This ain't your daddy's ACC

I did not see that one coming.  Nope, not even an inkling.  And I challenge anyone who reads this to look me square in the eye and tell me that they thought the ACC was going to be the conference that started the super-conference dominos falling.

I, like most Hokies following the realignment discussions and rumors, was worried that Virginia Tech would get left behind in some bastardized version of the ACC and Big East.  That once the Pac 12 went to 16, the SEC would feel compelled to do so, as well.  If the SEC was going to go to 16, there's no way they get there without poaching a few ACC schools, and there's no way I want to be apart of an ACC sans Clemson and Florida State.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, the ACC fires a preemptive strike and snarfs Pittsburgh and Syracuse.

I was shocked, but I was happy to see the ACC being proactive.  Initially I was satisfied with Pitt, as we've had some memorable games with them on the gridiron, but Syracuse was a resounding meh.  Now that I've had a few days to digest it, as well as read about how it may have gone down, I've concluded that the ACC made a fairly shrewd move.  (Note: I have no idea of the truthfulness of that post, but it certainly seems genuine.)  Like it or not, the ACC is looking at more than just football for potential members.  If you're not happy with whom we grabbed, please tell me who else the ACC should have and could have brought in?  Pitt and 'Cuse fit the bill extremely well: both have football history (although the Orange have fallen off as of late, the Panthers are a solid program right now), have good basketball programs, and are academically solid universities.  Last, but not least, Pittsburgh and Syracuse fill in an ACC footprint that has a gaping hole in its north end.

Let's face it, the Atlantic Coast Conference is not a southern athletic conference anymore - it is now the collegiate athletic conference of the US Eastern seaboard.  In its infancy, the ACC stretched across 4 states: North and South Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland.  Now, with the two latest additions, you've got a contiguous geographical footprint from south Florida all the way up to New York & Massachusetts.  If you look back to the last round of expansion, you can't deny that this is exactly what the ACC wanted - a northward expansion, not westward.  In doing so, they also protect themselves from the possibility of the Big Ten getting a stranglehold on those markets.

So, what's next?  I think it's obvious that another 2 teams are a distinct possibility.  This is where things get dicey.  Remember how I was worried about getting stuck in the bastardized version of the ACC and Big East?  Unfortunately, I think that's essentially where we'd end up.  Let's just assume the ACC ends up with UConn and Rutgers as 15 and 16 (which is the popular rumor).  Here's a word of warning: be prepared for a North/South divisional split.  @Cvillehoops13 has made some very logical arguments in favor of such a split from a TV revenue standpoint.  For the league as a whole, it actually makes some sense.  The downside - we get stuck in the bastard division: Boston College, UConn, Maryland, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Syracuse, Virginia, and Virginia Tech.  Not many of those road trips are that enticing to me.  Compare that to the theoretical South: Clemson, Duke, Florida State, George Tech, Miami, North Carolina, NC State, and Wake Forest.  With the exception of Duke and Wake, that is a pretty heavy duty football division.

I can only hope that should the ACC go to 16, that they implement 4-team pods.  The result isn't much better for us, but it at least means we'll play the other teams more often.  Theoretically the 4 pods would look something like this: BC/UConn/Rutgers/Syracuse, Maryland/Pitt/UVA/VT, Duke/UNC/NCState/Wake, and Clemson/FSU/GT/Miami.  You'd play everyone in your pod every year and rotate the 2 teams per remaining pod each year for a total of 9 conference games in football.  For basketball you'd play everyone in your pod twice a year and the other 12 teams once, for a total of 18 conference games.

That all said, I hope the ACC sits by and bides its time.  At this point it can be choosy with who will be left when the dust settles.  Barring a major restructuring of their revenue sharing and a complete makeover of their internal politics, I just don't see how the Big East and Big 12 survive for the long term.  The same universities that want into the ACC now will likely still be there when the Big East and Big 12 finally implode (be it now or later), and we can continue to work on Notre Dame as number 15.

The ACC did what it needed to solidify itself as one of the top-4 conferences.  In this evolving landscape of college football, I have to like the ACC didn't come apart at the seams.  Instead, they quietly formed this "444" committee (which is basically the ACC's expansion committee), and went to work on protecting the conference as a whole.  I still think this new-look ACC is a good fit for Tech, and it's clear to me that the member universities are working for the common good.

Stability is not something to be taken for granted.  Just turn your attention to the rest of the Big East schools and the Big 12 schools that don't have Texas or Oklahoma in their names.  How would you like to be in their shoes?