Lashette, you been doing to many "transvestites gigs" to keep up on this board.

Let me try to clarify things for you. Just because my views are strong for certain issues, does not mean you can't debate and comment on a different situation.

For example, I have never like the BCS and always favored a 16 team playoff. I have never liked 12 team conference format and favor 9 or 10 all sports.

The facts are the 12 team conference are here to stay. The BCS is here to stay for a while anyway.

Regardless if my views are for a playoff and keeping conferences to a manageable number, the fact is I don't make the calls and just can provide input to the inevitable.

Hope that helps. Now you can go back to your drag shows or what every you do do.

Sorry Lash but the Noles earned their BCS spot on the field against a top 10 school.
Looks like YOUR BE schools are going to have their hands full this bowl season.I like the ACC in the Gator and Meineke bowls over YOUR BE squads.

SeminoleSandy, I agree with you on BE teams having hands full in the bowls. Va Tech "chokies" should be playing in the BCS and Louisville tough luck losing star QB makes this game a total difference equation. South Florida is basically play a home date with NC State and WVU is doing the same with Georgia in the Sugar. Ditto for Rutgers playing ASU in the Chase Ball Park bowl (Insight).

As for FSU earing its way into the BCS is debatable, Pitt earned its way into the BCS last year winning as share of the BE. It still made up for a lousy BCS game.

Good luck in the Orange Bowl as the home field advantage should help some.

After an outpouring of letters from fans and alumni, Va Tech suspended Michael Vick and he is now turning pro.

Va Tech is acting like it is being pro-active and intolerant of bad behavior following the Gator Bowl leg stomping incident. Strangely, he was not even penalized by the officials, and Frank Beamer certainly allowed him to play the rest of the game. Vick had a lengthy string of off-the-field violations and penalties beforehand including a prior suspension.

It took a videoed, embarrassing incident on national television, and the season to conclude, for Virginia Tech to act as if it made a virtuous decision.

Yes, he's a thug. And hardly the only one in big time college & pro football.

It would have been better all around if the Va. Gov had stayed out of the way and the ACC had accepted Syracuse rather than Va Tech. That way the BE could have kept its Appalachian rivalries intact.

Westwolf, I believe most of the ACC had preferred Syracuse. With BC in the ACC as well, it makes more sense.
While West Virginia lost their Penn State rivalry, they still have Pittsburgh. I know you are a Maryland fan, and they have an interesting rivalry with WVU also.

My view is that Miami and Virginia Tech were probably destined to the ACC. However, I kind of wished it was Temple, rather than BC, that went to the ACC. While Temple is a problem school for football, it could have been a trial #12. Of course they had their trial days in the BE.

My feeling was let the BE have their solid turf. Temple would have not been much of an intrusion and they were transitional anyway.

This is true. The antics are horrible in quite a few places. Many schools with solid academic reputations, have dramatically compromised their admission standards for certain fb and bb players. If that is not bad enough, at several places, repetitive criminal acts and poor sportsmanship have been tolerated, coupled with little expectations in academic achievement.
FSU had an incident right before the Orange bowl with a senior starter. It is certainly not limited to a few in the ACC, and it reaches across the country and has infested all the major conferences to varying degrees.

I agree with DogsNthingys on both accounts. Miami and VT are ACC schools geography wise and their rival schools are in the conference. It makes sense for them. I also agree Temple should have been the ACC #12. In the long run, they would have been better than BC. Philly is a hoops crazy area and Duke/UNC would have loved coming into Philly each year for recruiting purposes. Market isnt that much different than Boston, plus Maryland would have gotten a rival. Also Duke and Wake could actually beat up on someone in football.

BE would have not gotten a big as blackeye either. BC stays, gives it the Northeast. Still add USF plus Memphis instead of DePaul and Marquette. Still a stud basketball league, actually probally stronger with BC and Memphis. Then they could added Army and Navy for football only, even more northeast presence.

A BE like this:
North
Army
Boston College
Connecticut
Navy
Rutgers
Syracuse

South
Cincinnati
Louisville
Memphis
Pittsburgh
South Florida
West Virginia

That would have still been BCS worthy, without all the griping and moaning across the country.

The only major downside would have been having the three Pennyslvania schools all in different BCS leagues.

I still haven't seen the incident.

Stomping is even outside the normal course of bad behavior amongst football players. Still, Va Tech is citing further off-field problems as their primary motivation for dismissing Vick. Marcus certainly doesn't seem to get it, for that matter.

Thing is- and recall that I'm a fan of a conference with purported integrity around the country- I think flouting admissions standards and pushing the edge of regulations (if not completely going over) is the rule with scattered exceptions proving the rule. That includes the Pac-10. I dare say the Big 10 likely has its issues. Do we even have to delve into the SEC?

