Saw this late tonight from the Cincinnati 247 Sports writer. Is anyone else reporting anything like this? This is the first I've ever heard of Cincinnati being mentioned for the ACC. Definitely surprising.
I have heard from a couple more sources that UC and Louisville are headed to the ACC along with UCONN. Rumor starting to gain momentum.— Ryan Pence (@pencerm) November 24, 2012
I'm hearing the #Bearcats to the ACC is a done deal. Maybe even to the point of a signed agreement. Working to confirm.— Ryan Pence (@pencerm) November 24, 2012
I should clarify, nothing is confirmed. But I have enough information to post what I have. Where there's smoke, there's fire. #Bearcats— Ryan Pence (@pencerm) November 24, 2012
Cronin: "We are in the Big East until at least Monday.." Would go along with what was said yesterday. #Bearcats— Ryan Pence (@pencerm) November 25, 2012
Comments
Really!
If this is true and the ACC becomes the first 16 team super-conference, it means Swofford is seriously worried about being raided by the other confs and is trying to throw up a firewall to prevent anymore defections.
It will be fascinating to watch and see how the SEC, B1G and the Big-12 respond over the next couple of months. It also means that the ACC is driving a stake into the heart of the Big East that will likely put it down forever as a football conference. Watch the recent western recruits head back to the WAC in no time.
Please don't let us get stuck in this Big East tire fire.
sure being the first 16 team super conference would be big. our orange bowl deal secures the ACC's future in the new playoff system. We are in a good place right now but not a great one.
After watching FSU and Clemson lose to their SEC rivals it was clear that the ACC will always be the younger brother. Rats are jumping off the burning big east ship and boarding the ours.
The Big ACC
"Is It March Yet?"
that would be totally. . .
meh
i think i'm becoming one of the #vt4sec people
The B1G and SEC expands for TV sets, while Swofford adds teams to make basketball the best in the country, and because he has to. This would be horrible for Tech. We want to play football teams in the south, not in Ohio, Connecticut, New York, and Pennsylvania. We want to recruit southern states. Louisville, UConn, and Cincy are all stepping-stone programs (if Strong stays Louisville could argue otherwise), and that travel anywhere from meh–decent. No one would mistake any of the three as football powers.
Amusing that a Virginia Tech fan would call Louisville, Cincinnati and UConn stepping stone programs. You can thank the Virginia Legislature for even being considered for ACC in the first place. How'd you guys do against Big East football programs this season?
You can take...
....the three of those teams football accomplishments together since the '90s and add them together to what exactly?........maybe we could even say not even a first step yet, still hanging out on the sidewalk even...waiting to get on the stairs.
Go troll somewhere else. No one here went onto UL message boards and posed as a UConn fan when you all laid an egg yesterday.
TC, you understand what the phrase "stepping stone progam" means, right? Louisville lost Petrino, Cinci lost Kelly, and Uconn lost Edsall all to other programs. We've lost who to other schools? Our wr coach like 6 years ago? Anyways he said UL would be the exception if Strong stays, but hey let's not kid ourselves.
Yes the Virginia Legislature and Governor got publicly involved in the move but is that somehow a sympton of weakess? Seems like everyone acknowledged what it would do for our state and made it happen in spite of that Carolina bias and snobbery. Why are you bitching about that anyways, it got yall out of C-USA didnt it?
How'd we do against the Big East? You're right we are now 5-2 against the BEC since we left. I'm just gonna hang my head about that one because any loss against any Big East team is a program setting back embarrasment.
How many of us would love to lose some of the offensive staff to another program...
What Time do I show up?
To help them pack there furniture on the truck?
We're headed for the ACC North.
It'll be like playing in the Big East all over again. Ugh...
#VT4SEC
I guess the whole academics issue is off the table now if you're gonna add a dumpster fire like Cincy. Seriously, have you dudes been up there? Makes you long for College unforsaken Park, MD. Seems like if its ok to add community colleges, we should have added WVU when we could have. I know its all about TV sets and the Carolina schools wouldn't allow it, but ECU would be a better fit than any of these.
Personally, I'd much rather play UT, UK, Vandy, UGA, NC State and Florida every year then get stuck with Louisville, Pitt, Syracuse, Uconn, Cincy, etc. DIDN'T WE LEAVE THE BIG EAST TO GET AWAY FROM THAT GARBAGE?!?
Yeah, academics don't have anything to do with this.
They never have. Well, they do in some odd indirect way. College athletics, at least the two sports people actually watch, exist for only two reasons:
1. As academic marketing. Think of it this way, us people who actually digest and analyze football and basketball are effectively those websites who rank Super Bowl commercials the day after. Notre Dame is having a good year this year...who cares? The ND admissions department and the research grant/funding machine behind their university. Winning football team = more giving and higher admissions numbers.
2. The two revenue sports (seriously, there are only two!) exist to fund the rest of the non-revenue sports...we all know that. But why do schools need non-revenue sports anyway? To attract smart kids (and their parents wallets) who want to see them row, swim, field hockey and laccrossse it up. If you weren't trying to attract those private school kids with their high SAT scores, their future earnings and their trust funds, you wouldn't need "revenue sports" in the first place.
