CSNbbs

Thought this was an interesting article:

ACC conference realignment: History of league expansion

An interview with Mike Tranghese and some of the high points from the last 20 years of realignment.

There is an irony in the fact that Florida St and Clemson were SEC targets in 1990 and now they are trapped in the GOR from the black lagoon.

I often wonder if the ACC would have been better off going to 12 when they added Florida St, and not allowed Big East football to come into existence.

(07-11-2022 09:58 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote: [ -> ]I often wonder if the ACC would have been better off going to 12 when they added Florida St, and not allowed Big East football to come into existence.

Had I been in charge, I would have formed the ACC like this:

South: Florida State, Miami, Georgia Tech, Clemson, Wake Forest, NC State

North: North Carolina, Duke, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Maryland, West Virginia

As 12 team leagues go, that would have pretty well satisfied the desires of the ACC I think. They made a mistake by stretching too far North into markets that didn't have any commonality. They also didn't make a concerted effort to compete in football.

(07-11-2022 10:23 PM)AllTideUp Wrote: [ -> ]

(07-11-2022 09:58 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote: [ -> ]I often wonder if the ACC would have been better off going to 12 when they added Florida St, and not allowed Big East football to come into existence.

Had I been in charge, I would have formed the ACC like this:

South: Florida State, Miami, Georgia Tech, Clemson, Wake Forest, NC State

North: North Carolina, Duke, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Maryland, West Virginia

As 12 team leagues go, that would have pretty well satisfied the desires of the ACC I think. They made a mistake by stretching too far North into markets that didn't have any commonality. They also didn't make a concerted effort to compete in football.

ACC only cares about basketball.

There was talk of adding Virginia Tech and South Carolina when Georgia Tech was added but it didn't have enough support because of the basketball tournament.

From that an expansion to 12 with FSU and Miami makes sense.

I don't think anything would have kept Maryland besides inviting Penn State in the 80's. That would have been mind boggling for the time though.

There was a rumor John Marinatto asked John Swofford to target Big East football schools. That rumor was around here back in 2004. Not sure if there’s any truth to it. Don’t know where it started.

Some who have been hanging out here long as I have may remember that as well.

That Raleigh paper has a short memory. The SEC added Arkansas and South Carolina in 1990. The first SEC conference championship game, Roy Kramer’s idea, was played in 1992.

The Big Ten also added Penn State in 1990.

I’m curious how the News Observer can make such a claim about The ACC kick starting the expansion trend.

As with everything else by so-called “journalists” today. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story. Disappointed in Andrew Carter. He’s old enough to know better.

Now if the story was about how ESPN and The ACC partnered to kill Big East football in a decade. I could see that.

(07-11-2022 10:23 PM)AllTideUp Wrote: [ -> ]

(07-11-2022 09:58 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote: [ -> ]I often wonder if the ACC would have been better off going to 12 when they added Florida St, and not allowed Big East football to come into existence.

Had I been in charge, I would have formed the ACC like this:

South: Florida State, Miami, Georgia Tech, Clemson, Wake Forest, NC State

North: North Carolina, Duke, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Maryland, West Virginia

As 12 team leagues go, that would have pretty well satisfied the desires of the ACC I think. They made a mistake by stretching too far North into markets that didn't have any commonality. They also didn't make a concerted effort to compete in football.

That’s basically trading BC for WVU…11 of the 12 members were all in the ACC for a decade. With all due respect, WVU is not a transformative program.

With 20/20 hindsight the only way that the ACC could have kept-up with B1G or SEC is if it had convinced PSU and Notre Dame to join in full. The ACC went north to try to lure these programs, the B1G then squashed any chance at PSU and ND remains a football independent.

(07-12-2022 06:27 PM)CardinalJim Wrote: [ -> ]There was a rumor John Marinatto asked John Swofford to target Big East football schools. That rumor was around here back in 2004. Not sure if there’s any truth to it. Don’t know where it started.

Some who have been hanging out here long as I have may remember that as well.

