PatherSC97, I could see expanding to 16 with two 8 team divisions for basketball and other varsity sports.

Just never understood the A10 expanding to 14 for basketball. There is no balance in schedules and either you have to play every team and 3 cross over games or play in a division with out playing some other teams.

14 team alignment has got to be the worst of all numbers for a confernce size.

16 team conferences could work for all sports.

Lash, why is 14 the worst? I think 14 is great.

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The Bear may be dead but he still hates Tennessee. Roll Damn Tide

footballgod, if you follow the BE you would see first hand all the issues that were caused by 14 team alignments.

The first attempt by the BE was to align into two 7 team divisions. Each team played round robin with members of the same division. The problem was that not every team played each other in the opposite divisions. There were always 3 members of the other division that did not play in a given year. The next year was not like a new set of four moved into play a rotation. Sometimes the same team would always play the other division member every year. It was just very confusing from a fan perspective.

Now if you look at the Big 12 and SEC, not every football team plays each other, however, the basketball teams do play at least one game against the other divisions members.

If you expand to 14, you are really two conferences without a balance that 16 members would provided.

With 12 team conferences the football teams in the other divisions play every other year. With 14, the lag would be longer.

Conferences need some type of uniform scheduling to keep the unity of the conference together.

When the BE attempted to drop the divisions and allow each of the 14 members to play at least one basketball game, the schedule became very unbalanced with 3 round robin games. I just think it was a mess.

As a I fan, I hate 14 member conferences alignments unless you have to expand for necessity like the BE did to take Va Tech as the 14th member. There were always complaints about the BE 14 team alignment no matter how the BE attempted to make it better.

The BE will return to 12 members this year and the alignment is just soo much better. Each team will play 5 round robin games and one game against the other 6.

Too bad this 12 team alginment did not have the required 8 football members to qualify as a 1A football conference.

Ironically next year with 16, the schedules become very balanced again.

Most likely the BE will have each team play the other 15 and only one round robin game or could break into two 8 team divisions. In this case, each division is finally a replication of a conference. Round robin would be fantastic with 14 games and probably 4 games against the other division. Yes there would be a break in schedules with other members, however, located in an 8 team divisions is going to provide the feeling of a round robin conference and winning an a 8 team divisions is basically winning a confernce title rather than a division title.

In the new Big East alignment, the football programs will play each other and if the BE aligns in my preference, the same football schools will play round robin basketball. The basketball schools will each play in their divisions and every thing is very balanced with 16 members. With four cross over games, each members would play the other division every other year with a balance rotation.

I will always prefer the simplicity of a 9 team all sports conference. Round robin in each of the major sports.

Next is probably a 10 member conference. This will become better with a 12 team regular season schudule that could provide 9 conference games and have all members play football. Basketball would be round robin for 18 games.

11 is very odd, however, the Big 10 makes it work.

12 is next best after 9 and 10 and does provide balance with basketball to a certain degree.

14 member conferences should be ruled out by the NCAA.

16 team conferences depending on how you align can be fantastic.

For the record, Temple is a STATE-RELATED University, not private nor is it technically state owned and operated. There are four STATE-RELATED Universities in Pennsylvania: Temple, Pittsburgh, Penn State, and Lincoln (a historically, predominantly African-American campus).

The STATE OWNED and OPERATED Pennsylvania campuses, 14 in #, Div. II for most sports and comprise 2 divisions in the PA conference are as follows: Bloomsburg, Cheney, West Chester, Mansfield, Millersville, Kutztown, Lock Haven, Slippery Rock, Edinboro, California of PA, Indiana of PA, Shippensburg, Clarion, and East Stroudsburg.

Concerning the subject, BC was not the best choice for the ACC as #12. Though Temple has struggled in football, they certainly would improve with an "all sports" inclusion which they never had in the BE.

The Philadelphia area would bring a contiguous plus to the ACC territory which Boston cannot geographically provide as a natural connection.

Forget Penn State. They will remain in the Big 10 for a long time to come. People assume Penn State is unhappy with the Big 10. That is not the case.

I thought VPI and Miami were good ACC choices. I also liked West Virginia as a possibility. To say they are not academic enough is sort of nonsense. They are a respectable enough University, and in football, they would naturals for games with Maryland, UVA, VPI and games against Clemson, GT, and NC State would sound attractive. However, maybe WVU's destiny belongs where nearby Pitt exists. Many years ago, WVU was talked about as an ACC possibility. Then, I heard complaints about the mountains, travel problems, the airport, and weather. I guess Morgantown has an improved airport, and anyway, the Pittsburgh airport is only 50 or so miles away and can handle most anything.

