I do not know about ACC, B1G, etc. and how that turns out.
I do know that the ACC is currently doing great in terms of sports...FSU and Clemson are doing great in football playing at a national contender level...and baseball, basketball, lacrosse, soccer have all been national championships for the ACC in the last couple of seasons.
I've never been a fan of the ACC...I am a fan of FSU. And as an FSU guy, I never understood the ACC's going to the northeast with Cuse and BC....wish that had never happened.
When Maryland was the northern outrider of the conference, that was almost palatable. Going to Boston and Syracuse was a Swofford boondoggle. Until FSU did a Boren style sabre rattle, the ACC/Swofford worked to screw FSU in favor of Tobacco Road.
In the 10 year stretch before the rattling, FSU traveled on Thursday night 8 of the 10 years...to BC, Cuse, UNC, etc...while UNC traveled twice, but never outside of a comfortable neighborhood drive. A released scholarly study of football officiating showed an ACC bias against FSU and for the underdogs (funny how that has now cleared up since 2012).
The ACC has failed to make divisions that make some sense, like North-South. Letting FSU know that any northeast expansion would go into their division, on top of BC and Cuse, led to a Clemson-FSU revolt. Travelling to the North, while FSU's closest and oldest opponent is 250 miles away in the city with the largest FSU alumni group outside of Florida. And FSU visits them once every 12 years. Nole fans loathe Swofford and tolerate the ACC.
Jimbo is now 14-1 against Florida teams and FSU. the last time that they played them, has beaten Florida, South Carolina, Auburn, and Saban's Alabama. FSU opens 2016 with Mississippi and 2017 with Alabama. When you put a pin in the map for Tallahassee, you see a semi circle ringing the town..from 150 miles to the east, Gainesville....through Athens. Auburn, Tuscaloosa, and on, to 450 miles to the west, Baton Rouge.
And the SEC fan sees Clemson and FSU as a real challenge to SEC football NC hegemony and the vitriol is often heated. Clemson and FSU play in the ACC, but are the SEC-like teams that are plunked down in indian territory.
One's outlook is usually a function of one's environment.
Someone from the northeast will have a much different view of the sports world than one of us...it is what it is.
Most Noles don't care where we play, in terms of conference, as much as who we play...regionalism is, of course, preferred to the CUSA dart in map models.
Come on Billybud. FSU has been in the ACC for 25 years, and you don't know why the ACC is doing what it is doing and think this is a Swofford boondoggle. I come back after being away for almost a year to see what UConn fans think of all of this drama in the Big XII that could lead to a UConn invite, and instead I find this thread debating the motives and direction of the ACC.
The ACC is not a Southern Conference, and it doesn't ever intend to be a Southern Conference. It's an East Coast Conference. There are 7 private universities (Notre Dame, Boston College, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Wake Forest, Duke, and Miami) along with three public universities that operate like private universities (Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia Tech). All ten require high school students that want to go to college to pay very high tuition. Where do you get those? North of the Mason Dixon line and east of Ohio. It is no Swofford boondoggle that all ten of these universities want to regularly play athletic events on the road north of the mason dixon line and east of Ohio. And the remaining ACC schools (VT, NCSU,Clemson, FSU, and Louisville) are catching on from the others.
The ACC is a collection of universities. It is not a semi-pro football league. The questioning of Syracuse and Boston College is also surprising. Notre Dame's Father Jenkins direct quote, "We at Notre Dame have more alumni, more fans, and more support in New York and Massachusetts than in ALL of the midwest." Where do you think Syracuse and Boston College reside? As for the analysis of which states that the ACC owns. The combination of Notre Dame, Syracuse, and Boston College owns New York and Massachusetts. There are no other FBS schools of consequence in either state. You could argue Notre Dame isn't in the ACC, but the ACC has more of them than any other league.
There are only 2 college football teams that drive major interest in the northeast, Notre Dame and Penn State. They both bring large non-alumni fan bases. Notre Dame owns New York and New England. Penn State owns Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland. There is a little crossover with Catholics in the Penn State territory and non Catholics in the ND territory. The rest of the schools in the Northeast are primarily supported by their alumni only.
UConn has done a nice job of becoming the team in Connecticut. That's why I always saw UConn as a good fit for the ACC. Most here don't want to be in the ACC, so I'm surprised there are still threads talking about the ACC. As I read through some of these threads today, there are hardly any ACC fans left on the Boneyard like there were before.
As for FSU playing Georgia Tech, Georgia Tech specifically wants to annually play Duke, Clemson, and North Carolina in that order before ever considering anyone else other than their annual rivalry with Georgia. They have an 83 game history with Duke, an 80 game history with Clemson, and a 50 game history with North Carolina. They only have a 24 game history with FSU. You could ask to swap divisions with Miami to get GT, but you'd lose Clemson. The ACC will not be doing North-South divisions because of the desire for everyone to play north and the northern schools to play south.
