Quote:It's fitting that Swofford would shut down this period of realignment. After all, he started it in 2003 when he took Miami and Virginia Tech -- and, a few months later, Boston College -- from the Big East. At the time, the leagues were peers. Each was a BCS automatic qualifying conference. While the Big Ten and SEC had grown richer, the ACC and Big East remained near the top of the food chain thanks to their storied basketball programs. But the business of college sports was changing quickly. The BCS had codified the power structure, and it seemed most of the new money was coming from football. "I think that people for the most part didn't understand how big and important football was," former Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese told the New York Times in March. "It really drove the cart."

At least one person understood: a former North Carolina defensive back named John Swofford. "At that given point in time, as much as anything, it was looking ahead and understanding that football was going to be driving the future more than it had," Swofford said. "We felt like we needed to be stronger and better positioned both from a football and a marketplace standpoint."

Now, Swofford has other business to which he must attend. With his league stable, he can begin working with ESPN on an ACC network. He predicts taking the network from the idea stage to air will take about as long as it did for the SEC -- which will put its network on the air about three years after it began making plans. "We don't want to let any grass grow," Swofford said. "I don't think ESPN does either."

Meanwhile, the mood has shifted completely in the meeting rooms as athletic directors, coaches and faculty athletic representatives discuss the future with hope rather than with trepidation. Florida State athletic director Randy Spetman personified that demeanor this week. Last year, on the heels of Haggard's comments, Spetman ran away from reporters -- muttering "no comment" before anyone asked a question. On Monday, Spetman mingled with a clutch of reporters and smiled as he discussed the lighter atmosphere. "It's kind of like the stock market when the world is going all over. Nobody wants to invest," Spetman said. "But when you know there is stability in the economy, people start investing. The same thing has happened with the ACC brand now. We have some stability."

The ACC has that stability because it has a commissioner who, without much fanfare, pulled off a series of moves over a 10-year-period that kept the league at the upper end of the spectrum when wrong decisions could have sent it sliding backward. That may seem extraordinary, but it's all part of the gig for college sports' resident ninja magician.