Here's
an article on ACC expansion, from a Big East point of view, suggesting that
it's going to happen -and Notre Dame, Syracuse, and Miami are the schools.
This would be obviously for football and money, but in many ways it's a bad
idea.
First, and most importantly, the pot would get split 12 ways instead of
9. The 9 current members would take less. That's a problem. No
conference makes more than the ACC (per school).
Second, the basketball part of the conference would get wrecked. Duke, UNC,
State and Wake would of course want to be in the same division, but who else
gets in? Who gets left out? What happens to old rivalries? In the Big 10, the
home and home connection is gone. That's terrible.
Third, Duke, Wake, and UVa have to be convinced to go along with this. If we
remember correctly, two votes can block expansion.
Fourth, this expansion pretty much would kill the ACC as we know it. Notre
Dame is a fine school. So are Syracuse and Miami. But it's hard to
get farther apart than these three are. The beauty of the ACC is that
Clemson and Tech and Maryland are not really that far apart, not to mention the
other schools (FSU excluded).
If the ACC really wants to expand, why not pursue Kentucky? Now there's
a school that could really crank things up. Not football wise, but with Duke,
UK, UNC, and Maryland, the ACC would be unsurpassed.
Worth mentioning - this article is based on conjecture as much as
anything. Everything we've heard about this suggests that the possibility
is open, but it's not something that's being pursued. But hey, we've been wrong before.