Was ACC expansion a success?

tarkiokid · **Posted:** Tue Mar 10, 2009 3:32 pm

sec03 wrote:

Disagree. The question was whether the ACC should lose their BCS bid. I am not going to critique polls here or BCS bowl wins. For the BE, the recent past hung with basically two schools..W. Virginia and Louisville. It is still mid-season.
Conferences are a collection of individual schools, and criteria among BCS is consistent. While there may be regional constraints; historically the ACC have members that have been in the thick of things. Pointing out a non-BCS conference school beat a BCS one is...so what? Since Michigan, a premier Big 10 school lost last year to Appalachian State and this year to Toledo, the Big 10 should drop from the BCS? Maybe Ohio State since they blew their last two, or is it three, championship bowls?
South Fla and Pitt may be ranked ahead of any ACC team. There are a couple ACC teams with equivalent records.
Panther, since you endorsed Tark's statement, maybe then, use your own phrase..."don't count your chickens before they hatch".
The ACC is not exiting the BCS and to suggest otherwise, is nonsense. To imply the BE is in a better permanent situation than the ACC is also partisan wishing. Offer Pitt or Rutger or Syracuse or Louisville or West Virginia or South Florida, ACC membership and see how they respond? Or the Big 10?

As to dismissing numbers, quantity is a factor. When the BE added L'ville, USF, and Cincy, only L'ville had made any appreciable noise. USF was still in the infant period with football and Cincy was no queen of the gridiron. BCS membership opens doors certain schools would not otherwise have.

The argument was not whether there is going to be a bid shift, but who was in bigger trouble IF there was going to be one. Most of the criteria are based on consistency of performance, and even with the VaTech win over the 'Nati this year, that's still 2 wins in the past 10 years, compared to 3 in 4 for the new BE. Furthermore, the ACC has consistently been lower in the final polls than the BE. THAT'S what matters, history doesn't. If history did matter, wouldn't ND have consistent 10+ win seasons and would actually be competitive in all of their bowl games, not just to a medicore Hawai'i team?

vp81955 · **Joined:** Thu Dec 17, 2009 2:25 pm **Posts:** 65

While Virginia Tech has become the ACC's premier football program, in a perverse way the ACC would have been better off with its original expansion plan of adding Miami, Syracuse and Boston College. BC wouldn't have been culturally isolated, as it is now, and without having ACC membership, Tech probably has tougher recruiting in Virginia and metro D.C., thus strengthening schools such as Virginia and Maryland. With both SU and BC, the ACC could have marketed itself better in the northeast. Syracuse's basketball status would have been more palatable to much of the ACC, whereas while Va. Tech is competitive in hoops, it lacks the Orange's cachet.

I see where the Big East defenders are coming from, but if their football members wish to be taken seriously, they need to split from their basketball brethren and form their own all-sports conference, perhaps adding East Carolina, Central Florida, Memphis and one more school (Temple?). As things stand now, the Big East is perceived as a clumsy hybrid.

Quinn · **Joined:** Thu Oct 17, 2002 8:05 am **Posts:** 3752

vp81955 wrote:

While Virginia Tech has become the ACC's premier football program, in a perverse way the ACC would have been better off with its original expansion plan of adding Miami, Syracuse and Boston College. BC wouldn't have been culturally isolated, as it is now, and without having ACC membership, Tech probably has tougher recruiting in Virginia and metro D.C., thus strengthening schools such as Virginia and Maryland. With both SU and BC, the ACC could have marketed itself better in the northeast. Syracuse's basketball status would have been more palatable to much of the ACC, whereas while Va. Tech is competitive in hoops, it lacks the Orange's cachet.

I see where the Big East defenders are coming from, but if their football members wish to be taken seriously, they need to split from their basketball brethren and form their own all-sports conference, perhaps adding East Carolina, Central Florida, Memphis and one more school (Temple?). As things stand now, the Big East is perceived as a clumsy hybrid.

Good post. I do agree to an extent. While in previous posts I mentioned Virginia tech being a positive because of football success, basketball was more a push for expansion.

Also consider that in the ACC, the conference was already so strong that adding a few members that were sub-par by ACC standards was nto that bad. You have Duke, UNC, Wake, Maryland and GT which were all very, very good programs. Clemson was right behind. Then there was NC State and FSU...and lastly Virginia. The top 8 were all strong programs compared to the top 8 in any other conference. So adding Miami, BC and VPI just brought the average down. But the top programs were still very strong nationally.

As for the Big East...

I hear you about a split. Really, you can look at the Big East the past 6 years and it's the football schools who have been basketball powers. Only Villanova and Georgetown have cut it on the other side, along with Tom Crean's Marquette and Notre Dame. The football schools would do just fine with their 8 members since only Rutgers and USF were down programs. On the basketball side, onyl 4 programs were strong while the other 4 (Seton Hall, St. Johns, DePaul, Providence) were not so much.

That said...
I think a split WITH expansion on that level could hurt the BE football schools. If you expand to 9 and add Memphis, you have a great basketball conference. Memphis has the #1 recruiting class next year too. But at 9 schools, you can benefit from the easy scheduling that the Big eat has now for football (easy OOC games, great records, overinflated poll rankings).

Was ACC expansion a success?

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