Hokies were 'strongest candidate' for SEC expansion in 2012
Won't copy and paste the whole article, but it essentially says the SEC was very serious about conference expansion in 2012, and the one target they were looking at first and foremost was Virginia Tech, and not Florida State, Clemson, or any of the other programs around the area. While Weaver made outward claims that we were very happy in the ACC, the SEC was still coming after us.
Now, we all know it never happened, but should Conference Expansion rear its ugly head again, keep this story in your back pocket. Its nice to be one of the wanted ones.
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Good thing too or Saban would have made a move to make Sam Rogers and Bucky Hodges illegal for saftey reasons. Also limit formations to only 1 TE. Don't want players "getting hurt" and all.
if the SEC really wants VT, they should pay the entire exit fee to the ACC and pay VT another $50-$100 millions to join the southern conference.
Tech would absolutely OWN the SoCon
Two things about that. First, the ACC fits our overall sports profile far better than the SEC, geographically and 'personality-wise'. Second, Finebaum is such a horrendous scumbag that I really don't trust anything he says about anything at any time whatsoever. Even if he is miraculously being truthful for a change, refer back to first point. We belong in the ACC. Whit firmly believes the same. Timothy Sands firmly believes the same. Until there is no ACC, we're where we belong.
I agree the ACC is a good fit for us. I must admit though, I changed my tune only when FSU finally broke the SEC natty championship streak. Maybe it is also the expansion to a 4 team playoff which makes me more comfortable with us in the ACC, I feel like we have a chance now, while in 2012 I felt very differently.
As much as I wanted to see the playoff become a reality as a college football fan, I actually think it hurts our chances of getting a title. It isn't impossible but now we will have to beat multiple great teams instead of slipping into a good matchup. Ah what am I saying, Brewer all the way for the inaugural playoff National Championship!! Go Hokies!!!
Completely agreed. The ACC is our first best choice of where we want to be, and we should not be actively looking elsewhere.
With that said, after all the hand-wringing way back when it looked like the ACC would have been decimated and how people were worrying that we would be left out in the cold, its interesting to look back and now realize that should things have gone down, we had a reserved spot in the SEC waiting for us. That's kind of nice, and nice to know for the future, in case conference expansion happens again, and the something happens that rocks the ACC's foundation.
I always thought... we're not going to be the first ones out the door if the ACC breaks up. But that doesn't mean we wouldn't already have our bags packed and be right behind.
I've thought the same thing - just like when we left the Big East, we went with another school to the ACC. Always thought if the SEC came asking us at the right time, that we would wait until another school would join with us from the ACC and we would go running down the yellow brick road together, only with a lot more courage and heart and no dog named Toto.
Agreed on many points, but Finebaum is pretty much the insider guy for all things SEC
Well, yeah. South Carolina and Florida would never stand for their in-state rivals to join their conference, and the SEC office knows that. Georgia Tech wasn't gonna come back, and the NC schools are ACC locks.
Kinda surprised they didn't make a play for Louisville, but I'm guessing Kentucky (particularly basketball) would have fought that one.
Also, insert obligatory "PAWWWWWWWWL" here.
and none of those add revenue (TV sets) to the conference. SEC already has coverage (and the flagship schools) in those states
Meh, $EC reign ended last year, hopefully that is a trend and not an abnormality
I dunno, SECW looks awfully tough again this year. 'bama is 'bama, allbarn is good, LSU is young but looks good, and aTm is quickly becoming a monster that no one wants to play. And while the east is weaker by comparison, UGA looks good too. Admittedly we're only two games in, and some of those teams haven't played anyone yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if any of those five teams ended up in the playoff.
This is probably gonna be the year we've all waited for during which the SEC West beats itself to a pulp.
