The Atlantic Coast Conference has finalized a television deal with ESPN, reportedly worth $17 million per school. The current deal the ACC has in place is worth around $13 million per year. The new deal in total is over the course of 15 years and worth $3.6 billion.

The addition of Pittsburgh and Syracuse to the ACC aided the conference's negotiation ability and put the ACC within shouting distance of the Big 12 deal, where each team is expected to receive around $20 million annually.

With the new deal, ESPN will televise three Friday night conference football games. Two of these games are guaranteed to be home games for Boston College and Syracuse with a third game reserved for Thanksgiving Friday. In addition to the Friday games, the conference will continue to have a prime time game on ESPN on Labor Day as well as select Thursday night contests. In total, 14 more conference games per year will be televised each year on the ESPN networks.

The deal comes at a time where the ACC is adding an additional two conference games per team in basketball. Each team will now play 18 conference games, increasing the number of games which can be aired on the ESPN platform. Additionally ESPNU will continue to air the Sunday Night ACC Hoops franchise.

This deal is undoubtedly good for the conference as a whole and particularly the smaller-market teams like Wake Forest. While higher-profile football teams will continue to complain about the conference-sharing revenue model, the blunt fact remains that ACC football is not anywhere close to many college football fan's radar.

What are your thoughts? Feel free to discuss with us in the comments or on the main SB Nation story. This is definitely a debate that doesn't have a simple answer, but with the ACC struggling in both football and basketball with the exception of notable outliers in the last few seasons, there had to be a place to start in these negotiations.

Wake Forest Diamond Deacon Brian Holmes has been named to the initial Pitcher of the Year list presented by the College Baseball Hall of Fame, while closer Michael Dimock has been named to the initial Stopper Watch List. The lists were released earlier today and can be found on a variety of websites, most notably College Baseball Daily.

Holmes, a junior lefty from Lawrenceville Ga., boasts a 6-1 record to go along with a 2.54 ERA. He is one of six players from the ACC named to the list. Each of the six players are from the Big Four schools in North Carolina, including three North Carolina Tar Heel pitchers. Holmes' stellar season is most notably highlighted by a no-hitter which he threw on March 4th to go along with 10 strikeouts.

Dimock, a senior from Greensboro N.C. has 10 saves on the year, good for third in the ACC. Dimock also has a 2-2 record on the season with a 4.13 ERA. Dimock emerged as the Deacon closer last year and has been a critical part of the Deacon bullpen which is much improved from just one year ago.

The Diamond Deacons will return to action this weekend when they take on the Boston College Eagles in Chestnut Hill. With a 5-2 victory last night over the Winthrop Eagles, the Deacons' record sits at 26-16 (9-12 in the ACC). Recent projections have Wake Forest squarely on the 2/3 seed line for the regional round of the NCAA Tournament. The Deacs have three conference series remaining against Boston College, Miami, and the season-ending series against Clemson.

(from the Denton Times)

In a move that has blindsided nearly everyone in association with the Wake Forest women's basketball program, head coach Mike Petersen was named the head coach at North Texas at a 3:30 CDT news conference. The women's basketball team is coming off of one of its best seasons in history and is adding one of the best recruiting classes the team has ever had.

The Denton Record-Chronicle in Texas broke the story roughly around 3 EST. Petersen is the winningest coach in Wake women's history with a record of 126-122. He will take over a Sun Belt North Texas squad which has not experienced a winning season in six years but showed some promise with a 15-16 record last season. Petersen will become the fourth coach in the last six years for the Mean Green.

"Mike is not a guy based on money. He is not a guy who bases the decision he makes on the amount of money he makes. It is about the program and the direction of the program," said Athletics Director Rick Villarreal.

"This is another step that we will take a right step in the area of women's basketball."

Petersen and Villarreal have known each other for many years dating back to their stint together at TCU.

"Students like going to school here at North Texas and they enjoyed going here and I think that's very good. When me and my wife were talking about this she said 'you know what you do, you fix programs and you need to go fix you another program,'" said Petersen.

"I've gone into places that have not been winning and during my stay we've won."

Obviously this is very disappointing news as Coach Petersen had gotten the program to a point where there was a very good chance that the women would return to the tournament for only the second time in the program's history. The coaching search will presumably start right away.

via wwwcache.highschoolot.com

Following Tuesday night's 2-0 win over the High Point Panthers, the Wake Forest Diamond Deacons have extended their record to an impressive 18-9 through 27 games. With the season nearly halfway through (the Deacs are slated to play 28 more games, weather permitting) it's a great time to take a look at the squad's positives, negatives, and chances at making the NCAA tournament.

Click through for an analysis of the Wake baseball team, including statistics, opinion, and commentary.

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Leading up to the opening game of the ACC Tournament we got together with Testudo Times and were lucky enough to banter about the matchup between the Wake Forest Demon Deacons and the Maryland Terrapins, which will tip off at noon tomorrow in Philips Arena in Atlanta. Discussion includes how both teams will respond after limping home down the stretch, what kind of defense we can expect to see, and ultimately who will come out on top in this contest to see who gets a shot at top-seeded UNC on Friday.

Click through to get the full Q&A with Testudo Times

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The Wake Forest Demon Deacon baseball team is off to a solid start with a 5-4 record on the year. The Diamond Deacs are currently riding a four-game winning streak and are fresh off a sweep of three different opponents in the Wake Forest Invitational. The best of these wins was over the Georgetown Hoyas, who entered the game 6-1 on the year. Behind starter Brian Holmes, the Deacs were able to shut down the potent Georgetown offense to snag a 5-2 victory.

Following this win to conclude the Invitational, Wake returned to action on Tuesday and came away with a 9-8 victory on a home run from RS Junior Mac Williamson in the sixth inning. This is the third year under head coach Tom Walter and is the first time in a few years that the Deacs have a legitimate shot at making some noise in the conference and making a run at a regional invite to the NCAA tournament come June.

Click through for more analysis and insight to the current state of the Diamond Deacs

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Most of the drama of the 2012 version of National Signing Day has come and gone, but not before several top recruits in the nation made their decision earlier this morning. While some recruits have not sent in their binding Letter of Intent (LOI) to a school which they have given a verbal commitment to, most of the ESPN top 150 have now committed somewhere (as of this afternoon only five recruits remained without a verbal).

On the local front, Jim Grobe signed one of his best classes as head coach at Wake Forest. All 19 players who had given a verbal commitment submitted their LOI's to the Demon Deacons. The class is headlined by QB Tyler Cameron, who has already enrolled in Wake and is on campus, WR Jared Crump, Athlete Steve Donatell, and NG Shelldon Lewinson. Despite the successful signing class, many fans might remember this year's Signing Day for what could have been, with two big-time recruits electing to enroll elsewhere, instead of seeing the big picture of another great Grobe class.

A look at what went down as Signing Day unfolded and an in-depth look at the 2012 Wake Forest football recruiting class after the jump

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(From Rivals)

Quinshad Davis, the second best recruit in South Carolina according to Rivals, has committed to the University of North Carolina, announcing the news on National Signing Day 2012. Davis, who played for Gaffney High School, chose UNC over Wake and Tennessee.

Despite Wake Forest being on Davis from day one, and making him a huge priority under the watchful eye of Lonnie Galloway, Davis chose to take I-40 an hour east and become a Tar Heel.

Davis was the 34th-highest wide receiver in the Rivals rankings. Wake was hoping to land Davis to bolster a Wake receiving corps which loses junior Chris Givens to the NFL Draft and senior Terence Davis to graduation.

Davis would have been a great addition to the 2012 recruiting class for the Demon Deacons, currently ranked 71st in the most recent Scout rankings.

Losing Davis to UNC is especially disheartening to Wake Forest and the coaching staff because just three hours earlier, the Deacs lost Jela Duncan to in-state rival Duke

Highlights of Quinshad's senior year:

Follow all the National Signing Day news at the official BSD thread, here.

(Them? We're playing them? Yeah we got this)

Wake Forest will take the floor looking to win back-to-back games in the conference for the first time since early February of 2010. Unfortunately (or opportunistically) the Deacons are tasked with taking on the Florida State Seminoles, arguably one of the nation's hottest teams. The Seminoles enter the game with a four game winning streak, including wins against North Carolina (by 33) and Duke (in Cameron).

