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[QUOTE="cuse522, post: 2756616, member: 1149"]
I can't imagine Maryland is ND's top choice.

As for any other school leaving, first and foremost you have to consider the situation. You'd be forcing the B1G's hand in finding a replacement, thus re-starting the carousel. You'd be doing so without weakening the B1G much, if at all. You'd be doing so without strengthening the ACC very much. Now, you're the B1G, you make a short list of schools you're interested in... And you have 13 schools so you can add 1 or 3.

That list is going to include at least a few ACC schools and Notre Dame, Texas and Oklahoma, and a couple Pac-12 schools.

I think the upside of adding Maryland to the ACC is minimal, and when you think through the potential downside it's massive. You go from a situation where you can welcome in ND and their pick for #16, versus being stuck on 15 members, while the B1G can add ND and two schools they're happy with.

I think that adding Maryland to the ACC right now would significantly decrease the odds of ever getting ND, increase the odds of the B1G getting ND, and increase the odds (from currently near 0) that the ACC gets aggressively raided.

If all you're counting on is ACC schools not wanting to repeat Maryland's mistake, you've gotta ask yourself how confident you are that:

1. They'll turn down the money.
2. They'll think they can't compete. (And they might be, for example, Florida State.)

The ACC's next expansion move needs to be ND+, and/or significantly increase the per-school value of their contracts so that they can solidify themselves against future raids from the SEC or B1G. Maryland does not help with any of that, unless somehow ND says "Yeah, sure, us and Maryland, sounds good!"
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