If they want a "Power 5" so called league, I can see it being made of (5) 16 team "conferences." That puts the total at 80, which between the power schools, the up-and-comers, and the traditional schools that will remain in no matter how many games they win (I'm looking at you LOLUVa) at 80 teams. I can also see an 8 team playoff with the 5 winners getting autos and 3 at large. Of course, this is a few years down the road...
But it could all lead to general realignment of what we call conferences. Something along the lines of the divisions in the NFL, more-or-less regionally influenced. With 7 other teams in your division, and playing around the other at 2 games per year, it would leave 3 games for OOC scheduling.
And personally, I could care less about the lower tier bowls. It doesn't do anything for me that some City (most likely with multiple professional teams) hosts a bowl and makes money off of it. Keep things on campus, and allow the universities and their cities to reap the benefits. Point being, I can see a series such as the ACC-B1G basketball challenge for football. Depending on how you finish the previous season, you would play an opponent from the other conference the following year. Forgo the bowls. Keeps the 12 game regular season. Allows fans to go back to campus, or travel to opposing stadiums (The Shoe!) and keeps the 8 team playoff alive. It's not an easy pill to swallow, but it looks like chances are on the horizon for things anyway...why not just shake it all the way up?!
I can see that type of series gaining traction as well (seeding against another conference the following year). The only thing I think complicates things is how to organize it so that teams get their home games.
Odds in a conference are home, evens are road warriors. Or something to that effect.
It's much easier for me to handle planning a trip to Columbus, Baton Rouge, Athens, heck even Blacksburg with 7+ months planning than to scramble to go to Jacksonville, Nashville, Orlando on 4 weeks notice. And much easier to get excited about! (See everyone's trip to Columbus this past weekend.)
By getting VT in te SEC that opened up VA to more recruiting now that it would be considered SEC country as well. I know the big names already come in but I bet more of the other sec teams would also come looking. I think our style of play in football matches the SEC but I kind I like being in the ACC at the moment. Plus as stated above I believe we have a better chance of getting to the playoffs in the ACC. Plus travel for lost of the games is pretty easy being on the ACC which is nice.
Well, visiting the SEC campuses certainly has it's benefits....
That's why I married a Georgia girl!
Turkey leg for you sir. I married a Georgia peach also. Of course she had to convert to Hokie Nation first. Made the Peach bowl against Georgia a blast except the outcome.
Yep... but if I had to pick a conference to play in, it would be the B1G.
Shameless ploy to garner legs.....pun intended. Leg for you sir !
As an Auburn graduate, I can say this is entirely representative of the student body at Auburn. The same can be said for most other SEC schools.
The funny thing is the most popular sport for "hot" girls is baseball. Just an interesting side note.
I've been to the campuses USCe, UT, UGA, and UK - and can personally validate this statement.
Looks good, but I spend most of my time for work in Tempe and Tucson.
You want to talk talent at a sporting venue...
Arizona and Arizona State are a hotbed for them for some reason. I don't really get it in terms of locale. Seems to bea self-perpetuating thing.
It's the weather. Everyone out here is never really covered up, which pushes people to look their best.
My wife is a Sun Devil. I met her through a good friend that had moved to AZ and they were roommates (they had known each other since they were 2). They decied to come out and visit April of my senior year. All I really have to say about it is imagine a hot, tan blond in downtown Blacksburg in early April, while everyone else was still coming out of winter. (Not saying I didn't love me some Hokies in my time however)
My wife is native CA. Grew up in AZ. Met her in San Diego.
I'm pretty familiar with you you state here.
Can't argue much with it.
They also get a lot of girls from SoCal.
I like the ACC. We fit in academically as well as athletically. I think that being in the ACC has elevated how competitive we are in every sport, including all the non-revenue ones.
Leg for your big picture thought process. You touched on a key point a lot of folks ignore in creating fantasy conferences - we fit the ACC academically possibly even better than we do athletically, and our athletic programs fit the ACC extremely well.
