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"If I could make the schedules, we'd never play later than 7 or 7:30 and certainly not at home," Williams once told me. "But I'm smart enough to understand that's it not just about us."

There are drawbacks

That's exactly why expanded league schools' schedules eventually could be adopted in both sports. There are drawbacks, not the least of which could relate to the ACC's chances of qualifying enough football teams to fill its eight bowl obligations.

"The bowls are important to everyone," Wake Forest AD Ron Wellman said. "Getting a bowl bid is just as much about exposure for the program and recruiting as adding some money to budget."

That could be resolved, however. Given a nine-game football schedule, most ACC teams would come up with a non-league scheduling equation of two games at home and one on the road. That combination would be imperative in the inevitable years when the given ACC team would have four home and five away league games.

But that's just for now. If the present drift continues, it might not be very long before the ACC, plus other leagues, are forced to go to 10 league games in football.

In basketball, any move from 16 to 18 league games probably wouldn't have a huge impact beyond Duke and Carolina. For those two, it would make things more difficult, and it's logical to expect that Krzyzewski and Williams then would opt for softer non-league schedules.

But until other ACC basketball teams appear or re-appear as national top-20 fixtures, going from 16 to 18 would be no more than a marginal move. It would improve the league TV inventory to some extent, but market ratings in games that didn't involve Carolina and Duke would depend almost entirely on regional appeal.

Eventually, nothing can be ruled out. The time easily could come that the ACC, and other top leagues, might need to play round-robin schedules in both sports in order to max out their marketability to TV.

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