(03-08-2024 08:26 PM)DFW HOYA Wrote:  

(03-08-2024 01:24 PM)esayem Wrote:  Had the ACC been more forward thinking and brought Penn State aboard when they were rejected by the Big East, I think there is a compelling argument the conference would be making "P2" money today. This is assuming the conference also brings in Florida State and eventually Miami, but the clincher would be Texas—which we know there were discussions over a decade ago.

Penn State would have been resistant to the ACC because Paterno favored the control he had over the schedule (and by extension, the Northeast) as an independent. Once the CFA started negotiating its own contracts, he relented. I don't remember the ACC seriously looking in that direction.

Were Paterno merely the coach and not also the AD (and the one who picked his own successor), Penn State might have been admitted to the Big East, but he made a lot of enemies in the region and the feeling was he would jump at the first offer, which he eventually did.

I agree other than in acknowledging that the move to the B1G was more president Bryce Jordan's baby than Paterno's.

Paterno as AD (1980-82) and the prior president (John Oswald) had spoken informally w/ the B1G commissioner (Wayne Duke) at the 1980 Fiesta Bowl vs OSU about a pathway to membership. That said, Paterno definitely favoured either BE membership or construction of an eastern FB conference primarily consisting of BE and A10 indy's. I don't know how Paterno felt about ACC vs B1G, but Jordan was one of the few folks w/ enough social/political capital to override any loyalty to Paterno's views and he chose to affiliate w/ the B1G w/o even contacting the ACC.

I think the ACC made a mistake in 1990 by not protecting their southern flank. They made a good move by making sure they won the Florida St derby but rather than the Clemson folks pushing SC into the arms of the SEC, they should have fought for their inclusion. Clemson was well aware of the 16-team megalith that Roy Kramer had in mind and the existential threat it posed. The ACC should have brought in South Carolina as well as Miami in 1990. Somewhere down the road or maybe contemporaneously VT should have been their #12.

This would have forced the SEC to look West for their #12 or settle for someone to the north like WVU or Louisville.

(03-09-2024 12:19 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  I think the ACC made a mistake in 1990 by not protecting their southern flank. They made a good move by making sure they won the Florida St derby but rather than the Clemson folks pushing SC into the arms of the SEC, they should have fought for their inclusion. Clemson was well aware of the 16-team megalith that Roy Kramer had in mind and the existential threat it posed. The ACC should have brought in South Carolina as well as Miami in 1990. Somewhere down the road or maybe contemporaneously VT should have been their #12.

This would have forced the SEC to look West for their #12 or settle for someone to the north like WVU or Louisville.

USC would not make or break the ACC and at the time there was no need for market duplication. This isn’t even taking into consideration all the bad blood between the two.

With Penn State off the board, Syracuse was the shiniest crown jewel left in the northeast and the ACC had mild interest. The plan that would have been fine by me was to include the three Big East football playing schools as football-only members and starting up a CCG in Orlando until Panthers Stadium came along.

(03-08-2024 08:50 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  As we all know, the ACC was a spin off group consisting of the bigger SoCon schools. They left behind the small private schools, WVU, and VT.

Looking back, I think this had a negative impact on the ACC’s trajectory. I think WVU and VT would have joined Clemson, South Carolina, and Maryland in their fight against the deemphasis of football and it would have kept South Carolina in the fold.

Georgia Tech comes on board as their 11th member in the late 70s.

In the early 90s they secure Florida St or Miami as their 12th or possibly both plus someone like BC or Syracuse to complete a compliment of 14.

Without having to bounce back and combat a reputation as “just a basketball conference”, the ACC performs better in the BCS era and on in into the CFP-4 and viewed as being more on par with Big 10 and SEC than as an M-level conference.

It think that you might be right, but that was a LONG time ago. Up until 15-20 years ago, nobody even knew if football would ever make schools enough money to lead to the recent Pacopalypse and pending Accpocalypse, and there were legitimate reasons to think that basketball would have more power long term. Even as recently as a decade ago, many intelligent and very well informed people were concerned that Concussions and CTE would be the end of all Football, from little league to the NFL.

