Yup and the article raises a few of those points (… and these writers are all spitballing @ this point):
-> Ten years ago, a block of ACC schools objected to West Virginia’s lack of lofty academic standing and the perception that its fans were too unruly. Will the ACC’s feelings have changed a decade later?
Although West Virginia isn’t part of the Association of American Universities — a prestigious distinction to which six ACC schools belong (and eight don’t) — WVU raised its academic profile by achieving Carnegie R1 research status in 2016. Throughout Gordon Gee’s second stint as president, the administration and athletic department have worked to eradicate the rowdy image of some students and fans. Anecdotally, Big 12 fans traveling to Morgantown across the past 10 years have found the gameday atmosphere welcoming. <-
-> One ACC source told The Athletic on Friday that the expansion conversation “starts and stops” with Notre Dame. “Notre Dame and anyone is a home run,” the source said, adding that WVU would make sense as the 16th ACC member to reunite with the league’s former Big East members. Also of note: Clemson president Jim Clements was president of WVU during the 2011 realignment scramble, and current Mountaineers athletic director Shane Lyons previously spent 10 years as an associate commissioner at the ACC.
College Football Hall of Fame coach Don Nehlen, whose relationship with ex-Big 12 commissioner Chuck Neinas strengthened West Virginia’s realignment cause in 2011, still resides in Morgantown. At age 85, he still keeps up with college athletics and contends the Mountaineers would bolster the ACC in football and basketball.
“The ACC would be a really good fit for us,” Nehlen told The Athletic on Saturday. “This time, we’ve got a gentleman named Gordon Gee who we didn’t have before, and with Clements at Clemson, that would really be two pluses for us.” <-
