Pitt to the ACC is at least a year away. That doesn’t mean the jockeying and speculation of the division format for football hasn’t already started.

Like many, I have no real idea how the ACC divides their conference. I know that they have the Atlantic and Coastal divisions for names. I know that Miami and FSU are kept in separate divisions, because when the divisions were created everyone expected Miami and FSU to regularly battle it out in the ACC Championship game. But I have no idea which school is in which division.

So let’s start with a little basic education:

Atlantic Division

• Boston College
• Clemson
• Florida St.
• Maryland
• NC St.
• Wake Forest

Coastal Division

• Duke
• Georgia Tech
• Miami
• North Carolina
• Virginia
• Virginia Tech

Now one option is to toss Pitt and Syracuse each into one of the divisions. There would be pros and cons for both teams in either division. The Atlantic would include natural rivalry games with BC and Maryland for either. The Coastal offers VT and Miami as old Big East foes. Yet, that also means splitting Pitt and Syracuse. Two teams that while not true rivals, have a long history with each other.

A common suggestion is that with Pitt and Syracuse joining, there are natural geographic divisions that could be used. Reducing some travel costs and building on geographic distance to build rivalries:

North

• Boston College
• Maryland
• Pitt
• Syracuse
• Virginia
• Virginia Tech
• Wake Forest

South

• Clemson
• Duke
• Florida St.
• Georgia Tech
• Miami
• North Carolina
• NC St.

Now from a competitive standpoint, this is a mess. FSU, Miami and Clemson in the same division. Georgia Tech, UNC and NC St. is a tough lower tier. The South would be ridiculous.

The North, however, less so. Objectively looking at it, is VT and the 6 dwarfs. You can argue about the cyclical nature of things, but really. This is just plain unbalanced.

The other problem is the North finds itself having a harder time tapping the more fertile recruiting located in the South. North Carolina, Georgia and Florida. With this layout — playing 6 divisional games and even with strict rotating of 3 cross-division games — teams in the North could go 4 years between trips to Florida when you have to swap home and away games. This is assuming that the ACC goes from 8 to 9 conference games. It becomes worse, when you consider the reality that protected games are part of the schedule (for example, NC St. annually plays UNC despite being in separate divsions). That won’t fly.

In fact, the lobbying has already begun. Starting with the Hokies.

Virginia Tech athletic director Jim Weaver vowed Monday night to “fight” a North-South division of the expanded ACC that would, essentially, return Hokies football to the Big East.

The other problem with the North-South split is putting the North Carolina schools in a 3 and 1 situation.

The current 12-team divisional alignment in football isn’t set up in a North-South split. Wake Forest is in the Atlantic and at least has NC State on its side with Maryland, Clemson, Florida State and Boston College. But the Demon Deacons’ two in-state rivals that it would rather play more — UNC and Duke — are in the Coastal with Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, Virginia and Miami.

Wake will make it clear that it doesn’t want to be shipped away from the three other North Carolina schools if the league goes to two seven-team divisions. The Demon Deacons want in some form two games against the three in-state schools if there are divisions or if it’s one 14-team league.

“If you do it North-South, then one North Carolina team has to be in the North,” Wake Forest athletic director Ron Wellman said. “We want to play North Carolina more than we do. It’s been four years since we played them at home in football, so we are interested in a concept where we play the North Carolina schools. That’s a point of emphasis for us. As soon as we announce our schedule, our fans are disappointed that we don’t play every North Carolina school in football or [twice in] basketball. Those rivalries were established before the league was in 1953.”

Wake may not be the most influential team in the ACC, but they will likely have VT and Maryland fighting this as well.

I suggested a City/State division:

City: Pitt, Syracuse, BC, Miami, Duke, Wake Forest and Georgia Tech (they are based in Atlanta).

State: Maryland, Virginia, VT, Clemson, UNC, NC St. and FSU.

It also suffers from balance issues. Potentially worse than a North-South split.

The more I look at it, the more likely is that Pitt and Syracuse will be split, but that will be classified as a “protected” gameto allow it to play annually.

Suggestions are welcome for the divisions.

The other thing to consider, will even 9 conference games be enough with 14 teams?

He [VT AD Jim Weaver] said he also advocates increasing the number of conference games from eight to 10, “because it’s getting more and more expensive for nonconference games in terms of the guarantees.”

He is referring to one-time home games against teams such as Appalachian State and Arkansas State, to use Tech’s 2011 football schedule as an example. The Hokies pay those lower-profile schools to play the games.

Weaver’s plan would leave room for two nonconference games. ACC schools should be required to schedule one against another major conference team, he said, while the other can be against a team from a low profile conference or the Championship Subdivision.

I find this intriguing, and might have to be a necessity if conferences go to 16-teams. There would be a lot of resistance to this, though. It would be a hard sell to a lot of teams that want at least 7 home games a year.

Georgia Tech, for example, plays an annual game with Georgia. They would be stuck, then having to decide between getting a 7th game every other year by doing a patsy game. Or they would be looking at limiting themselves to just 6 home games a year when they schedule additional home-and-home series.

Imagine if Pitt and WVU do work out a long-term series after Pitt leaves. What does Pitt do with ND? If they eventually worked something out with Penn State? And never forget, the River City Rivalry.

The concept of 10 conference games makes sense and I like it in the abstract. The reality, though, seems unlikely.