That Raleigh paper has a short memory. The SEC added Arkansas and South Carolina in 1990. The first SEC conference championship game, Roy Kramer’s idea, was played in 1992.

The Big Ten also added Penn State in 1990.

I’m curious how the News Observer can make such a claim about The ACC kick starting the expansion trend.

As with everything else by so-called “journalists” today. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story. Disappointed in Andrew Carter. He’s old enough to know better.

Now if the story was about how ESPN and The ACC partnered to kill Big East football in a decade. I could see that.

His point was that in modern times, no one had ever raided another major conference before. It wasn't that the ACC invented expansion, that's been happening since the early days of college sports.

What he was saying is that other expansion efforts were centered around free agents basically.

Penn State was independent, so was South Carolina. Florida State was independent when the ACC took them. A group of independents essentially formed the Big East football league. Arkansas was coming from the SWC, but they saw the writing on the wall...that league wasn't long for this world and they found a way out.

To be fair though, the story goes that the SEC was trying to take Texas and Texas A&M back in those days so perhaps they did invent the idea of "raiding." It just wasn't successful.

(07-12-2022 09:14 PM)Wahoowa84 Wrote: [ -> ]

(07-11-2022 10:23 PM)AllTideUp Wrote: [ -> ]

(07-11-2022 09:58 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote: [ -> ]I often wonder if the ACC would have been better off going to 12 when they added Florida St, and not allowed Big East football to come into existence.

Had I been in charge, I would have formed the ACC like this:

South: Florida State, Miami, Georgia Tech, Clemson, Wake Forest, NC State

North: North Carolina, Duke, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Maryland, West Virginia

As 12 team leagues go, that would have pretty well satisfied the desires of the ACC I think. They made a mistake by stretching too far North into markets that didn't have any commonality. They also didn't make a concerted effort to compete in football.

That’s basically trading BC for WVU…11 of the 12 members were all in the ACC for a decade. With all due respect, WVU is not a transformative program.

With 20/20 hindsight the only way that the ACC could have kept-up with B1G or SEC is if it had convinced PSU and Notre Dame to join in full. The ACC went north to try to lure these programs, the B1G then squashed any chance at PSU and ND remains a football independent.

My point was that it was more geographically cohesive. Remember that there was a time when that was important to stability. I think the ACC culture would have developed a little more of a united front with that sort of move. As it was, the ACC entered a period where they grabbed all sorts of schools with all sorts of backgrounds and varied interests. The strongest conferences have always had large state flagships in relatively close proximity to one another.

Going to Boston served no purpose whatsoever, that's never been a fit.

And for WVU's part, I wouldn't boil it down to a straight trade for BC. Remember that the ACC initially wanted Syracuse instead of Virginia Tech. Their whole approach in that era was not well thought out. That's what I'm getting at.

ESPN killed the Big East. The ACC did what their masters ordered.

(07-12-2022 10:04 PM)AllTideUp Wrote: [ -> ]

(07-12-2022 06:27 PM)CardinalJim Wrote: [ -> ]There was a rumor John Marinatto asked John Swofford to target Big East football schools. That rumor was around here back in 2004. Not sure if there’s any truth to it. Don’t know where it started.

Some who have been hanging out here long as I have may remember that as well.

That Raleigh paper has a short memory. The SEC added Arkansas and South Carolina in 1990. The first SEC conference championship game, Roy Kramer’s idea, was played in 1992.

The Big Ten also added Penn State in 1990.

I’m curious how the News Observer can make such a claim about The ACC kick starting the expansion trend.

As with everything else by so-called “journalists” today. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story. Disappointed in Andrew Carter. He’s old enough to know better.

Now if the story was about how ESPN and The ACC partnered to kill Big East football in a decade. I could see that.

His point was that in modern times, no one had ever raided another major conference before. It wasn't that the ACC invented expansion, that's been happening since the early days of college sports.

What he was saying is that other expansion efforts were centered around free agents basically.

Penn State was independent, so was South Carolina. Florida State was independent when the ACC took them. A group of independents essentially formed the Big East football league. Arkansas was coming from the SWC, but they saw the writing on the wall...that league wasn't long for this world and they found a way out.

