(01-30-2016 10:34 PM)JRsec Wrote: So N.C. State, Virginia Tech, Clemson, & Florida State would most certainly be headed to the SEC if the Big 10 raids the Beltway boys. Tech is on the bubble with us. They don't add to our value in a great way, but the politicians in Georgia expressed their desire to see them return to the SEC should the ACC implode. The Georgia Tech / Auburn game was the Deep South's oldest rivalry until the series ended in the late 70's. We are 1 and a half hours from each others campus and both are right off of I85. Add Georgia and Clemson to the rest of Tech's oldest rivals and you begin to see their dilemma. Just ask GTS where he would want the Jackets if the ACC was no longer viable.
The ideal GT solution is for there to be two megaconferences (Big12+SEC+ACC // B1G + Pac-12 + Cuse + UCONN + BC + ND). Barring that, the ACC through some unfathomable way boots the northern flank and picks up most of the SEC-East and maybe Auburn. Which aint gonna happen.
The list of teams GT is interested in playing is pretty short: UGAg, Clemson, ND, Auburn, TN, Duke, UNC, FSU, VT, UF, Bama, UVA ... more or less in that order. You can probably toss in NCST/WF/Ole Miss/Miss St/Vandy in the "we'd prefer these before random people" bin.
The only way I see GT swallowing all of that and going to the B1G is a stupid huge payday. I mean HUGE dollars. Because the GTAA is essentially functionally bankrupt. They are deeply in debt and doing just well enough to keep it from getting worse and stay on pay off schedule. How in debt? Enough that Fitch does a credit worthiness analysis every year...
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20...ations-Rev
So, the payday would have to be big enough that they'd not only make serious headway at the debt, but offset a nearly guaranteed 10-15K less per game in football attendance and 3-7K less per game in basketball attendance. I'm sure the halfbackers from Michigan and Ohio State would fill the visiting sections and then some in Atlanta. But everybody else -- and I mean EVERYBODY ELSE in the B1G doesn't move the needle. I can guarantee we'd sell more tickets to actual GT fans to play Mississippi State than we would everybody in the B1G. Basketball would be from a percentages standpoint and even bigger falloff, since the basketball product is so bad visiting fans outnumber GT fans now at most of the "name brand opponent" home games.
Lastly, I feel as though membership of the B1G would serve to only further entrench The Hill at GT, which has spent the last 20 years feverishly throwing up extra academic hurdles. GT is really close to a generational ebb. Deeply in debt. A football program that is 7-6 nearly every year but clocked in an impressive worst-in-a-generation 3-9 this year. A basketball program at the lowest it has been in probably 2 generations and so on life support thanks to Paul Hewitt's contract we can't even fire the incompetent *** clown running the show now because there isn't any money for it. Oh yea -- and baseball and volleyball now stink too. The only thing that hasn't gone down the toilet is golf. Woopie. The current AD came from Xavier --- MOTHER ****ING XAVIER --- which has no football program. Not exactly a P5 promotional bell ringer. And lastly, U(sic)GA has TOTAL control of the GABOR. They effectively have the key to the biggest set of handcuffs GT has right now athletically: restricted majors. And I really mean total control of the GABOR. They gave UGAg an engineering program. But it'll be a cold day in hell before they dare give GT any major liberal arts program.
TL;DR:
1) GT is pretty broken right now.
--- Seriously in debt
--- Historically bad in all the sports that matter
--- Pretty bad in the ones that don't as well
--- The AD inspires ZERO confidence
--- Huge academic recruiting restrictions (both on qualifications and lack of majors)
--- Has no say so or even a fair fight within the GABOR to redress academic grievances
2) The B1G is a poor fit for GT
--- No interest in playing anybody in the league. Seriously. And deep DISINTEREST in playing most of the league.
--- Zero cultural fits
--- Zero academic fits (Northwestern is predicated upon liberal arts)
3) GT's interests are generally split among the ACC/SEC
--- ACC: Clemson, Duke, UNC, FSU, VT, UVA, ND
--- SEC: U(sic)GA, Auburn, TN, UF, Bama
--- GT prefers the academics of the ACC greatly
--- GT prefers the football first culture of the SEC greatly
--- GT prefers the overall mission of the ACC more: To compete in all sports at the highest levels and be good academically. The ACC doesn't really want to be the SEC. It wants to be the Pac-12 of the East Coast.
4) Given #3, the only way GT goes anywhere is if the ACC is either no longer viable or a chunk of GT's interest in the ACC goes elsewhere or a paycheck so outlandishly huge comes along it makes everything else irrelevant. Which is difficult to imagine.