Question about Maryland

[bke1984]

So in all of my collecting I've learned a lot about rivalries, series histories, and such, but today I realized something that is a bit odd that I can't find an explanation for.

Georgia Tech joined the ACC in 1979 as the 8th team in the conference. However, from 1979 to 1987 we didn't play Maryland once, while we played everyone else in the conference every single year.

I was just a kid during the tail end of all this...does anyone know why this was the case? I assume it had something to do with us wanting to keep playing our historical SEC rivals, but it's just really odd for a conference that had only 8 teams.

 

[00Burdell]

We were waiting for Bobby Ross to switch sides.

I remember not playing them those years - there was a solid reason but the best I can recall is that it came down to scheduling - we just couldn't get on each other's schedules. Good question, tho.

 

[augustabuzz]

Maryland couldn't clear their schedule before then. That was back in a time when a contract was signed to play on a future date, then the parties generally played on that date.