So, does adding Rutgers increase the B10's academic profile? Not directly, it's a bunch of public school New Jersey kids. But, indirectly they sell more cable subscriptions to the B10 network that funds the athletic budgets so B10 teams can recruit better than ACC and B12 schools and make more bowl games and play those once-a-game school commercials and drive up the admissions numbers in the east coast where all those private schools are.
Why are we doing all this? We want smarter (richer) kids in our schools. That's it. It's not about fans, "academics", competition, fairness to the student athlete, etc.
Another way to think about it, all this new conference realignment actually favors geographic diversity. The regionalism that made the SEC and (old) ACC great is actually a detriment to selling the commodity of the moment*: cable subscriptions. Obviously, geographic diversity isn't helping the "student-athlete" in any way.
* A quick review of the "commodity of the moment" through ACC expansion history. In the 50's, the ACC was formed with a regional tilt to put butts in the seats at football/hoops games. In the 80's, GT was added because they started Raycom, they needed Atlanta...and a traditional football power. In the 90's, the ACC sold its rights to ABC, so they needed FSU....a national football power to team with Clem/GT. In the 2000's, they replaced Raycom effectively with ESPN and added the ACC-CG, so they needed football teams with regional efficiency. BC never has made any sense to the ACC because they stretch that regional efficiency but don't add any true "market value" like the B10 is adding with Rutgers...because the B10 is selling their commodity of the moment, cable subscriptions, whereas the ACC has none to sell.
+1 very well said
It will not be easy selling BTN in the NJ/NYC area. No one cares about Rutgers.
Yesterday was proof
The ACC is not at the same level as the SEC. ACC teams get beat like FBS teams beating FCS teams (except when FCS teams play ACC teams). There is no team that the ACC can add to close the GAP between it and the SEC. The ACC doesn't play enough good teams in the ACC to prepare them for a SEC team. The same goes for Clemson. Yesterday was proof of that. Maybe the ACC can move football down a level and focus on Basketball.
I don't think that would be the best move
but it might shore up the conference a little. Seems like it's a desperate move so there may be pressures that we don't see. My first choice is to stay in the ACC because of the regional nature of most of the teams. However, if a move has to be made, I would prefer that VT approach the Big 1G.
I would like to see the ACC go after Penn State. They are at rock bottom and could be swayed by the regionalism argument. With Urban Meyer at OSU, they won't have any shot for the next ten years.
This is the worst
post-Thanksgiving hangover ever.
I'm making this official
#VT4PAC12
im very much #vt4sec, and i hate that the acc is just picking up the pieces from a crumbling big east. like everyone else has said the acc is still the little brother to the sec and more basketball schools doesn't help this at all. there is much more revenue in football. i wish we'd jump ship to the sec but that doesn't seem likely to happen anytime soon
Grain of salt
The above postings should be taken with a large grain of salt. Cincy's 247 network, as a whole, has been pretty hit or miss with any rumors associated with the program. Some examples include: expulsion of Yancy Gates after last year's XU/UC brawl, claiming Cronin was all but locked into becoming NCSU's next coach, and most recently, claiming that Butch Jones was, again, all but locked into UK's new job. All of the above proved to be false.
This site does a fantastic job of throwing out unsubstantiated claims about UC athletics just to get page hits. The fact that he said "it was in writing" then said "nothing is confirmed" more or less proves my point.
Setting aside whether UC belongs in the ACC, which is a different argument for a different thread, I wouldn't look too much into what's being written here. I'm not believing anything until Swofford and Whit Babcock are sitting next to each other on a stage announcing UC's admission to the ACC.
I'd rather be part of a football conference, than a basketball conference. Are you listening, SEC?
#VT4SEC or #VT4B1G at this point i will take anything.
Not sure what else the ACC can do
There are no other southern schools worth taking.
Something that people are missing is that if this does set off the wave of 16 team super-conferences, the Big 12 is screwed. The only logical targets for the Pac-12 are Texas and Oklahoma. They'll go hard after those two schools, Oklahoma State, and whichever other Texas school has enough political pull to get to be #16.
According to a new CBS report, the ACC expanding to 16 teams would be unlikely, and UConn and Louisville are the favorites to replace Maryland.
http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/blog/jeremy-fowler/21132939/acc...
I think I just threw up in my mouth.
What is left?
If this did happen, what would be left of the Big East?
South Florida and Temple?
Cincy is pushing hard to be the team if the ACC only takes one.
http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/8683593/cincinnati-bearcats...
The academic side of the expansion argument popped into my mind yesterday when I first read this thread. Of the three schools, Cinci has (to my knowledge) a stronger research pedigree.
Now, what I'm about to say is irrelevant to 99% of you guys, but as an Architect, the thought of having Cinci and Syracuse in our conference would be great from a relationship standpoint, as the three of us are consistently ranked amongst the top 5-7 an an annual basis.
Now athletically - which I think most can agree is the driving issue at hand - we can debate between Louisville, UConn and Cinci. But Tech has long maintained their desire to be apart of the ACC is both geographic and academic. Otherwise we'd probably be hearing more substantive #VT4SEC rumors...Cinci is just ghetto (see Gates, Yancy), and if Campus PD has taught me anything, its that I need to be careful on the mean streets of Cincinnati when I've been enjoying a few beverages.