This Fox Sports Guy Ranks Syracuse Dead Last in his Realignment Rankings

[billsin01]

That might be true, but the schools you listed (GU, nova, PC, SHU, UCONN at least until 2004) are not football schools. And, as we've all seen, sharing a conference with schools like that is untenable.

The landscape was going to change, whether we liked it or not.

I think you may have missed most of this discussion. I've said that I realize that this all is what it is -- but if you're ranking who made out the best and worst in expansion then SU as a northeast school with a remarkable hoops tradition but a middling (at best) football program ended up in a conference that will help football and be OK but nowhere near as good for hoops. I can at least see that argument.

 

[HOFCeluck]

I think you may have missed most of this discussion. I've said that I realize that this all is what it is -- but if you're ranking who made out the best and worst in expansion then SU as a northeast school with a remarkable hoops tradition but a middling (at best) football program ended up in a conference that will help football and be OK but nowhere near as good for hoops. I can at least see that argument.

The ACC is still basketball first, though. Given that, the locations and type of member schools it's better than going to the Big ten or riding it out in a moribund Big East.

 

[riskylogic]

Agree on WVU, but Nebraska is okay. They have Iowa nearby (an upgrade over Iowa State) and will soon be able to rekindle their in conference rivalry with Oklahoma. Or they could pick up a new eastern team that doesn't have a rival...

The ACC looks a little like that too. The seven Va-NC-SC schools are all within about 250 miles of one another, but it's 1500 miles from BC to Miami.

 

[billsin01]

The ACC is still basketball first, though. Given that, the locations and type of member schools it's better than going to the Big ten or riding it out in a moribund Big East.

I absolutely agree with this. Again, the point was that he was discussing who were the winners and losers. I'm not saying SU was a loser in all of this but their football program basically was brought in line with the majority of the Big 5 schools, while the hoops program had to abandon a conference it helped found and a conference that had a very strong identity in the northeast for a great hoops conference (don't get me wrong) but one that is very thin in the NE at this point with only SU and BC, with Pitt as a kindof northeast school. So did SU improve their lot? Yes, absolutely, but it came at a fairly steep price. It's not pure upside, which I would guess was his point. It's been a long time now, so I'm not sure. Regardless, I would argue that the ACC was a desperately needed lifeline but far from a massive boon for the university.

 

[Pyle]

It'll be a slow change, and merely adding a school in upstate NY, a school in western PA, and a school in Indiana (w/o the full-time presence of it's most popular sport) doesn't make the ACC a truly east coast conference, no matter what the marketing shills might say.

As with most things conference realignment, I think the ACC took a half-hearted approach that left them unable to truly become the Pac-10 of the east coast. Unfortunately I don't think any of the members back in 2002 had the stomach to be that bold, nor were they even in 2011.

If Swofford didn't have to appease the conservative membership, then the play would have been to add: Miami, BC, SU, Pitt, Rutgers, UConn and VaTech. A 16 team, all-sports conference that actually would have owned just about every major athletic program, market, and state on the east coast (save for Philly, which you need Penn State to land).

But college administrators don't think that way, they're scared of their own shadow basically, while being greedy and self-interested. So you end up with the silly mish-mosh of conference membership that we have today.

How is this not an East Coast conference?

 

[Pyle]

The ACC is still basketball first, though. Given that, the locations and type of member schools it's better than going to the Big ten or riding it out in a moribund Big East.

The ACC won the NC last year and is favored to do so again. The football schools drove the entire realignment. Just because the ACC also has good basketball doesn't make it primarily a BB conference.

 

[Scooch]

How is this not an East Coast conference?

Because a gigantic chunk of the population of the east coast resides in the northeast corridor between Washington, D.C. and Boston. The ACC has one school directly in that footprint (BC), and one other that has a presence in it despite being a couple hundred miles north (SU).

Functionally the ACC is a mid-atlantic/southern conference with a northeast presence. Just as the B1G is a midwest conference with a northeast presence.

To be a truly east coast conference the ACC needed to retain Maryland, add Rutgers and UConn, and poach Penn State.

 

[HOFCeluck]

The ACC won the NC last year and is favored to do so again. The football schools drove the entire realignment. Just because the ACC also has good basketball doesn't make it primarily a BB conference.

It's first football national title since 1999 season. Also won by Florida state. The ACC is hardly a football juggernaut.

 

[Pyle]

It's first football national title since 1999 season. Also won by Florida state. The ACC is hardly a football juggernaut.

Since the creation of the BCS since 1998 here is the list of Championships by conference:

SEC - 9 (Bama 3, LSU 2, UF 2, Aub 1, TN 1)
ACC - 2 (FSU 2)
B12 - 2 (OK 1, TX 1)
B10 - 1 (OSU)
PAC12 - 0 (USC's 2004 NC was vacated)
Big East - 1 (Miami)

By your logic their is only 1 football conference. So the fact is unless you're in the SEC then you're in a BB conference. Now you go tell that to the B10 or B12, I'd love to watch them fume. I'm not saying we are the SEC because for the most part their BB sucks and their football is the best in the land, the ACC is an ALL AROUND conference with football that at least equals everyone but the SEC. This idea that we are primarily a BB conference I don't buy, now the new Big East Catholic schools absolutely are a BB conference.

 

[HOFCeluck]

Since the creation of the BCS since 1998 here is the list of Championships by conference:

SEC - 9 (Bama 3, LSU 2, UF 2, Aub 1, TN 1)
ACC - 2 (FSU 2)
B12 - 2 (OK 1, TX 1)
B10 - 1 (OSU) I
PAC12 - 0 (USC's 2004 NC was vacated)
Big East - 1 (Miami)

By your logic their is only 1 football conference. So the fact is unless you're in the SEC then you're in a BB conference. Now you go tell that to the B10 or B12, I'd love to watch them fume. I'm not saying we are the SEC because for the most part their BB sucks and their football is the best in the land, the ACC is an ALL AROUND conference with football that at least equals everyone but the SEC. This idea that we are primarily a BB conference I don't buy, now the new Big East Catholic schools absolutely are a BB conference.

You seriously think the ACCs football is on par with the other conferences?

 

[TheCusian]

You seriously think the ACCs football is on par with the other conferences?

You don't?

 

[HOFCeluck]

You don't?

No. Traditionally its been a dead heat with the big east for worst of the power conferences.

 

[MSOrange]

No. Traditionally its been a dead heat with the big east for worst of the power conferences.

I have to admit I can remember a few threads talking trying to say the Big East football was better than the ACC among the BCS conferences back in the day.