I hate to call this bad luck for the ACC because football has been the dominant sport in the US for a very long time, but things could have turned out quite differently for them even if they'd made exactly the same decisions at every point since the formation of the Conference.

(03-08-2024 08:50 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  As we all know, the ACC was a spin off group consisting of the bigger SoCon schools. They left behind the small private schools, WVU, and VT.

Looking back, I think this had a negative impact on the ACC’s trajectory. I think WVU and VT would have joined Clemson, South Carolina, and Maryland in their fight against the deemphasis of football and it would have kept South Carolina in the fold.

Georgia Tech comes on board as their 11th member in the late 70s.

In the early 90s they secure Florida St or Miami as their 12th or possibly both plus someone like BC or Syracuse to complete a compliment of 14.

Without having to bounce back and combat a reputation as “just a basketball conference”, the ACC performs better in the BCS era and on in into the CFP-4 and viewed as being more on par with Big 10 and SEC than as an M-level conference.

No conference had 14 teams in the early 90s, and I doubt the ACC would have been the trendsetter.

(03-08-2024 08:50 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  As we all know, the ACC was a spin off group consisting of the bigger SoCon schools. They left behind the small private schools, WVU, and VT.

Looking back, I think this had a negative impact on the ACC’s trajectory. I think WVU and VT would have joined Clemson, South Carolina, and Maryland in their fight against the deemphasis of football and it would have kept South Carolina in the fold.

Georgia Tech comes on board as their 11th member in the late 70s.

In the early 90s they secure Florida St or Miami as their 12th or possibly both plus someone like BC or Syracuse to complete a compliment of 14.

Without having to bounce back and combat a reputation as “just a basketball conference”, the ACC performs better in the BCS era and on in into the CFP-4 and viewed as being more on par with Big 10 and SEC than as an M-level conference.

Well for starters, we don't know what else would been different if you change one thing. Can't assume everything else would hold exactly the same as it did if one thing changes, so have it would make no difference or be revolutionary. We don't know, which is why these hypotheticals don't don't pass the smell test. We have no idea how one change affects other factors.

(03-09-2024 05:11 PM)esayem Wrote:  

(03-09-2024 12:19 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  I think the ACC made a mistake in 1990 by not protecting their southern flank. They made a good move by making sure they won the Florida St derby but rather than the Clemson folks pushing SC into the arms of the SEC, they should have fought for their inclusion. Clemson was well aware of the 16-team megalith that Roy Kramer had in mind and the existential threat it posed. The ACC should have brought in South Carolina as well as Miami in 1990. Somewhere down the road or maybe contemporaneously VT should have been their #12.

This would have forced the SEC to look West for their #12 or settle for someone to the north like WVU or Louisville.

USC would not make or break the ACC and at the time there was no need for market duplication. This isn’t even taking into consideration all the bad blood between the two.

With Penn State off the board, Syracuse was the shiniest crown jewel left in the northeast and the ACC had mild interest. The plan that would have been fine by me was to include the three Big East football playing schools as football-only members and starting up a CCG in Orlando until Panthers Stadium came along.

South Carolina obviously isn’t a giant add—for a football first school they have a relatively unspectacular football history. I still think the ACC made a mistake in not being more protective of the Atlantic seaboard. They knew the SEC had grand plans and it was in their own best interest to keep them out of their backyard and force them to take their expansion plans elsewhere.

I think there was some talk of the Big East 3 joining as affiliates. The problem was Miami. Miami was still floating out there and the Big East’s football endeavors were immediately legitimized once they got Miami on board. (Again, had the ACC taken Miami, that option would be off the table)

Let's also remember Miami didn't become Miami until 1983 and, more accurately, until New Year's Day 1984.

