There has been a ton of talk about protecting rivalry games. There has also been a lot of talk about pods, crossovers, etc. to protect said games. Putting schools in pods can be helpful, but not all schools have games that need protected, so inevitably these schools might be forced to play a school every year, when they aren't really interested in doing it, and more importantly, when it might be more important for some schools to rotate more often rather than having 3 or 4 permanent games.

Some schools might have four rivalries that need protected. Others may have zero.

So I thought it would be healthy for the board to take a step back and take a conference-wide look at what constitutes and what does not constitute a key rivalry.

Now, your exercise is to act as schedule maker. Forget pods and divisions right now and just list the rivalries that must be protected, remembering that the more rivalries you list, the more difficult it will be to make a master schedule; and, that it's ok to hurt a school's feelings by omission.

Prioritize them if you wish.

So, what schools need to meet every year? It should go without saying, but look at this from an ACC point of view, not just a VT one.
[Post edited by Maroon Baboon at 06/25/2016 6:15PM]