Summer football media daze: I’ve attended my last ACC Kickoff, because, meh

I won’t be among the hordes making the trek to Charlotte for next week’s ACC Kickoff.

The reason: meh, my heart just ain’t into that kind of thing anymore.

I did it for years, mainly out of wont for something to do – mid-July is a tough time of year to find stuff to write about when you’re a sportswriter who covers college sports.

The UVA Athletics beat at least kept us busy this summer with the successful search for a new baseball coach and the recruiting of a new roster there, plus the news around the basketball program, which also has a new coach and a new roster.

Among the issues here for me here: next week’s ACC media event is still five weeks out from the opening weekend at the end of August.

At least this year, the member schools were asked to bring along four kids with the head coach, meaning, there’s now five guys, instead of the usual three or four, to offer up rehearsed quotes on playing one week at a time, giving 110 percent and leaving it all on the field.

Then the circus comes back to the various campuses – there’s a UVA Football media event at the end of next week, the first of many.

Before it’s over, each of us in the media contingent will have written the equivalent of Machiavelli’s The Prince on offensive and defensive line depth charts, the two-deep in the secondary, and how the new QB is adapting to the offense, before the team has played a single snap.

Plus, for the ACC event next week, man, the media-relations folks make it easy for you anymore.

Every press conference is transcripted within the hour, which is good enough for those of us who realize that the coach or the leading returning wide receiver isn’t going to suddenly break kayfabe and spill the beans just because I phrased the 32nd question they got that day on how to best attack a weak-side blitz better than the first 31 guys.

Seriously, I’m not gunning for a Pulitzer, just content.

It was, admittedly, cool, in the pre-“fringe media” era, to be there to be able to chat with the other sportswriters, but once they’ve told you what they really think about you, it’s not worth the five-hour drive and couple hundred bucks a night for hotel accommodations to pretend that any of what those people have to say matters more than what I get to do outside of watching games and writing stories about them.

For instance, it was at the 2023 Kickoff that I broke a story about an illegal meeting of a local board of supervisors that would turn into a months-long saga, complete with court challenges and appeals.

This year, I’ve had my head buried in a scandal involving UVA Swimming that literally no one who will be in Charlotte next week has touched with a 39-and-a-half-foot pole.

I will miss out on the incredible food and ACC swag, so, there is that.

Fear not, dear readers – I’ll have plenty of stories in the coming weeks about how UVA Football plans to take the 2025 season one week at a time, while giving 110 percent and leaving it all out on the field.