(03-08-2024 01:24 PM)esayem Wrote:  

(03-08-2024 09:12 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(03-08-2024 08:50 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  As we all know, the ACC was a spin off group consisting of the bigger SoCon schools. They left behind the small private schools, WVU, and VT.

Looking back, I think this had a negative impact on the ACC’s trajectory. I think WVU and VT would have joined Clemson, South Carolina, and Maryland in their fight against the deemphasis of football and it would have kept South Carolina in the fold.

Georgia Tech comes on board as their 11th member in the late 70s.

In the early 90s they secure Florida St or Miami as their 12th or possibly both plus someone like BC or Syracuse to complete a compliment of 14.

Without having to bounce back and combat a reputation as “just a basketball conference”, the ACC performs better in the BCS era and on in into the CFP-4 and viewed as being more on par with Big 10 and SEC than as an M-level conference.

I don’t think so. The ACC still eventually got Miami and Virginia Tech at the peak of their football powers even after the league had the perception of being a “basketball conference” and those schools (especially Miami) are way more valuable than West Virginia. Adding back in South Carolina and incorporating West Virginia wouldn’t have done anything. The only thing that would have changed the state of the ACC was essentially swap core properties with the SEC - having Florida, Georgia and Alabama instead of their current lineup - and that was totally outside of their control.

As I’ve said elsewhere, I’m a big believer in the course correction theory of time travel (most famously seen in “Lost”) when it comes to conference realignment where, “Whatever happened, *happened*.” That is, even if you go back into the past and tried to change an ACC decision as you’ve proposed (or have Penn State join Big East in the 1980s or have Texas do something else in 1990), there would be a “course correction” in the timeline and we’d end up back in the same place that we are now with the Big Ten and SEC consolidating the biggest brands. Maybe it would have changed the interim timing of some moves (like *when* Penn State joined the Big Ten or Texas joined the SEC), but those moves would have eventually happened no matter how you tried to change this past.

(This is different than the butterfly effect theory of time travel, most famously deployed in the first Back of the Future movie, where even changing the slightest thing in the past would change the future. There is also the multiple timeline theory of time travel where changing something in the past creates a different parallel timeline, which we see in the Marvel universe with Avengers: End Game and the Loki series. I don’t think either apply to conference realignment. You could change anything in the past, but we were destined to have the consolidation of brands that we see now.)

Had the ACC been more forward thinking and brought Penn State aboard when they were rejected by the Big East, I think there is a compelling argument the conference would be making "P2" money today. This is assuming the conference also brings in Florida State and eventually Miami, but the clincher would be Texas—which we know there were discussions over a decade ago.

A conference with Penn State, Carolina, Clemson, Florida State, Miami, and Texas would not be under fire today. I could see them also bringing in some combination of Syracuse, Pitt, and Virginia Tech as well.

While I agree that PSU would have made a world of difference for the ACC, I don't think that PSU ever reached out to the ACC at all. They talked to the BE, were rebuffed, talked to the B1G, Delany muscled some holdouts for 6 months then they were in. They might have joined the ACC if the B1G had dragged their feet too long, however.

(03-08-2024 02:08 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  

(03-08-2024 01:24 PM)esayem Wrote:  

(03-08-2024 09:12 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(03-08-2024 08:50 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  As we all know, the ACC was a spin off group consisting of the bigger SoCon schools. They left behind the small private schools, WVU, and VT.

Looking back, I think this had a negative impact on the ACC’s trajectory. I think WVU and VT would have joined Clemson, South Carolina, and Maryland in their fight against the deemphasis of football and it would have kept South Carolina in the fold.

Georgia Tech comes on board as their 11th member in the late 70s.

In the early 90s they secure Florida St or Miami as their 12th or possibly both plus someone like BC or Syracuse to complete a compliment of 14.

Without having to bounce back and combat a reputation as “just a basketball conference”, the ACC performs better in the BCS era and on in into the CFP-4 and viewed as being more on par with Big 10 and SEC than as an M-level conference.

