VT Now In?!
Washington Post staff writer Josh Barr, who broke the news last week that Virginia Tech would again be considered for ACC membership, is now reporting that Miami and Virginia Tech have been invited to join the Atlantic Coast Conference for the 2004-05 season — without Syracuse or Boston College.
I’m utterly shocked.
Intelligent analysis of this will take a while to come, so I’m just going to throw out whatever ideas come to my head. Hey, I make no pretensions toward responsible journalism here.
Will we accept? Hell yeah! I’ve beaten the reasons why into the ground previously here at BTN. We’ve been banging on the door for fifty freakin’ years.
Will Miami accept? Slightly tougher question, but I daresay everyone in the Big East hates their guts by now (and quite possibly ours too). They (and we) may not have a choice.
Who’s the 12th? I don’t know, and if 11-team conferences are approved for a championship game (as Barr’s article hints), this new ACC may not need one. The Big T1e1n demonstrates that a workable schedule can be produced with 11 teams. If a conference championship game is approved, that avoids the problem of having two undefeated teams that didn’t play one another having to go to weird tiebreaks to determine the conference champ and BCS berth. (Last year, the Big Ten was saved from this problem only by OSU’s qualification for the national championship game; OSU and Iowa didn’t play. For that reason, I could see the Big Ten supporting the ACC’s play to lower the CCG requirement to 11.)
All that said, if the ACC does take a 12th team, I’d strongly support WVU.
Rumor has it that in a preliminary vote taken last week, BC was nowhere close to
the number of votes needed. Syracuse will be a cornerstone of the remaining Big
East. WVU, on the other hand, is right next door, and will be even more of a
fringe member of the BE culturally and geographically now that VT is
(supposedly) leaving. Notre Dame, I think, remains a pipe dream for all
concerned.
What’s up with the lawsuit now? First, when we withdraw, complete diversity of citizenship will be established between plaintiffs and defendants, and the case will have to be removed to federal court. Second, the antitrust case against the ACC (which was intentionally left out to keep the case in state court, but could be introduced once in federal court) would be substantially weakened by the fact that a viable, geographically solid Big East Conference remains. Syracuse, again, is the key to this.
How do I feel about it? I have this weird mixture of elation, doubt and regret running through my head — elation that we appear to be in, doubt that this is really possible, and regret that this happened the way it did.
Stay tuned.
24 June 2003 / 2 Comments / Tags: realignment