To be fair though, the story goes that the SEC was trying to take Texas and Texas A&M back in those days so perhaps they did invent the idea of "raiding." It just wasn't successful.

In 1978, before the ACC expanded by adding Georgia Tech, there were 26 schools playing as independents that are still in FBS today. Fifteen of those now play in a P5 conference and nine in a G5 conference. Two (Notre Dame and Army) are FBS independents in 2022. No D-I conference at that time had more than ten members.

In 1978 there were 13 conferences in D-I football, including the Ivy, Missouri Valley, Southern, Southland and WAC (which are now FCS). There were a total of 138 teams playing D-I football.

There had been changes in conference membership before that, so to say someone started a trend is a bit of an exaggeration. Realignment and expansion have been a constant in college football.

(07-11-2022 09:21 PM)AllTideUp Wrote: [ -> ]Thought this was an interesting article:

ACC conference realignment: History of league expansion

An interview with Mike Tranghese and some of the high points from the last 20 years of realignment.

I read most of the article. I don't agree with a lot of it, and I feel like it's slanted towards UNC's view of ACC expansion.

An unbiased writer would have first noted that the SEC got the ball rolling a long time ago, pulling Arkansas from the SWC, not the ACC going after Miami and Virginia Tech, again, in my opinion. Did Arkansas' see the proverbial "handwriting on the wall"?? Maybe, maybe not, IMO. I do know that Frank Broyles was very po'd at Texas, and felt like the 'Horns cheated too much in the SWC, and there was nothing that could be done about it. Kind of reminds me of how Clemson administration and coaches have felt about UNC (Carolina) for years.

I believe that Texas felt that Arkansas' move was temporary, and tried to force the Razorbacks back into line by refusing to play them. We see how that went.

The writing was truly on the wall for the SWC when the Big XII was formed. Texas and A&M had grown weary of playing in-state opponents that offered little competition. Houston was the first one of the left behind SWC teams, I believe, that sensed something was wrong, and a departure needed to be made from the SWC mindset. The second team was TCU, which eventually ditched the WAC for C-USA, then for the MWC, the Big East briefly, and then the Big XII. Baylor and Texas Tech clung to the SWC mindset, but used politics to ride the coattails of Texas and A&M. I'm not sure about Rice, but I know that SMU clung to the SWC mindset (only Texas and A&M can bring us fame and "we need as many Texas teams in our conference as possible.") for many years. I don't know if they still hold to that or not now.

I'm honestly not sure what happened with Miami. Unlike with Texas and A&M, the 'Canes seemed to get plenty of competition in the Big East. I do know that Florida State was bored in the ACC of having just Clemson as a conference rival, prior to Miami joining. If I'm not mistaken, SEC had reached out to Miami just like they did FSU, but I remember that Miami declined, citing a bad fit. I'm not completely sure, so Gamecock Nole and/or GarnetBlue will have to verify this for me, but I want to say that Florida State threatened to cancel the out of conference series with the Miami Hurricanes unless they joined the ACC. Since the series with the Gators was on hiatus, Miami didn't want to lose a second in-state opponent and worthy rival, so I want to say that they started making plans to join the ACC then. Syracuse was pretty much lock-in step with Miami back then, and so they also applied for ACC membership as did Boston College. Again, we all know what happened. Virginia Tech got in the game, and didn't stop until they received ACC membership. Boston College and Syracuse did get another chance at ACC membership later, and took it, Pittsburgh coming along for the ride.

Going back in time, if I were the ACC presidents, I would have insisted on Miami and no one else. Eventually, I would have made the move to grab Virginia Tech, Pittsburgh, and Syracuse, and then looked for a qualified 14th. (don't know if that would have been BC, WVU, or a team TBD like Louisville)

(07-12-2022 10:09 PM)AllTideUp Wrote: [ -> ]

(07-12-2022 09:14 PM)Wahoowa84 Wrote: [ -> ]

(07-11-2022 10:23 PM)AllTideUp Wrote: [ -> ]

(07-11-2022 09:58 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote: [ -> ]I often wonder if the ACC would have been better off going to 12 when they added Florida St, and not allowed Big East football to come into existence.

Had I been in charge, I would have formed the ACC like this:

South: Florida State, Miami, Georgia Tech, Clemson, Wake Forest, NC State

North: North Carolina, Duke, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Maryland, West Virginia

As 12 team leagues go, that would have pretty well satisfied the desires of the ACC I think. They made a mistake by stretching too far North into markets that didn't have any commonality. They also didn't make a concerted effort to compete in football.

That’s basically trading BC for WVU…11 of the 12 members were all in the ACC for a decade. With all due respect, WVU is not a transformative program.

With 20/20 hindsight the only way that the ACC could have kept-up with B1G or SEC is if it had convinced PSU and Notre Dame to join in full. The ACC went north to try to lure these programs, the B1G then squashed any chance at PSU and ND remains a football independent.

My point was that it was more geographically cohesive. Remember that there was a time when that was important to stability. I think the ACC culture would have developed a little more of a united front with that sort of move. As it was, the ACC entered a period where they grabbed all sorts of schools with all sorts of backgrounds and varied interests. The strongest conferences have always had large state flagships in relatively close proximity to one another.

Going to Boston served no purpose whatsoever, that's never been a fit.

And for WVU's part, I wouldn't boil it down to a straight trade for BC. Remember that the ACC initially wanted Syracuse instead of Virginia Tech. Their whole approach in that era was not well thought out. That's what I'm getting at.

It's weird, but going to Boston was Miami's idea. The original ACC plan was Miami, Syracuse, and BC. Syracuse and BC were long-time rivals of the Hurricanes, if I'm not mistaken. Not to the degree of FSU-type rivalry, but more of a secondary rivalry. I agree that WVU would have made more sense, but WVU had the reputation of having lawless fans, so a lot of a conferences avoided WVU like the plague, including the ACC. The Big XII only took WVU after WVU administration cracked down on its fans behavior, IMHO.
.

(07-12-2022 09:14 PM)Wahoowa84 Wrote: [ -> ]

(07-11-2022 10:23 PM)AllTideUp Wrote: [ -> ]

(07-11-2022 09:58 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote: [ -> ]I often wonder if the ACC would have been better off going to 12 when they added Florida St, and not allowed Big East football to come into existence.

Had I been in charge, I would have formed the ACC like this:

South: Florida State, Miami, Georgia Tech, Clemson, Wake Forest, NC State

North: North Carolina, Duke, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Maryland, West Virginia

As 12 team leagues go, that would have pretty well satisfied the desires of the ACC I think. They made a mistake by stretching too far North into markets that didn't have any commonality. They also didn't make a concerted effort to compete in football.

That’s basically trading BC for WVU…11 of the 12 members were all in the ACC for a decade. With all due respect, WVU is not a transformative program.

With 20/20 hindsight the only way that the ACC could have kept-up with B1G or SEC is if it had convinced PSU and Notre Dame to join in full. The ACC went north to try to lure these programs, the B1G then squashed any chance at PSU and ND remains a football independent.

and Pittsburgh, Syracuse, and Louisville?

And of course, Maryland's gone now...

(07-12-2022 10:04 PM)AllTideUp Wrote: [ -> ]

(07-12-2022 06:27 PM)CardinalJim Wrote: [ -> ]There was a rumor John Marinatto asked John Swofford to target Big East football schools. That rumor was around here back in 2004. Not sure if there’s any truth to it. Don’t know where it started.

Some who have been hanging out here long as I have may remember that as well.

That Raleigh paper has a short memory. The SEC added Arkansas and South Carolina in 1990. The first SEC conference championship game, Roy Kramer’s idea, was played in 1992.

The Big Ten also added Penn State in 1990.

I’m curious how the News Observer can make such a claim about The ACC kick starting the expansion trend.

As with everything else by so-called “journalists” today. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story. Disappointed in Andrew Carter. He’s old enough to know better.