I don’t think so. The ACC still eventually got Miami and Virginia Tech at the peak of their football powers even after the league had the perception of being a “basketball conference” and those schools (especially Miami) are way more valuable than West Virginia. Adding back in South Carolina and incorporating West Virginia wouldn’t have done anything. The only thing that would have changed the state of the ACC was essentially swap core properties with the SEC - having Florida, Georgia and Alabama instead of their current lineup - and that was totally outside of their control.

As I’ve said elsewhere, I’m a big believer in the course correction theory of time travel (most famously seen in “Lost”) when it comes to conference realignment where, “Whatever happened, *happened*.” That is, even if you go back into the past and tried to change an ACC decision as you’ve proposed (or have Penn State join Big East in the 1980s or have Texas do something else in 1990), there would be a “course correction” in the timeline and we’d end up back in the same place that we are now with the Big Ten and SEC consolidating the biggest brands. Maybe it would have changed the interim timing of some moves (like *when* Penn State joined the Big Ten or Texas joined the SEC), but those moves would have eventually happened no matter how you tried to change this past.

(This is different than the butterfly effect theory of time travel, most famously deployed in the first Back of the Future movie, where even changing the slightest thing in the past would change the future. There is also the multiple timeline theory of time travel where changing something in the past creates a different parallel timeline, which we see in the Marvel universe with Avengers: End Game and the Loki series. I don’t think either apply to conference realignment. You could change anything in the past, but we were destined to have the consolidation of brands that we see now.)

Had the ACC been more forward thinking and brought Penn State aboard when they were rejected by the Big East, I think there is a compelling argument the conference would be making "P2" money today. This is assuming the conference also brings in Florida State and eventually Miami, but the clincher would be Texas—which we know there were discussions over a decade ago.

A conference with Penn State, Carolina, Clemson, Florida State, Miami, and Texas would not be under fire today. I could see them also bringing in some combination of Syracuse, Pitt, and Virginia Tech as well.

Penn St certainly would have been a game changer and dramatically raised the league profile. Beating the Big 10 to the northeast would have added a lot of tv sets. Pitt, Syracuse, and BC probably come into play too.

Texas is probably a stretch

Texas would certainly have been more interested in an ACC with PSU. However, I think that they would still have preferred the Pac until 2010 or so, preferred to build their own kingdom from 2010 to 2020, and then the SEC in 2021.

(03-08-2024 01:24 PM)esayem Wrote:  Had the ACC been more forward thinking and brought Penn State aboard when they were rejected by the Big East, I think there is a compelling argument the conference would be making "P2" money today. This is assuming the conference also brings in Florida State and eventually Miami, but the clincher would be Texas—which we know there were discussions over a decade ago.

A conference with Penn State, Carolina, Clemson, Florida State, Miami, and Texas would not be under fire today. I could see them also bringing in some combination of Syracuse, Pitt, and Virginia Tech as well.

Agree. The league's placement on the Atlantic coast has given it great media opportunities. The trick has been to capitalise on that and dominate the Eastern time zone. Calling up teams from the Big East was a big part of the attempt to do exactly that.

The league has always been hampered in this by the generally smaller enrolment in, and thus smaller number of alumni watching, its schools. And it has always been awkward that the SEC already claimed some worthwhile chunks of turf. Still, there have been opportunities.

There are only three more schools that would have been game changers for the ACC:

Penn State
Texas
Notre Dame

We know how those turned out. And here we are.

West Virginia historically is like the orphan nobody wanted.

(03-10-2024 03:34 AM)darkdragon99 Wrote:  West Virginia historically is like the orphan nobody wanted.

West Virginia is just not a very populous state.

US states by population
https://www.statsamerica.org/sip/rank_li...label=pop1

West Virginia is 39 out of 51 (stats include DC). No state below WV claims a P2 or M2 school.

(03-09-2024 11:27 PM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  

(03-08-2024 02:08 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Penn St certainly would have been a game changer and dramatically raised the league profile. Beating the Big 10 to the northeast would have added a lot of tv sets. Pitt, Syracuse, and BC probably come into play too.

