Sports

Pittsburgh and Syracuse are joining the Atlantic Coast Conference. The ACC announced yesterday it's council of presidents unanimously voted to accept the two Big East schools, expanding the conference to 14 universities. ACC commissioner John Swofford says the council started exploring the idea of expansion more than a year ago.

John Swofford: "We had had, I'll just say, a double-digit number of schools that had reached out to us. What we try to look at is to try to ensure the conference's viability for years to come and our strength moving forward."

College football fans will be flocking to Chapel Hill, Durham, and Raleigh this weekend. UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke, and N-C State will hold their season opening games.

It’s been a tumultuous off-season for major college football programs. And no program has been under more scrutiny than Carolina, for everything from parking tickets to academic integrity issues.

Tomorrow, the team finally takes the field. Everett Withers is the interim head coach.

This has not been a good few months for major college football. Schools like Ohio State, U-S-C, and Miami have run afoul of the NCAA. That’s also the case at UNC-Chapel Hill, where football coach Butch Davis was fired just before practice began, and school officials will face the NCAA infractions committee in October.

While this environment would seem to make college presidents run from big-time football, one UNC system school is running toward it.

The five-year wait is now over, and North Carolina Central is officially a member of the NCAA’s Division I.
 

The NC Central Board of Trustees voted back in 2005 to move from division 2 to division one. The move was somewhat controversial, as it meant the Eagles would no longer play in the popular CIAA basketball tournament.

The Eagles then played as an independent with no conference affiliation. Last year, NC Central was a provisional member of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference.