RE: ACC Poll (Newbies and Old Heads)
As a Pitt fan, my emotions are somewhat mixed, TBH.
First let me say that when I heard that Pitt and Syracuse were leaving the Big East for the ACC I was ecstatic. I could see the writing on the wall and knew that the Big East was finished as a major player in college football.
It was badly damaged when Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College left the league back in 2004 and 2005. However, it was still salvageable. When the whole discussions to bring Villanova over, basically against their wishes, that sealed it for me. At that point it became obvious that we were going to die on the vine if we stayed in that conference and I wanted out of it ASAP.
People always misunderstood that from a Pitt perspective. They thought that Pitt was worried about recruiting against Villanova. That was not the fear at all – at least among the people that I know. The fear was trying to recruit against the likes of Penn State, Ohio State, West Virginia, Notre Dame, Michigan, etc. whenever we played in the same conference as a team that played in an 18,000 seat off campus soccer stadium. That was going to be a really difficult hill to climb and I wanted no part of it.
I knew that Penn State would never allow us entrance into the Big Ten so our only realistic hope were the ACC. However, then the Big 12 experienced all of its instability and that opened up an opportunity for us. They openly flirted with Pitt – likely in an attempt to attract Notre Dame, with whom we have always had a close relationship.
I had no interest in joining a Great Plains-based conference. However, if that was our only ladder out of Saigon, so be it. All ports in a storm, right? I was that desperate to get out of the Big East.
For me, the absolute turning point during all of this came during a rain delay of a Marshall/West Virginia football game. I was driving home from vacation in South Carolina and and I came upon a WVU/Marshall game on the radio. It was raining like hell and everyone else in the car was sound asleep, so the game was welcome company.
Soon after finding it, they halted play due to a bunch of lightning in the area and that led to a long delay. During the delay, the announcer started to talk about all things West Virginia football. They basically turned the game broadcast into a call-in show. About a half an hour in then Mountaineer athletic director Oliver Luck appeared on the show and started fielding questions.
Within two or three calls the talk turned to the Big East and it's possible expansion, as well as what that meant for West Virginia University.
Well, Luck pulled no punches and basically said in no uncertain terms that West Virginia was actively trying to get out of the Big East and was in talks with a number of different conferences.
That scared the hell out of me. I knew if West Virginia left ahead of us, we were toast. I also knew that WVU would not be the only defector and that the conference as a whole would likely be toast. When I got home, within an hour or two I had linked the broadcast and send it to A contact I had in the Pitt athletic department.
To this day, I have no idea why he would be so open there except to say that Ollie has always loved himself some Ollie? Regardless of his motivation, I don't think it was very smart on his part.
Also, I don't know if that had any impact on anything but I will tell you that it was not very long afterwards that the news leaked out that Pitt and Syracuse were leaving for the ACC.
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