Glad to see that VT is starting to ramp up donations to go to football because it sounds like thats going to be the expectation for all schools moving forward...
I thought this comparison from Dino Babers was accurate:
Syracuse football coach Dino Babers likened the situation to a track meet.
"You're about to run a 4x100 relay, and you're Leg 1," he said. "You're coming out of the blocks, your head is down, you're pumping your arms. You slowly raise up and see someone already on the curve, which means your A-S-S is really far behind. That's how I feel when we're chasing the SEC and Big Ten when it comes to money."
There's no time to wait, Babers said. Closing in on the fastest runner requires an all-out sprint, and every debate over a step forward by ACC members puts the league further behind.
Meanwhile, Babers said, the SEC and Big Ten have a goal of their own: "Never let [the ACC] run them down."
Comments
Thanks Swofford!!!
Hey Whit likes olympic sports, he can probably understand that analogy
The scary thing about that article, it talks about the SEC and big 10 contracts constantly being re-written and updating about once a decade. It mentions the ACC isn't open for negotiation until 2036! 15 years from now.
We have to get ND in so we can void the old agreements due to a conference change.
If the ACC can consistantly put out a decent product, then we will be able to renegotiate. Until then, it's more of the same.
This article makes me dislike swofford even more than I already did. He really screwed the league.
I really thought we should have told ND to get in or pound sand. Not doing so may have really really screwed the league
Two paragraphs on Babcock alone are worth their own discussion:
On the bright side, it appears that everyone (all ADs and the league) recognize the severity of the current situation. It sounds like nothing is off the table, so we could see something exciting soon.
This would be a great time to dump cream puffs and schedule some money making P5 competition. Neutral sites if needed.
The fact that Texas is still on the table is alarming, hilarious, and quite a shot at the SEC bow. Texas alone could get ND to budge.
Could also lead to a Tx vs. A&M on the final weekend of the regular season, like Kentucky/Louisville, GT/UGA, Clemson/SC, and FSU/Florida. I think Wake/Vandy tried to start something too, but didn't materialize?
Well, They are technically an "Atlantic Coast" state
But is the Gulf of Mexico really part of the Atlantic Ocean?
Yes
Yea, I have mixed opinions about Texas joining the ACC. On one hand, It's just not a geographic rival and doesn't make sense. On the other hand, I'd (1) would love to visit Austin and (2) would love to see VT football get better funding.
As an annapolis native I might be bias, but I think the best case somewhat-realistic scenario is seeing Navy and ND become full time members, and then break the ACC into 4-team pods. If we're going for unrealistic scenarios, give me Tennessee and PSU, dumping ND.
I wouldn't be surprised to see the ACC make a big play for the bigger AAC schools like Houston, UCF, Navy Football, etc, and go to a 20-team conference. 4 game pod schedule, along with 5 matched from another pod. For example:
Northeast:
Pitt
Navy
Army
BC
Syracuse
Mountain(West):
UVA
VT
Louisville
Notre Dame
GT
Carolina:
Clemson
Wake
UNC
Duke
NC State
South:
Texas
Houston
UCF
Florida State
Miami
Match the South/Northeast and West/Carolina for 9 conference games. Winners of 4 pods play a 10th conference game for the right to play in the ACC title game.
The rest are seeded 5-20 for a 10th conference game, no intra-pod games. Throw in an incentive, like Pod W-L record sets up the host for next year's title game. If VT wins the West the following year, and the previous year the West went 5-0 on the last weekend of the season, VT would host the title game. Or higher share of bowl revenue. Something.
That leaves 2 non-conference games, so bye-bye Liberty.
The question for the above scenario... Why?
No AAC school brings anything substantive to the table in terms of additional TV market revenue or demand, and bringing them into the ACC would only split the pot further for the rest of the teams.
Also, the Clemson AD said plainly, they have no incentive to play more than 8 conference games given their annual SEC rivalry matchup (same for FSU and GT for that matter), and would want to keep their 2 "tune-up" games.
In the end, any ACC expansion would only look for the big whales (ND, UT, and OU), not the small fish.
And UofL
*edited, posted on wrong thread*
You'd have a better shot of having the current ACC 14 + ND comprising three 5-team divisions, and have Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State (because OK won't come without OK St) and two others being a fourth 5-team division.
Army and Navy wouldn't move the needle from our perspective, and from their perspective, the tail of major college sports might start to wag the dog of their primary mission, which is to produce an officer corps for their respective services. The service academies are non-starters.
UCF wouldn't move the needle much either. Why a third Florida school?
If we're going to try to get Texas, we're going to have to bring enough with them to get them to move. No way they move alone and become that much isolated from their new conference.
A really big thing the AAC and ACC have in common is their selection of metro-based cities to place their markets. Why not expand on that compared to the Big12, which their biggest city in terms of population are Texas and TCU. The American was founded after the old Big East folded and we were transitioning out of the BCS era.
ND will probably do what it can to stay independent. OU/Okie Lite will want to go together no matter what, and Texas will try to politic whatever they can when they are in a conference (coming from a Houston grad and saw some UT stuff on the inside).
Wouldn't the ACC want to expand into more metro cities, capture that market, and create more 'big fish'? What about schools that were taken out of old power conferences, such as the SWC? Houston has a market of 4 million people and 300k+ grads, and a HECK of a fertile recruiting ground, which is one of the reasons they were passed up for the Big 12 anyway, because they would lose out on that. Now add on Houston, and you got a ball game.
I don't think Texas would every agree to be an even member and not calling the shots.
They would also seriously need to look at increased travel costs for all of the ACC members in all sports before agreeing to Texas. All of those Tennis, track and field, etc. travel costs just jumped.
ACC schools have to add significant travel costs for Louisville, BC, Miami, FL St and ND. Everyone else is within driving distance.
Adding TX, while a significant cost, is only 1 extra school to travel to without bussing. Think of it this way, Adding TX and Oklahoma would be 2 big travel impacts. Adding TX and Navy, only 1 major impact.
Blacksburg to Boston is 709 miles, Pittsburgh to Atlanta is 685 miles and Google says its a longer drive time.
Louisville is 384 miles to Blacksburg while Atlanta is 410.
So I think Syracuse is a better school than UofL to argue travel costs. But all other schools still aren't drivable from each other.
Texas politics the heck out of the Big 12 because they are Texas. Don't mess with them.
Houston adds the city, the market, the recruiting field, and NC-State as it basketball rival.