Makes sense. SEC doesn't have a market that far North and UGA, UF and USCe has conference strength edge when going after the same recruits as FSU, Miami, GT, and Clemson so they wouldn't want them added.
Really???
Not saying anything would be different, but I wonder what would have happened if Whit was in charge back then?
Granted no one can know but it's always fun to think about alternate timelines.
It wasn't Weaver's call and it wouldn't be Whit's call. These decisions are made on a presidential level. My guess/understanding is that the majority of the money men/decision makers consider the ACC the dream home.
True, but I wouldn't discount the impact that the AD can have on the discussion. I think we know where Weaver stood. The question is, had Whit advocated forcefully for a move (not saying that he would have, just hypothetically speaking), would it have impacted the discussions being had at the President/BOV level? Water under the bridge now, of course...
Whit has publicly stated that he believes the ACC is the ideal conference for VT and he sees no reason to look elsewhere. He said that early and repeatedly.
Biggest benefit of joining the SEC: MOAR NIGHT GAMES
This is true - Tennessee will always pull for a 6pm game vs. non-conference opponents. Other schools follow the same suit.
They played Arkansas State at noon just last week. SEC Network has noon slots to fill too.
True = The SEC Network will certainly spread the games out a little more - but in the past, there were a noticeable number of non-noon/1pm games for the SEC.
Even with the SEC network pulling a game to noon, Tennessee will still have more home night games than VT, this year.
You have a point. It wasn't long ago that LSU played Towson at 7 PM on ESPNU.
Towson.
Here's the line up of SEC vs non-Power 5 Saturday night games, almost all of which e$ECpn is televising, through next weekend (game times aren't determined beyond that):
So Miss @ Miss ST
Idaho & UF
ECU @ USCe
San Jose St @ Auburn
Sam Houston St @ LSU
Lamar @ aTm
ULM @ LSU
Rice @ aTm
N Ill @ Arkansas
Edit: Want to venture a guess as to how many VT will get this year? (I'd set the O/U at 0.5 and expect 99% of the betting to be on the under).
Although to be fair, two of our home games are on weekdays, so we only have five home games to work with. The ACC seems to get a fair number of the Thursday night games, plus part of their deal with ESPN is to provide several Friday games. And there's a good chance we'll get prime time on Black Friday. So we could end up with four night games (two home, two away), just not all on Saturday.
I just looked through the Thursday night schedule, and outside of week one, the only two times the SEC appears are for an away game against the Big 12 next week, and then LSU/A&M on Thanksgiving. And I rarely see the SEC show up on Fridays outside of Black Friday.
There is a small chance that our homecoming game against Western Michigan could end up in prime time on ESPNU. I remember playing Southern Miss for homecoming in 2006 in prime time for ESPNU. And that was after one of our weak stretches.
I'm talking Saturday night games.
FWIW.. We have 1 week day night home game, this season (the other is a Pitt). VT has one of the best night game atmospheres in CFB. It's sad that Weaver had to lobby for Thursday night games just to ensure that VT had a night game. That W Mich game may be the last Saturday night home game that VT's had.
Weaver did not lobby for Thursday night games. The ACC TV package had built in Thursday night game commitments. Weaver was quick to volunteer the Hokies for those games at a time when most of the other ACC teams viewed them as a disturbance to the flow of the season. Weaver did not at all have to lobby for them. Not at all. Weaver and Beamer did recognize the benefit of playing two Thursday night games - national spotlight when no other games were being played. As a result, they jointly agreed it wold benefit VT to play them, back to back, and not really lose any scheduling. Other ACC programs did not consider that at the time. But Weaver never ever had to lobby for the Thursday night games.
If we get a night game, what does it matter what day it is?
But getting a night game on Saturday involves a lot of factors. TV contracts and team popularity are two major factors. Sometimes you can get by on just the popularity of one team, but often it requires both. Right now, any of the big name teams from the SEC is going to trump VT, if we're just going on the basis of the home team. And none of our home opponents right now are decent enough draws to get us to prime time.
