Amazing (and very long) piece from News & Observer titled Florida State-ACC was a perfect marriage — until it wasn't that's walks through the history of the modern ACC, starting with the addition of FSU in 1991. Strongly recommend reading the whole piece.
The premise of the piece is that FSU joining the ACC was always about money, just like FSU's seemingly inevitable exit. But this piece is about so much more than FSU:
- Swafford's initial foresight into the importance of football, and how it was pivot from the ACC's previous focus
- In 2005, the ACC seemed poised to be premiere athletic conference in college sports, having some of the most watched sporting events in the country (UNC winning a basketball natty, VT vs Miami, VT vs FSU, etc)
- Until 2007, the ACC was the highest earning conference, and had been for a long time.
- While the ACC has seen over 500% revenue growth since 91, the B10 and SEC have seen over 700%
- FSU's lawyers have said it would cost the school between $570 million and $700 million to exit the conference, should the GoR be enforceable, which is more than FSU has earned since joining the conference in '91
There's many fascinating quotes, anecdotes,and factoids sprinkled throughout the piece. Great read, especially for anyone who hasn't been a cfb fan for more than 20 years.
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Comments
My conspiracy theory is the SEC refs called those two egregious calls against us in the USC game because people the ACC was poised to be the top football league and the SEC didn't want that so they made us lose, which funny enough screwed Auburn out of a championship.
I remember the bad offensive interference call. What was the other one?
There was a bad roughing the passer call too that gave them a first down.
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I was sitting at club level right over top of that call. Likely one of the worst calls I've ever seen in CFB.
Combine that with the dozen or so illegal formation calls that our OL kept getting because, apparently, all OL being exactly on the LOS (usually each one is slightly behind the person inside him) was a point of emphasis that Frank Beamer didn't know about. Absolutely crushed us offensively through the first quarter.
Also, that was our introduction to true freshman Eddie Royal!
I blame ESPN.
The fix was in.
I blame Swofford for the current state of the ACC.
I blame Scott for the current state of conference realignment.