Looking at the situation now, Temple does not look so bad, and their basketball can compete in the ACC. The new Lincoln stadium is nice also. Even Navy would have been better in the ACC than BC to be. However, Navy would pose scheduling problems (they must accommodate Army and Air Force, and maybe Notre Dame), and their basketball is no where near ACC readiness. No ACADEMIC issue with Navy and they are in ACC established territory.

I really would like to see BC stay in the BE. It would be best for all concerned in the long term. Temple is free and the Atlantic 10 in bb can replace them comfortably.

The ACC chieftons were thinking grandiose and not practicality.

How about a few reason's why BC was the best option at that time?

1) Forget the pipedreams. Overtures were made to ND and PSU, but the reality is neither party had enough reason or desire to abandon their current situations. Ditto for other delusions such as Kentucky or Florida.

2) The new markets. This isn't just about the size of the metro area, but also the brand name the school has in that metro area. I've supported Temple and would not have been completely dejected with them as #12, but I also know they don't carry the clout in Philly the way BC does in Boston. That might change in the future, but BC was truly the safer investment. Add the established rapport with Miami...

3) Academics, research, etc. It was known from day one that any new members would have to feature academic missions similar to the existing members, and there would have to be at least 1-2 members that would stand beside Duke and Wake as private institutions more focused on their academic standing overall than their athletic success. Notice all three original candidates were private schools.

4) Distance is not as crucial. It's about the same distance from Miami to Tallahassee as it is from Boston to DC (Maryland); 480 miles. Throw in the use of air travel and distance seems relatively moot regarding conference membership. What makes the concept of BC in the ACC look so strange is the prospect of leapfrogging so many other schools to get to that closest neighbor. But even if the BE schools shun them BC will find plenty of nearby ooc competition for other sports and can reach out to Temple, PSU, the academies or MAC schools for football.

5) Cultural differences aren't as severe, either. Yes, there will be some differences and other institutions exude more Tobacco Road character, but the mid Atlantic region (especially the I-95 corridor) is fully immersed in the east coast mentaility. Unlike the more rural state campuses of the SEC, the ACC is more closely linked to the ubran metro areas of DC and Baltimore, The Research Triangle and Atlanta, all of which consider themselves progressive cities aspiring for business, tourism and recognition. I venture it's safe to say BC has as much if not more in common with Miami, GT, Duke, UNC, UVA and UM as it would with many BE members. And yes, the aura of New England and Yankee inginuity seems an odd fit for Tobacco Road, but the BE has a lot more than New England as well.

6) Temple was willing, but unable. Count me among those who said Temple could work better in the long term for basketball purposes. Alas, the school couldn't even muster the wherewithall to garner support from the BE, even with one foot in the door. Without convincing evidence that they were willing to invest in their athletic programs, they lacked the appeal to make the positives overcome their negatives.

7) BC was ready, willing and able.

- - - - - - - -

There's a difference between being the perfect candidate and being the best available, and there's enough evidence to suggest BC was indeed the best available for the ACC at that time. WVU, Pitt or some others may have come if asked instead, but BC was who the ACC wanted and that's who they got. I'd rather BC be in a regional BE and see Villinova playing 1-A, but C'est la vie. If the BE can convince Temple to shore up their AD management and convince ABC to maintain their contract conditions, I'd be willing to encourage a swap! :D

Gunnerfan, you may want to examine the clout BC has with the city of Boston. Red Sox and Patriots come to mind.

Boston College has struggled at times to fill a 43 thousand seat stadium.

Other than football performance, Temple and Boston College are fairly even.

Boston College has never finished above 3rd place in the Big East.

Boston College was the only willing team to jump the second time around to the ACC.

I think everyone is under estimating the integrity that Syracuse, Pitt, UConn or even WVU had in the second ACC advancements. Possibly these teams would have moved to the SEC or Big 10, however, every BE team besides BC hate the ACC. Even with Syracuse in the first mix, the fans now realize the ACC expansion was all about greed.

It is going to take a long time for the Big East and ACC to have any type of civil relationship as conferences.

If ACC would have delayed the decision on BC, North Carolina and Duke had enough momentum to possibly prevent further expansion.