Florida State sits atop the conference standings at 4-1 alongside Duke, and N.C. State. Wake is currently jammed in the middle of the standings in a four-way tie for 7th place.

Location: Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum, Winston-Salem, NC

Information: 7 P.M., RSN, ESPN3.com

Click through for statistical analysis, discussions about the matchup, and game predictions

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The Wake Forest Demon Deacons (10-6, 1-1) return home tomorrow to take on the N.C. State Wolfpack (12-5, 1-1) at the LJVM. Both teams are coming off a loss on Wednesday following a win in the conference-opener, albeit in very different manners. Wake fell behind early in College Park to a Maryland team that shot lights out in the first half, only to claw back into the game carving a 16 point halftime deficit to three before falling short 70-64. The Wolfpack faced a Georgia Tech team which shot the ball extremely well (60.2 eFG%) and managed to spring a road upset in Raleigh by an 82-71 margin.

This game is important for both teams as Wake looks to defend their home court, a venue in which the Deacons are 7-2 on the season, and the Pack try to pad their resume for a potential NCAA tournament run. State on the other hand has only played one true road game (a loss at Stanford) in addition to a game against St. Bonaventure which was not technically played in the Bonnies gym.

TV: ACC Network, ESPN3, 1 P.M., Winston-Salem, NC, Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum

Click through for statistical analysis, matchup discussion, and predictions for tomorrow's ACC battle.

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Wake is set to take on Maryland tonight in basketball at 7 in College Park. Leading up to the game Blogger So Dear took some time to catch up with Ben Broman of Testudo Times to talk about the game.

Catch the question and answers after the jump. Blogger So Dear's answers to Testudo's questions will be up on their website by the afternoon and will be linked as soon as it's posted.

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Keep it classy, dirty Jersey

I was taking a look at this upcoming season's contract situation out of curiosity stemming from doing a lot of reading about the structure of the new CBA system. As far as I know the ESPN numbers for the 2011-2012 contracts are accurate as they have Walker and Biyombo on already and doesn't include Brown or Mcguire's numbers.

If something is off about the contract then this post is relatively meaningless other than an exercise in examining a hypothetical team's contract situation.

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The Wake Forest basketball team returns to action on Friday to take on the Arizona State Sun Devils in the consolation bracket of the Old Spice Classic in Orlando. Wake is coming off a hard-fought 80-76 loss at the hands of the Dayton Flyers while the Sun Devils are looking to bounce back from a 55-44 defeat to the Fairfield Stags.

After yesterday the Deacs sit at 3-1 while the Herb Sendek-led Arizona State team enters with a 1-3 record. The Sun Devils won their season opener over Montana State and are on a three game losing streak with consecutive losses to Pepperdine, New Mexico, and Fairfield.

The game will start around 7:30 and is televised on ESPN2. Since it is the last game of the day in the Disney World complex it may be slightly delayed by previous matchups, but 7:30 is the projected start.

Line: Wake Forest -1.5
TV: ESPN2

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Wake Forest will open play in the Old Spice Classic against the Dayton Flyers from the A-10. This is really the first game Wake has played this year against an opponent expected to make any kind of noise throughout the season and will be a great barometer for where this Wake team stands through four games. 

Wake is 3-0 after three games against relatively mediocre to bad teams, while Dayton stands at 2-1 with wins against Western Illinois and UNC-Wilmington with their sole loss coming on the road in overtime against a decent Miami (Oh.) team. 

Tip off will jump at 7 P.M. and the game is aired on ESPN2 in front of a national audience. This is the first nationally televised game of the season for both teams and will be a nice dessert for every Wake fan's Thanksgiving feast. Win or lose the Deacs will play again on Friday against either the winner or loser of the Arizona State/Fairfield game which will start half an hour after the conclusion of the Wake/Flyers game.

Click through for a closer look at the Dayton team and for stats/matchups/predictions for tomorrow's game

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Well for the second time this year the Deacs will be taking on a team called the Eagles (with the other one coming against Georgia Southern). Wake Forest puts their 2-0 season record on the line in the final tuneup before heading south to the Old Spice Classic over the Thanksgiving weekend. Central enters the game with a 1-2 record but their only win came against non-Division I team Johnson and Wales. The Eagles lost their last game 87-83 in New York against the Wagner Seahawks.