Lash, none of us really know this. What we do know is that BC hitched its wagon to its perceived rivalry with Miami & that Miami wanted BC because it likes the idea of having exposure in the Northeast for its alumni & potential future recruits.

We also know that BC questioned the stability of the Big East & its long term viability to hold an automatic BCS bid. They were not unique in holding these concerns.

What my be moxt incisive to BC's motives were statements by its president that BC desired exposure in the South - especially in big metropolitan areas like Atlanta. Many of BC's traditional applicants come from families that have moved with their corporate jobs to Southern cities like Atlanta, Charlotte, & the like. BC is a Catholic school & its president saw the increasing Catholic population in these areas - especially among upper middle income families who can pay BC's tuition. Bottom line is that in these comments the BC president saw the move to the ACC primarily as an academic recruiting tool.

Of interest to this issue of the value of ACC- membership as a PR tool in academic recruiting is the fact that BC receives the highest number of applications of any Catholic college or university in the country - by far! They routinely attract well over 20,000 applications (recently, 22-23,000). Georgetwoen is second among Catholic universites at about 15,000 & Notre Dame third 11-12,000. In the past 20 years, BC has successfully developed itself into one of the most highly successful universities of any kind in the country. Their academic profile is Tier I. This is a very high priority for them. So, the comments of its president are very credible to me.

As one who paid 4 years of tuition at BC, I was very bitter about their move to the ACC, but I don't know that money was the primary motive. It certainly was not the only factor.

It's important to remember in all of this that the ACC had 2 objectives in their expansion process. Objective #1 was Miami. Objective #2 was 12 members & a championship game.

They had some factors that went into the mix in seeking #11 & #12, but it wasn't like they decided that they wanted to move into big Northeastern metropolises & then said "Who can best fill the bill?" It was the other way around.

Miami wanted BC to come with them because they wanted a Northeastern presence. Miami made this virtuyally a condition of membership. The ACC accepted this. There was never an issue of BC vs anyone else. By the time politics got involved, Miami was too far down the road to back out, but they still wanted BC & they reminded the other ACC members that this commitment had been made to them. Duke, one of the holdouts that blocked BC, wanted to explore Notre Dame. When this proved fruitless, they were very comnfortable with BC, a private school with a high academic profile like them.

The city of Philadelphia as a match for ACC basketball makes sense. But the idea of Temple as a fit with other ACC members makes no sense whatsoever & they were never remotely in consideration.

Temple was in the mix when the lawsuit against the ACC came up. ACC went ahead and scheduled Temple in as non-conference games for fb, these games were enough to count Temple as a conference game if needed. If BC was denied through the courts, it looked very likely that Temple would have been #12.

Agree SportsKC, while Temple may have never been extended any kind of promise from the ACC, they were a scheduling backup for the ACC in case the BC move to #12 became stalled.
As many as six ACC schools had scheduled (a couple tentative) 2005 games with Temple. When the BC move became clarified, and prospects of Temple going to the MAC started to take shape, then there was some backtracking and Temple scheduled an extra game or two with the MAC though their formal entrance into the conference would be later.
In the rare event the ACC had totally lost the BC-related lawsuits, and/or BC changed its mind, then Temple as an ACC #12 prospect, at least temporarily, would have been the primary option. The ACC would not have the Syracuse option at that point, because the same conditions that applied to BC would have been evident.
Getting the #12 with a playoff would still be important had the BC matter failed, and Temple, free and lingering at that point, would have been more acceptable than ECU, Central Florida, or even Navy, if considering all sports.
Miami may have made demands, and Virginia Tech was forced into ACC acceptance, but Miami could not back out even if both BC and Syracuse were a no go. Remember, the ACC Presidents, held at 11 at the initial expansion, awaiting to determine if a playoff would be allowed by the NCAA with an eleven team conference. This would be the same size as the B10 conference, but the ACC wanted a championship game. Adding #12 was still the agenda for much of the ACC group.
Clearly, the ACC discussed northeast markets. Certainly the Philadelphia area was part of the discussion as it relates to bb.
None of this implies the ACC was thorough in its assessments, or predicted all the ramifications related to its methodology and timing. The ACC was internally divided, and the "NC 4" splitting over its non-expansion stance, provided a window of opportunity. All of the ACC, including Duke and UNC, voted to accept BC after the championship game ruling.

Scheduling Temple does not have anything to do with them "being in the mix." I challenge you to show me a single reiable soure reporting that they were. I don't mean speculating, I mean reporting, even if from unnamed sources. I'll bet my youngest child that they would never have been accepted as #12.