Boston College was and is the best candidate for the ACC. Both the ACC and BC have no integrity. So in that respect both deserve each other and BC was and is the only candidate from the NE for the ACC.

I never confused BC with ND, but last I checked Temple was the school not wanted by the BE due to it's comparably lackluster contribution.



For the sake of both leagues, I understand this but hope it doesn't take too long.



Especially after all that's been raised and discussed, that's cold.

14 teams in not the worst number Lash. 13 is. The MAC found that out the hard way. 10+1 as in the Big 10 is a pretty bad number too. However, I agree 14 is not very good. Its enough to make it rare to play teams in the other division in fb w/o being enough to make it look like 2 separate leagues as a 16 team conference does. With 12 teams, if you do it as the Big 12 does, you play everyone home and away at least every 4 years. As the SEC and ACC are doing it, it is still home and away at least every 5 years on the average.

With 16, you can be like 2 separate leagues in fb and either be 2 separate leagues with divisions or one division and have a balanced schedule as you pointed out. I prefer the one division, but its not very good to be in 16th place.

Also, going from 11 to 12 adds a championship game in fb. 14 doesn't give you another game.

Bullet, good point on 13. This number is so bad I forgot about it and BE used this format for a few years and Notre Dame was the cause of that unwiedily alignment.

Gunnerfan, Ok maybe I am bit cold today on ACC and will take back the comments on ACC. ACC was just looking for a method to generate new revenue. Miami and BC did not have to go along.

BC is an entirly different situation and is basically thugs personating an academic institution. There is no
way I would every trust the current admistratation of this school on any issue. The school should change its motto to "We will sell our mother out if there is potential for revenue". You could substitute mother for conference brethern.

I can understand the VPI and Miami to the ACC, but I agree the ACC's greed showed an intent, if not gross insensitivity, toward dismantling a fellow BCS conference. BC did not look good either, sitting in on BE restructuring, then running off to the ACC for the second round invite. Agree on that, Lash.

When the SEC, some years back, expanded with Arkansas and South Carolina, the process was pretty open and Arkansas wanted to leave the old, Texas-based, SWC; and South Carolina, a former charter ACC member, was football independent at the time. The SEC Commissioner at the time also visited FSU and Miami during the period. The FSU faculty wanted the ACC then, and there was a preference to be in a seperate conference from UF. Depending on whose story one wants to believe, the SEC discussions with Miami proved the SEC and Miami were definitely not blending parties. Supposedly Miami was asking for priviledges the SEC would not accommodate, and Miami, at the time was very deficient in matters such as emerging women's sports. The BE did reach out to Miami, and in turn, accepted Miami, basketball and all.

The point that the ACC past over other prospective schools (ECU, Rutgers, Temple, Navy, etc.) to secure BC demonstrates that the ACC would be happy with a diminished or non-existent BE. I respect UCONN and company for making it a legal issue, whether or not aspects prevail.

Other big name conferences could get even stronger by kicking out their overall weaker members and offering enticements to stronger members of neighboring conferences to join them. However, it is good that conferences, for the most part, have shown loyalty to their existing members.

Certainly, BC has a good academic reputation. But the ACC claiming it is much about "academics" is bull. They took Miami and Va Tech with their noble character ::), scholarly athletes didn't they?

You want SEC and BE fans to bond, just mention the ACC!

You're right. Although BC is lower on the sports radar than the Sox, Bruins, Pats and Celtics, TU is lower than the Eagles, Sixers, Flyers, Phillies, and Penn STate (and possibly a few others).




I disagree with the notion that missions had to be similar. If there was a great state school (meaning PSU) that was willing to make the jump, do you think this would have been an issue? BC and SU were chosen because they would be a nice pair that could :

1 - deliver a huge market like the 'NE'
2 - they have good athletic teams.
3 - they are good academic schools

Neither RU nor UConn have all three combinations. Who could have done the same thing?

Also, even though BC and SU are private, one private school and one state 'private' still voted no - DUKE and UNC (UNC isn't a private but is an awesome academic school).

In addition, after VT and Miami were voted in, NO WAY was DUKE and UNC going to stop any further expansion to 12.

First, if that was the case, why did Duke and UNC both vote YES to BC?

Second, besides NCSU, all the other teams voted yes everytime for expansion. Once ND said no and the NCAA was going to vote no for an 11 team championship game, everyone knew the ACC was not going sit at 11. It was just a question of who was going to be #12 regardless of what Duke and UNC had to say - too much money would be lost if they stopped at 11.