Now if the story was about how ESPN and The ACC partnered to kill Big East football in a decade. I could see that.

His point was that in modern times, no one had ever raided another major conference before. It wasn't that the ACC invented expansion, that's been happening since the early days of college sports.

What he was saying is that other expansion efforts were centered around free agents basically.

Penn State was independent, so was South Carolina. Florida State was independent when the ACC took them. A group of independents essentially formed the Big East football league. Arkansas was coming from the SWC, but they saw the writing on the wall...that league wasn't long for this world and they found a way out.

To be fair though, the story goes that the SEC was trying to take Texas and Texas A&M back in those days so perhaps they did invent the idea of "raiding." It just wasn't successful.

Wait, so what you're basically saying is that the ACC was wrong to accept Miami and VT (who were looking to exit the Big East because "the writing was on the wall"), but it was ok for the SEC to accept Arkansas for the exact same reason? I know you're an SEC guy and all, but be consistent - either they're both wrong, or neither was!

(07-14-2022 12:16 PM)Hokie Mark Wrote: [ -> ]

(07-12-2022 10:04 PM)AllTideUp Wrote: [ -> ]

(07-12-2022 06:27 PM)CardinalJim Wrote: [ -> ]There was a rumor John Marinatto asked John Swofford to target Big East football schools. That rumor was around here back in 2004. Not sure if there’s any truth to it. Don’t know where it started.

Some who have been hanging out here long as I have may remember that as well.

That Raleigh paper has a short memory. The SEC added Arkansas and South Carolina in 1990. The first SEC conference championship game, Roy Kramer’s idea, was played in 1992.

The Big Ten also added Penn State in 1990.

I’m curious how the News Observer can make such a claim about The ACC kick starting the expansion trend.

As with everything else by so-called “journalists” today. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story. Disappointed in Andrew Carter. He’s old enough to know better.

Now if the story was about how ESPN and The ACC partnered to kill Big East football in a decade. I could see that.

His point was that in modern times, no one had ever raided another major conference before. It wasn't that the ACC invented expansion, that's been happening since the early days of college sports.

What he was saying is that other expansion efforts were centered around free agents basically.

Penn State was independent, so was South Carolina. Florida State was independent when the ACC took them. A group of independents essentially formed the Big East football league. Arkansas was coming from the SWC, but they saw the writing on the wall...that league wasn't long for this world and they found a way out.

To be fair though, the story goes that the SEC was trying to take Texas and Texas A&M back in those days so perhaps they did invent the idea of "raiding." It just wasn't successful.

Wait, so what you're basically saying is that the ACC was wrong to accept Miami and VT (who were looking to exit the Big East because "the writing was on the wall"), but it was ok for the SEC to accept Arkansas for the exact same reason? I know you're an SEC guy and all, but be consistent - either they're both wrong, or neither was!

Who said anybody was wrong?

My only criticism of the ACC is their approach was poorly thought out. I never said they did anything wrong.

And I'll repeat myself for those who don't seem to follow what the article is saying. The writer didn't say the ACC invented conference expansion or realignment or anything of that nature, it specifically says otherwise. In my comments, I went on to say that realignment has been going on since the beginning. Everybody already knows that.

The writer is talking about the idea that the ACC was the first conference to successfully "raid" another major conference. That was a game changer in the dynamics.

I don't know man. For me, you can trace this all the way back to the Big 7 raiding the Skyline 7 for Colorado in 1947.

Yes, the SWC conference was successfully raided and destroyed by the SEC and Big8 all before the ACC raided the Big East.

(07-12-2022 10:09 PM)AllTideUp Wrote: [ -> ]And for WVU's part, I wouldn't boil it down to a straight trade for BC. Remember that the ACC initially wanted Syracuse instead of Virginia Tech. Their whole approach in that era was not well thought out. That's what I'm getting at.

Boston College over West Virginia and Syracuse over Virginia Tech

Markets ... Yes!

Big East basketball pedigree ... Yes!