The game will tip off at 7 P.M. at the LJVM in Winston-Salem and will be aired on ESPN3. If you're in the area come on out because tickets are cheap and the Deacs will look to extend their unbeaten 2011 record.

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Wake Forest basketball returns to action on Wednesday night to take on the Georgia Southern Eagles of the Southern Conference. The Deacs are coming off a season-opening 75-63 victory over the Loyola Greyhounds, while the Eagles are seeking their first win of the year after starting the season with a 90-81 loss at home to Valparaiso.

The game is set to tip off at 7 P.M. at the LJVM in Winston-Salem, so come on out if you're in the area as tickets should be pretty cheap before the game. This one will be aired on television on RSN in the North Carolina area and on ESPN3 for other viewing areas.

Click through for a more in-depth look at the SoCon's Eagles and what to expect from the Demon Deacons tonight

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The Wake Forest men's soccer team did enough this season to earn a berth to the 2011 NCAA Men's Soccer tournament. The Demon Deacons will take a short drive south to face South Carolina in Columbia. It will be the second time the Deacons have traveled to Columbia this year, but the first game was cancelled due to lightning after the Wake team arrived.

Wake Forest received one of 26 at-large bids after finishing the season with an 8-7-4 record, including a strong finish to the regular season with draws against Maryland and Akron before falling in the first round of the ACC Tournament in double-OT to Virginia. The game will take place on Thursday, November 18 at 7 P.M. If the Deacons win the contest against the Gamecocks they will advance to face nationally ranked James Madison in Virginia. The Dukes are ranked 15th in the nation.

This is the 10th time in 11 years the Deacs have made the NCAA Tournament, with the 2010 season being the only aberration. 

Bracket Link

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The 16^th ranked Virginia Tech Hokies come to Winston-Salem to take on a resurgent Wake Forest team, entering the game 4-1 and 3-0 in ACC play for the first time ever. Both teams are coming off wins last week. The Deacons upset 23^rd ranked Florida State 35-30 in a dominating performance by the Deacons, while the Hokies snuck by a mediocre Miami team 38-35 on a late 19-yard touchdown run by quarterback Logan Thomas.

For the Deacs to extend their winning streak to 5 games and push their conference record to 4-0 it's going to take quite the Homecoming effort to knock off a very solid Virginia Tech team.

Click through to see keys to the game, odds on the game, and bold predictions

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According to sources close to the situation, the Texas Board of Regents is set to vote Monday on joining the Atlantic Coast Conference. Earlier this weekend both Pittsburgh and Syracuse applied for admission to the ACC as the 13th and 14th members of the conference. The Big XII has existed in a state of limbo since news broke surrounding Texas A&M's leaving the conference to join the SEC. 

Texas would bring one of the most lucrative and prominent collegiate athletic programs to the ACC. If sources are correct, and the majority votes to move to join the Atlantic Coast Conference, the terms of the move remain to be seen. Many rumors have circulated about Texas perhaps joining conferences as a partial member for non-revenue sports and basketball, with football remaining independent. Were the Longhorns to join the ACC, it would more than likely do so in all sports with the Longhorn Network being an intriguing part of the move. 

The Wake Forest Demon Deacons are set to kick off their 2011 football season tonight at 8 PM as they travel to Syracuse to take on the Orange. Syracuse is coming off an 8-5 record in 2010 and a thrilling bowl victory over the Kansas State Wildcats. On the other side of the coin the Demon Deacons are fresh off a 3-9 season, which included a nine game losing streak in the middle of the year before a season ending win over Vanderbilt finally provided Wake with their third and final win of the year. This game promises to be an indicator of which Wake Forest team we can expect this year. Will this be a typical Grobe-era team which shows poise and discipline on the field, or will it be a replay of an atrocious 2010 season where injuries, youth, and schemes doomed Wake to their worst record since 2000, the year before Grobe arrived?

Click through for the full game preview for Wake’s season opener with Syracuse

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