Atlantic Coast Conference

The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) is a collegiate athletic league in the United States. Founded in 1953 in Greensboro, North Carolina, the ACC sanctions competition in twenty-five sports in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association for its twelve member universities. In 2011, the conference announced it was adding Syracuse and Pittsburgh to expand to fourteen members. Football teams participate in the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), the higher of two levels of Division I college football.

The ACC is considered one of the six "power conferences," and the ACC football champion receives an automatic bid to one of the Bowl Championship Series games each season.

History
Seven universities were charter members of the ACC: Clemson, Duke, Maryland, North Carolina, North Carolina State, South Carolina, and Wake Forest. Previously members of the Southern Conference, they left partially due to that league's ban on post-season play. After drafting a set of bylaws for the creation of a new league, the seven withdrew from the Southern Conference at the spring meeting on the morning of May 8, 1953. The bylaws were ratified on June 14, 1953, and the ACC was created. On December 4, 1953, officials convened in Greensboro, North Carolina, and admitted Virginia into the conference.

In 1971, South Carolina left the ACC to become an independent. The ACC operated with seven members until the addition of Georgia Tech from the Metro Conference on April 3, 1978. The total number of member schools reached nine with the addition of Florida State, also formerly from the Metro Conference, on July 1, 1991.

The ACC added three members from the Big East Conference during the 2005 cycle of conference realignment: Miami and Virginia Tech joined on July 1, 2004, and Boston College joined on July 1, 2005, as the league's twelfth member and the first and only one from New England. The expansion was not without controversy, since Connecticut, Rutgers, Pittsburgh, and West Virginia (and, initially, Virginia Tech) filed lawsuits against the ACC, Miami, and Boston College for conspiring to weaken the Big East Conference.

The ACC Hall of Champions opened on March 2, 2011, next to the Greensboro Coliseum arena, making the ACC the second college sports conference to have a hall of fame.

On September 17, 2011, Big East Conference members Syracuse University and the University of Pittsburgh both tendered a formal written application to the ACC to join its ranks. The two schools were accepted into the conference the following day. Because the Big East intends to hold Pitt and Syracuse to the 27-month notice period required by league bylaws, the most likely entry date into the ACC (barring negotiations) is July 1, 2014. On July 16, 2012, the Big East and Syracuse came to an agreement that allows Syracuse to leave the Big East on July 1, 2013. On July 18, 2012 the Big East and Pittsburgh also came to an agreement which allows Pitt to join the ACC on July 1, 2013.

Membership
The twelve ACC schools cover seven states, each having coastline along the Atlantic Ocean. With the addition of Pitt and Syracuse, there will be fourteen ACC schools covering nine states.

As of December 11, 2011. In Division I FBS, football is the only sport for which the NCAA does not sponsor a championship. National championships sponsored by various third parties, such as the Bowl Championship Series and Associated Press are not included in the table (but conference football championships are). Championships in women's sports sponsored by the AIAW are also not included.

Membership timeline
* Note: On July 16, 2012 Syracuse and the Big East reached an agreement that allows Syracuse to leave the Big East on July 1, 2013. Two days later Pittsburgh and the Big East made a similar agreement.

Sports
Member universities compete in the following sports:


 * Baseball - Men
 * Basketball - Men & Women
 * Cross Country - Men & Women
 * Field hockey - Women
 * Football - Men
 * Golf - Men & Women
 * Indoor track and field - Men & Women
 * Lacrosse - Men & Women
 * Rowing - Women
 * Soccer - Men & Women
 * Softball - Women
 * Swimming & Diving - Men & Women
 * Tennis - Men & Women
 * Track and field - Men & Women
 * Volleyball - Women
 * Wrestling - Men

Outside of the ACC, Boston College plays ice hockey as a member of Hockey East; and Maryland, North Carolina, and NC State are members of the East Atlantic Gymnastics League for women's gymnastics.

Baseball
Wake Forest won the ACC's only national championship in 1955. Miami won its four national championships (1982, 1985, 1999, 2001) prior to joining the ACC.

† The count of College World Series appearances includes those made by the school prior to joining the ACC:
 * Boston College: 4 appearances
 * Florida State: 11 appearances
 * Miami: 21 appearances

History
Historically, the ACC has been considered one of the most successful conferences in men's basketball. The early roots of ACC basketball began primarily thanks to two men: Everett Case and Frank McGuire.

The North Carolina State coach Everett Case had been a successful high school coach in Indiana who accepted the Wolfpack's head coaching job at a time that the school's athletic department had decided to focus on competing in football on a level with Duke, then a national power in college football. Case's North Carolina State teams dominated the early years of the ACC with a modern, fast-paced style of play. He became the fastest college basketball coach to reach many "games won" milestones.

