an effort to mend some fences with any writers I inadvertently offended, I would like to give credit where credit is due by pointing out Bill Maloney's piece on ESPN's burial of a story. Nice job, Bill.

That's all the news that's fit to print for now. Enjoy the rest of your evening and I'll be back with you tomorrow.

Go 'Dawgs!

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Baltimore ain't bad to visit...

I've enjoyed the times I've been there. Food is good, the inner harbor isn't bad at all for sights and things to do.

I think the significant thing is that a third of the conference is North of NC, the same percentage as that South of NC. The other thing is that in the ACC, proximity of the fanbase to the site of the game matters a lot. The SEC in Atlanta has a huge advantage because if any of 9-10 different SEC teams is in the game, there is a sizeable contingent for probably living in the city already. Only Charlotte (and maybe DC, below, and Atlanta) has that advantage among ACC cities (and even with Charlotte, that's probably only 7-8 different teams). It simply isn't fair for a third (or more) of the conference teams to have to travel all the way to Florida - especially when another distant travel location for a bowl is a month later. It's only fair for those teams to have a proximity advantage every few years. And it's probably better for the conference and the ticket sales of the game if it's not in Florida every year as well.

So I don't think Baltimore is that bad a choice. There's not a huge chance of snow (cold rain instead). There's a relatively new, modern NFL stadium. Of interest to me is that Washington DC didn't bid. Washington might have the most diverse assortment of fanbases (possibly even ahead of Charlotte). The interesting thing is that FedEx Field is the single largest NFL stadium. 91,000 seats can definitely be filled for an SEC Title game, but I bet the ACC doubts that (correctly). Consider, the SEC has 4 stadia on campus bigger than FedEx Field. The ACC has none, and only 2 within 19K of that (FSU, Clemson).

So here's my question: is the fact that DC isn't an option for the ACC title game sort of an admittance that they couldn't fill it?

by LD on May 16, 2007 9:09 PM EDT 0 recs

For travelling fans, Baltimore would be better

I can think of a few reasons that you might not put the ACC championship at FedEx Field, not least of which is that if the Redskins charge for the stadium like they charge for the beer and hotdogs, the conference would go broke.

More seriously, though, FedEx Field is appalling to get into and out of. The public transport links aren't great, the road access sucks, and the parking is a complete pain in the ass - satellite parking is in office park lots accessible by bus, for instance. It's not near any major hotel complexes either.

Put it this way: some friends came from the west coast when USC played VA Tech a couple of years ago for a kick-off classic, and their consensus was that FedEx Field entry and exit was WORSE than the Rose Bowl, which is saying something.

Baltimore, on the other hand, has cheaper air access through BWI, cheaper accomodations, easy road access to the stadium, etc. You can even get a tram from either BWI or Penn Station to Camden Yards which is an easy walk to the football stadium. And it's pretty mild hereabouts into December.

Baltimore might not exactly be charm city by comparison to more, ah, genteel southern cities, but it's not a crazy place to have a large scale football game.

BTW, the VA Tech - USC game was sold-out, and if there were more than 3 - 4,000 SC fans there I'd be surprised. That's a lot of Hokies. Some Hokie colleagues told me that we were making ourselves heard, but it was an uphill battle.

by DC Trojan on May 17, 2007 4:45 PM EDT up 0 recs