IF you can't get a championship game, you lost a lot of revenue. Why would anyone else side with UNC and Duke to vote no thereby decreasing their money?

One more thing about BC. BCs admin stated they would have stayed if the BE FB broke away and formed an all-sports conference RIGHT THEN

BC has to know some BE schools were NEVER going to committ to breaking away at that point. UConn, SU, and to a lesser extent Pitt would lose a ton of revenue from the NCAA tourney BB credits that wouldn't be carried over to the new conference. Therefore, how could the BE have accomidated BC in this regard? BC can leave their credits behind knowing they will make 2X what they were making in the BE.

My guess is that if all teams broke away, the conference would lose $6-10 million in NCAA credits for a few years as you get paid over a 5 year average.









Was that about the time the ACC formed? I think WVU was part of the southern conference which contained all of the ACC members when it formed (early 1950s).

DogsNthingys, well said. One more point when Big East expanded with Miami, Miami had temporarily dropped basketball (can you understand that from an ACC expansion school) a few years early. Other than football and baseball which did not come with package, Maimi was a one trick pony for the BE to create a valid football league.

How many folks think Miami would have been provided that opportunity with the BE if the conference could have predicated today results.

Without BE all sports membership and Miami football probation problems, Miami may have been forced to join Conf USA or worse yet the Sun Belt.
Miami and its administration have to be the most ungreatful group in the world.

The SEC played around with Miami, but agreed did not really want the school at the time. WVU was more desirable and was the next choice after South Carolina.

FSU was the first choice by the SEC, however, we all know the fiasco caused by Auburn and FSU when FSU took the easy route for football and joined the basketball ACC league.

An ESPN has the audacity to state the ACC is now better than the SEC and Big 12 in football. ESPN in your dreams! Maybe ESPN needs a history lesson.

Whether or not this was a stance the schools officialy made known, every other ACC member knew that at least one more small private school would have to be considered in expansion to gain favor with Duke and Wake if the goal was 3 more members. Wes Durham and other ACC announcers and press wonks discussed this early in the realignment process. I suspect everyone assumed Duke, Wake and UNC would vote together regarding any candidates, and the last thing Duke and Wake wanted was to slip further off the radar by adding 3 huge state U's or commuter school to the conference. If the noton had been just one more, even of the scale of PSU, then it might be less important. But when pursuing three, the notion was made clear: Bring someone else who would stand beside Duke and Wake.

Undoubtedly, SU and BC were considered for the things you mentioned. Also because those two schools were involved in the discussion of a football affiliation with the ACC back before the BE had a football conference and after PSU gave up on eastern football. I imagine the ACC heads who pitched the original trio assumed that it offered everything that Duke and friends could want, while also allowing the football types to get their Hurricane and conference championship fixes. I'm sure there was also some sincerity in not wanting BC or Syracuse to end up an island.



Duke and UNC voted no to the original proposal of going to 12 teams, regardless of who the candidates were. Perhaps only if it was BC, Cuse and Notre Dame would those schools have supported giving up the double round robin schedule in basketball. Even then I doubt it. As for why they agreed to BC as #12, you answered that with your following point.




They also did it (superficially, i'm sure) to show conference unity or something like that if I recall the articles correctly. Already knowledgable that a 12th member would be necessary, take the school you'd prefer and forego the vanity.

I tend to agree with you there, and certainly have not disallowed the credit due to the BE in helping Miami out of it's troubling times. I do concede that Miami has, is and always will hold itself above others, feel relatively immune to persecution and in general be less than considerate team players. I suspect (hope) the luster will wear off the program quickly and allow the other members the chance to shine at the Hurricane's expense. And as you all know, I never really wanted them in the first place. :-/



Yeah, I don't get that either. Other conferences have more schools ranked and the SEC has more legit title contenders than FSU and Miami. I'd say this is preposterous but it's not as if all their prognostications have come true before. 'Tis hype, and such honors are best left for after the fact.

GunnerFan -

All good points, however, the key to ACC expansion was Miami - a small private school. Would that have satisfied the other privates if they brought in RU and UConn instead of BC and SU? I just think it happened that BC and SU could bring all three aspects the ACC wanted. No combination of state school(s) out there could do that (minus PSU and some SEC schools) so I'm not really sure how important the 'private' aspect really was.

Another differenct scenerio is would ACC expansion passed with a different third candidate with BC and SU -Say RU, Pitt, WVU, or UConn?