On top of all that, it depends on what other games are being played on any given Saturday.
One of the reasons I like being in the ACC as it currently stands is the proximity of the other teams. I like being able to travel to see the Hokies without burning up vacation time. Half of the conference is within a 6 hr drive. I didn't like the addition of Cuse and BC because they are so dang far. I feel pretty confident in saying I will never travel up to Cuse to watch a game, so its basically a wasted chance on the sched from the start. I can only imagine what the Big12 travel looks like on the budget sheets and faces of the WVU students (though no pity for them, they are the dummies that chose WVU) whose closest opponent is Iowa St. All the SEC money and exposure means little to me if I can't tailgate, cheer, and experience the game in person.
There are more conference expansion dominoes left to fall. The Big 12 is not going to remain at 10 schools. No one is going to remain at 14. Notre Dame is going to have to join a conference eventually as the playoff expands and is taken over by independent superconferences.
Despite FSU's recent success, I'm not convinced the ACC will be the best home for VT financially or otherwise. But especially financially.
Besides, who wouldn't love to see us play Tennessee and Georgia every year? Or Ohio State and Michigan for that matter?
I realize that these conferences are primarily based in athletics, but some conferences such as the ACC and the B1G offer cooperative academic opportunities as well. I think outside of athletics, the ACC is the best fit for our school, and even when talking about athletics the ACC is the best fit for Virginia Tech for each sport except for possibly football, and college football tends to be somewhat cyclical. Maybe there are fewer teams in the ACC that can match the historical pedigree of Bama, Ohio State, and Michigan, but Florida State, Miami, and Clemson are still big name programs in their own right, and we will have our years to make a statement.
I also agree with the idea that being on the fringe of SEC country would be less fun than being in the core of ACC country. Our current most difficult away games to attend within the conference would become average trips in the SEC. Maybe the quality of opponent would be somewhat higher for the time being, but you can't count on the SEC being the dominant conference for the coming decades.
I'd love to see us play FSU and Clemson every year
Our ability to raise money from alums fit the ACC model not SEC. Schools that don't put 90K in the stands are also rans in football in the SEC. Everybody gets the same TV money. The difference is donations and cheeks in seats. since we can't sell out 66K no need to think we can sell out 90K. As far as donations we are about tapped out from current donors. It will really be interesting to see the final $ VTAA posts this year. All of the traditional excuses will be gone (Weaver, Greenburg/johnson & Stinespring). Now is the time for all the kibitzers to either get in or get back in to the game. I'll bet we have less $ donations than UNC, FSU, Clemson or UVA
Of course they will, they have more established alumni bases than we do.
You have to stop comparing our annual giving right now to that of UNC or UVa. Those schools have been churning out thousands of alumni per year for nearly a century now. Their alumni base is extremely established with impressive endowments and a culture of giving back. The vast, vast majority of our alumni base consists of small graduating classes, which were primarily military up until about 40 years ago. (I am not saying military is a bad thing by any means, but a lot of these alumni, I have found, associate more with their eventual military branch and regiments as opposed to VT). The VT culture of alumni giving is changing, and for the better, and given time, will match or possibly surpass those of our ACC peers, but it is going to take some time before we get there. You have to remember that up until the 90's, we were a pretty small school, all things considered.
Okay, you got more than a little hyperbolic there. You make it sound as though UNC & UVa have had similar grad numbers and alum donations for over a hundred years. You also ignore the fact that VT's had a student enrollment of 20K+ for at least four decades now. Sure, 50 or 60 years ago, we might match VMI more than NC State, but in the early 70's - over four decades ago - we had gotten to 20K enrollment. That means people in their early 60's have known nothing but a VT that was very large and pretty similar to what it is now. The tiny military school portrayal doesn't wash.
A better analysis would be to compare the typical alum career profile. We match up better with Clemson, NC State, & GaTech than UVa & UNC. Or Duke and Wake.