Texas is probably a stretch

Texas would certainly have been more interested in an ACC with PSU. However, I think that they would still have preferred the Pac until 2010 or so, preferred to build their own kingdom from 2010 to 2020, and then the SEC in 2021.

A late opportunity existed for the ACC and PAC to form a two-coast league. Imagine a PAC that successfully brings Texas, Oklahoma and perhaps Kansas aboard, then works with the ACC to build a two-coast megaconference with Austin as its midway travel hub.

Only now is the ACC coming around to something like this. The P2 have already walked off with everything of top value.

(03-10-2024 03:34 AM)darkdragon99 Wrote:  West Virginia historically is like the orphan nobody wanted.

No just a school that the ACC didn’t want. WVUs preference has always been to play in an eastern league with Penn St and Pitt rather than with Tobacco Road. WVU only joined the southern conference when the idea for the eastern league didn’t get off the ground in the early 50s. WVU would have left the acc in a second if the lambert trophy schools actually put something together later on. The real what if in that scenario is what league Maryland would have gone with?

Jackson

(03-09-2024 10:53 PM)C2__ Wrote:  Let's also remember Miami didn't become Miami until 1983 and, more accurately, until New Year's Day 1984.

By 1990, when we’re talking, the Canes had just rolled off 3 national titles in 7 years and 6 10+ win seasons. They were definitely on the radar.

(03-10-2024 03:47 AM)Gitanole Wrote:  

(03-10-2024 03:34 AM)darkdragon99 Wrote:  West Virginia historically is like the orphan nobody wanted.

West Virginia is just not a very populous state.

US states by population
https://www.statsamerica.org/sip/rank_li...label=pop1

West Virginia is 39 out of 51 (stats include DC). No state below WV claims a P2 or M2 school.

And they definitely suffered by being a state school without top notch academics sandwiched between two leagues known for their academic snobbery, the ACC and the Big 10.

If it weren’t for the fact that the Big East needed 2/3rds of the 8 football schools to be full members, I’m not sure WVU would have gotten into the BE.

(03-10-2024 04:49 AM)Jackson1011 Wrote:  

(03-10-2024 03:34 AM)darkdragon99 Wrote:  West Virginia historically is like the orphan nobody wanted.

No just a school that the ACC didn’t want. WVUs preference has always been to play in an eastern league with Penn St and Pitt rather than with Tobacco Road. WVU only joined the southern conference when the idea for the eastern league didn’t get off the ground in the early 50s. WVU would have left the acc in a second if the lambert trophy schools actually put something together later on. The real what if in that scenario is what league Maryland would have gone with?

Jackson

The South as DC was unfortunately terribly segregated.

(03-08-2024 08:26 PM)DFW HOYA Wrote:  

(03-08-2024 01:24 PM)esayem Wrote:  Had the ACC been more forward thinking and brought Penn State aboard when they were rejected by the Big East, I think there is a compelling argument the conference would be making "P2" money today. This is assuming the conference also brings in Florida State and eventually Miami, but the clincher would be Texas—which we know there were discussions over a decade ago.

Penn State would have been resistant to the ACC because Paterno favored the control he had over the schedule (and by extension, the Northeast) as an independent. Once the CFA started negotiating its own contracts, he relented. I don't remember the ACC seriously looking in that direction.

Were Paterno merely the coach and not also the AD (and the one who picked his own successor), Penn State might have been admitted to the Big East, but he made a lot of enemies in the region and the feeling was he would jump at the first offer, which he eventually did.

I do not recall a time that Paterno was both HC and AD. Now, he may have told the AD what he wanted and always gotten it, but the reason the AG for the Commonwealth did not bring charges against him in the Sandusky case was that, technically, he had informed his superior, the Athletic Director. Thus, legal responsibility went up the chain of command. I followed that case, in part, because the AG was a graduate of my high school.

He did not name his successor. He said he would coach to the end of the season, but he was told he would resign that week, and he did.