Case eventually became known as The Father of ACC Basketball. Despite his success on the court, he may have been even a better promoter off-the-court. Case realized the need to sell his program and university. That is why he organized the funding and construction of Reynolds Coliseum in Raleigh, North Carolina, as the new home court for his team. At the time, the Reynolds Coliseum was the largest on-campus arena in America, and it was therefore used as the host site for many Southern Conference Tournaments, ACC Tournaments, and the Dixie Classic, an annual event involving the four ACC teams from North Carolina as well as four other prominent programs from across the nation. The Dixie Classic brought in large revenues for all schools involved and soon became one of the premier sporting events in the South.

Possibly Case's most lasting contribution was the ACC tournament, which was created when the league started in 1954. The conference was unique in that until multiple bids to the NCAA tournament were granted to conferences following the 1975 season, its sole representative was the tournament champion rather than the regular season champion. In 1961, the conference altered its bylaws to reflect this, declaring that from then on, the tournament champion would be the sole champion of the ACC, eliminating the conference's regular season title. Fans and media do occasionally claim a school has won a conference title when it finishes first in the regular season, but the conference does not recognize these titles as official. The bylaw declaring the tournament champion the sole champion remains in place to this day, making the ACC the only Division I college basketball conference that does not officially crown a regular season champion.

At North Carolina, Frank McGuire was hired as the men's basketball coach to counter Case's personality, as well as the dominant success of his program. McGuire began recruiting in his home area of New York. McGuire knew that basketball was the major high school athletic event of the region, unlike football in the South. Case and McGuire literally invented a rivalry. Both men realized the benefits created through a rivalry between them. It brought more national attention to both of their programs and increased fan support on both sides. For this reason, they often exchanged verbal jabs at each other in public, while maintaining a secret working relationship in private.

In 1957, when McGuire's North Carolina team won the national championship, an entrepreneur from Greensboro named Castleman D. Chesley noticed the popularity that it generated. He developed a five-station television network which began broadcasting regular season ACC games the following season. From that point on, ACC basketball gained large popularity.

The ACC has been the home of many prominent basketball coaches, including Terry Holland, Everett Case, Frank McGuire, Vic Bubas, Press Maravich, Dean Smith, Norm Sloan, Bones McKinney, Lefty Driesell, Jim Valvano, Mike Krzyzewski, Bobby Cremins, Gary Williams, and Roy Williams.

Present-day schedule
With the expansion to 12 teams by the 2005–2006 season, the ACC schedule could no longer accommodate a home-and-away series between every pair of teams each season. In the new scheduling format that was agreed to, each team is assigned two permanent partners and nine rotating partners over a three-year period. Teams play their permanent partners in a home-and-away series each year. The rotating partners are split into three groups: three teams who are played in a home-and-away series, three teams who are played at home, and three teams who are played on the road. The rotating partner groups are rotated so that a team will play each permanent partner six times, and each rotating partner four times, over a three-year period. Beginning in the 2012–2013 season, the in-conference schedule will expand to 18 games regardless of whether Syracuse and Pittsburgh have joined the ACC in time for that season. As of February 7, 2012, the ACC had not specified how the 18-game schedule would be arranged in the absence of Syracuse and Pittsburgh. When those two schools do join the ACC, however, a new scheduling format will see each team paired with one "primary partner. The scheduling model will be based on a three-year cycle during which teams will play every league opponent at least once every season. "Primary partners" will play home and away every season, while the other 12 opponents will rotate in groups of four: one year both home and away; one year at home only; and one year away only. Over the course of the three-year cycle "primary partners" will play a total of six times and all other conference opponents will play four times.

The table below lists each school's two permanent scheduling partners until Syracuse and Pittsburgh join the ACC, followed by the post-expansion pairings.

National championships
Over the course of its existence, ACC schools have captured 12 NCAA men's basketball championships. North Carolina has won five, Duke has won four, NC State has won two, and Maryland has won one. In addition, 8 of the 12 members have advanced to the Final Four at least once. (note: UNC also claims a 1924 national championship awarded by the selection panel of the Helms Athletic Foundation. The NCAA did not begin declaring a basketball champion until 1939.)

In women's basketball, the ACC has won two national championships, North Carolina in 1994 and Maryland in 2006. In 2006, Duke, Maryland, and North Carolina all advanced to the Final Four, the first time a conference placed three teams in the women's Final Four. Both finalists were from the ACC, with Maryland defeating Duke for the title.

Field hockey
The ACC has won 17 of the 31 NCAA Championships in field hockey.

Divisions
In 2005, the ACC began divisional play in football. Division leaders compete in a playoff game to determine the ACC championship. The inaugural Championship Game was played on December 3, 2005, in Jacksonville, Florida, at the stadium then known as Alltel Stadium, in which Florida State defeated Virginia Tech to capture its 12th championship since it joined the league in 1992. The 2011 ACC Championship Game was played at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina with Clemson defeating Virginia Tech 38–10.