The truth is - whether some want to admit it or not - Hokie donors have generally been tight in the wallet. That must change in the future. I think it will, but Whit is going to have to work overtime for it. I don't envy him his task.
After reading this I had to look up the enrollment by year for Virginia Tech. Not because I didn't believe you, just because I've never done it and google is such an easy tool. From Virginia Tech's website just a few landmark years - 1872 (first year) 132 people enrolled. First time enrollment broke 1,000 students - 1923-1924. 1942-1943 there were 3,582 students enrolled. Obviously that number dropped significantly (being a military school) in the following 3 years and reached a low in 1944-1945 at 738 students. Enrollment grew significantly after that reaching a peak in 1949 of 5,689 students. Dropped after into the 3,000's for several years (Korean War). After that enrollment steadily rose until it reached over 10,000 for the first time in 1967-1968. Enrollment grew significantly after that until it reach 20,000 in 1978-1979. Since that time it has grown steadily until 2008-2009 when the enrollment was 30,739. That's when the chart I am looking at cuts off. Anyway it proves your point to a certain extent. Definitely had smaller classes. But I might revise it to say that we were a pretty small school up until the late 70's. Stiil not a big school by any means. We are currently the fourth largest school in the ACC after FSU, Maryland, and NC State in that order. And there is your VT/ACC lesson of the day, which brought to you by the letters F*** WVU.
Thanks for looking that up for me!
Yeah, thats pretty much what I was saying. And the worst part for us (at least in annual giving) is that Virginia Tech really didn't start letting in hoardes of civilian students until the late 60's/early 70s, and the giving for the ones who were at Tech during that time stagnates (and I saw this working in alumni giving when I was a student) because of how I described how the military alumni generally associate themselves nowadays.
Our alumni giving is on the precipice of a massive boom in the coming decades, not because of some fundamental changes in how we ask for and collect, but because we're going to start to see the impact of the boom of enrollment that happened from the 70s onward start to hit their prime giving years, which generally happen after retirement. You should see a pretty significant change over the coming years as our alumni base starts to really grow out and fill itself in.
The alums that are a product of the 20K+ enrollment days would have already begun to contribute. There will be no organic massive boom in donations. The numbers prove that would have already happened. And again, the tiny military school excuse is invalid. As shown by the numbers above, by the late 60's the VTCC was around 10% of the student population. That is not primary by any means. VT had over 10K population by the late 60's. By the 70's, we were into 20K+ population. I graduated in the early 80's and immediately began giving $100 annually to the Hokie Club. That grew as my income grew and I've been 'Golden' for years now. There will be no 'massive boom' in my donations in the next decade or two. I've already peaked out. That is not an anomaly. The grads of the 80's are already giving if they're going to organically give.
The theory of some future natural boom of donations has no merit. Whit et.al. are going to have to stir interest and change perceptions drastically for donations to grow. We've been a large university for decades on end. Not as long as some, but long enough for the organic growth to have already occurred.
Well, it's nice to know VT has some good options should the ACC lose FSU and Clemson for some reason
also
> bringing Beamer Ball to the south doesn't seem out of the question
The ACC isn't considered in the south any more? I still think of it as a southern conference
Looks like they have plenty of fun down there in the SEC...
Anyone want to take bets on who hacked it? Auburn fan? Tennessee? Disgruntled Bama faithful?
Bob Stoops.
Edited for bad taste.
Probably the ghost of Al Davis. He was right about Kiffen, all along. Nobody believed him back then, though.
The most obnoxious person ever. His pants ate hideous and I want him to go go away. Help me make fun of him.
The SEC would be a step down academically but playing an SEC schedule would be a step up for the program. There would be more televised and prime time games, fewer noon kickoffs, a step up in recruiting. Yeah, the ACC is a better conference if we are trying to make the playoff immediately, but that would be a result of a much easier schedule.