The ACC was the only NCAA Division I conference whose divisions were not divided geographically (North/South, East/West) until the Big Ten announced its division names after the 2010 regular season.

The existing division structure leads to each team playing the following games:
 * Five games within its division (one against each opponent)
 * One game against a designated permanent rival from the other division (not necessarily the school's closest traditional rival, even within the conference); this is similar to the SEC setup
 * Two rotating games (one home, one away) against teams in the other division
 * Four out-of-conference games.

On February 3, 2012, the ACC announced a new regular-season scheduling format which added Syracuse to the Atlantic division and Pittsburgh to the Coastal division. These new teams will be cross-divisional rivals. This change will take effect once Pitt and Syracuse officially enter the conference in July 2013. The new division structure will lead to each team playing one additional game within their division, and one fewer out-of-conference game.

In the table below, each column represents one division. Each team's designated permanent rival is listed in the same row in the opposing column.

Bowl games
Within the Bowl Championship Series, the Orange Bowl serves as the home of the ACC champion against another BCS at-large selection unless the conference's champion is selected for the national championship game.

The other bowls pick ACC teams in the order set by agreements between the conference and the bowls. The ACC Championship Game runner-up is guaranteed to fall no lower than the Sun Bowl, the 4th pick, in the conference bowl hierarchy. Previously the ACC Championship Game runner-up had been guaranteed the Music City Bowl with usually then the 5th pick. The other rule change that will be in effect for the next four years is that the ACC has eliminated the clause in the contract that states if a bowl team has already selected the runner-up, it doesn't have to choose it again.

Moreover, a bowl game can bypass a team in the selection process only if the two teams in question are within one game of each other in the overall ACC standings. This rule was instituted in response to concerns over the 2005 bowl season, in which Atlantic Division co-champion Boston College fell to the ACC's then-last remaining bowl slot, the MPC Computers Bowl in Boise, Idaho.

* Unless the ACC champion is ranked #1 or #2 in the BCS poll, in which case the ACC champion will play in the national championship game, and the Orange Bowl will select one of the other BCS teams.

** The Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl has a conditional arrangement with the ACC: if its primary partners are not bowl eligible, and if the ACC has nine bowl-eligible teams, then the bowl takes the ninth selection of ACC teams.

National championships
Although the NCAA does not determine an official national champion for Division I FBS football, several ACC members claim national championships awarded by various "major selectors" of national championships as recognized in the official NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision Records. Since 1936 and 1950 respectively, these include what are now the most pervasive and influential selectors, the Associated Press poll and Coaches Poll. In addition, since 1998 the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) has used a mathematical formula to match the top two teams at the end of the season. The winner of the BCS is contractually awarded the Coaches' Poll national championship and its AFCA National Championship Trophy as well as the MacArthur Trophy from the National Football Foundation.

* denotes championships won before the school joined the ACC.

Golf

 * Italics denote championships won before the school joined the ACC.

Lacrosse
Since 1971, when the first men's national champion was determined by the NCAA, the ACC has won 12 national championships, more than any other conference in college lacrosse, including at least one by every team currently playing in the ACC. Virginia has won five national championships, North Carolina has won four national championships, Maryland has won two national championships and Duke has won one national championship. In addition, prior to the establishment of the NCAA tournament, Maryland had won nine national championships while Virginia won two.

On September 17, 2011, Big East Conference members Syracuse University and the University of Pittsburgh both tendered a formal written application to the ACC to join its ranks. The two schools were accepted into the conference the following day. The expected date of arrival for Syracuse lacrosse is July 1, 2013.

Women's lacrosse has only awarded a national championship since 1982, and the ACC has won more titles than any other conference. In all, the ACC has won 13 women's national championships: Maryland has won ten and Virginia has won three.

Italics denotes championships before it was part of the ACC. * An asterisk indicates that Syracuse had to vacate their 1990 Championship due to NCAA sanctions.

Soccer
In men's soccer, the ACC has won 14 national championships, including 13 in the 26 seasons between 1984 and 2009. Six have been won by Virginia - including 2009 against the previously undefeated Akron Zips. The remaining eight have been won by Maryland (3 times), Clemson (twice), Duke, North Carolina, and Wake Forest. During the 2007 season, Virginia Tech and Wake Forest advanced to the College Cup, the final four of men's soccer. The 2008 season saw two ACC teams, Maryland and North Carolina, meet in the championship game with Maryland winning by a score of 1-0.

In women's soccer, North Carolina has won 20 of the 27 NCAA titles since the NCAA crowned its first champion, as well as the only Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) soccer championship in 1981. The Tar Heels have also won 18 of the 21 ACC tournaments, losing to North Carolina State in 1988 and Virginia in 2004, both times by penalty kicks. In 2010 for the first time they failed to make the championship game, falling to eventual champion Wake Forest in the semi-finals.


 * Italics denote championships before the sport was part of the ACC.

Facilities
Note: Future members in gray.