Football commitment and fan bases ... Aww, who cares

Sure seems like the Ivory Tower Three was running point for Mr. Swofford

If Jimbo Phillips got a do-over today:

1. VPI
2. WVU
3. Cuse
4. BC

And the gap between the first two and the last two wouldn't be small

(07-14-2022 01:10 AM)DawgNBama Wrote: [ -> ]

(07-11-2022 09:21 PM)AllTideUp Wrote: [ -> ]Thought this was an interesting article:

ACC conference realignment: History of league expansion

An interview with Mike Tranghese and some of the high points from the last 20 years of realignment.

I read most of the article. I don't agree with a lot of it, and I feel like it's slanted towards UNC's view of ACC expansion.

An unbiased writer would have first noted that the SEC got the ball rolling a long time ago, pulling Arkansas from the SWC, not the ACC going after Miami and Virginia Tech, again, in my opinion. Did Arkansas' see the proverbial "handwriting on the wall"?? Maybe, maybe not, IMO. I do know that Frank Broyles was very po'd at Texas, and felt like the 'Horns cheated too much in the SWC, and there was nothing that could be done about it. Kind of reminds me of how Clemson administration and coaches have felt about UNC (Carolina) for years.

I believe that Texas felt that Arkansas' move was temporary, and tried to force the Razorbacks back into line by refusing to play them. We see how that went.

The writing was truly on the wall for the SWC when the Big XII was formed. Texas and A&M had grown weary of playing in-state opponents that offered little competition. Houston was the first one of the left behind SWC teams, I believe, that sensed something was wrong, and a departure needed to be made from the SWC mindset. The second team was TCU, which eventually ditched the WAC for C-USA, then for the MWC, the Big East briefly, and then the Big XII. Baylor and Texas Tech clung to the SWC mindset, but used politics to ride the coattails of Texas and A&M. I'm not sure about Rice, but I know that SMU clung to the SWC mindset (only Texas and A&M can bring us fame and "we need as many Texas teams in our conference as possible.") for many years. I don't know if they still hold to that or not now.

I'm honestly not sure what happened with Miami. Unlike with Texas and A&M, the 'Canes seemed to get plenty of competition in the Big East. I do know that Florida State was bored in the ACC of having just Clemson as a conference rival, prior to Miami joining. If I'm not mistaken, SEC had reached out to Miami just like they did FSU, but I remember that Miami declined, citing a bad fit. I'm not completely sure, so Gamecock Nole and/or GarnetBlue will have to verify this for me, but I want to say that Florida State threatened to cancel the out of conference series with the Miami Hurricanes unless they joined the ACC. Since the series with the Gators was on hiatus, Miami didn't want to lose a second in-state opponent and worthy rival, so I want to say that they started making plans to join the ACC then. Syracuse was pretty much lock-in step with Miami back then, and so they also applied for ACC membership as did Boston College. Again, we all know what happened. Virginia Tech got in the game, and didn't stop until they received ACC membership. Boston College and Syracuse did get another chance at ACC membership later, and took it, Pittsburgh coming along for the ride.

Going back in time, if I were the ACC presidents, I would have insisted on Miami and no one else. Eventually, I would have made the move to grab Virginia Tech, Pittsburgh, and Syracuse, and then looked for a qualified 14th. (don't know if that would have been BC, WVU, or a team TBD like Louisville)

(07-12-2022 10:09 PM)AllTideUp Wrote: [ -> ]

(07-12-2022 09:14 PM)Wahoowa84 Wrote: [ -> ]

(07-11-2022 10:23 PM)AllTideUp Wrote: [ -> ]

(07-11-2022 09:58 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote: [ -> ]I often wonder if the ACC would have been better off going to 12 when they added Florida St, and not allowed Big East football to come into existence.

Had I been in charge, I would have formed the ACC like this:

South: Florida State, Miami, Georgia Tech, Clemson, Wake Forest, NC State

North: North Carolina, Duke, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Maryland, West Virginia

As 12 team leagues go, that would have pretty well satisfied the desires of the ACC I think. They made a mistake by stretching too far North into markets that didn't have any commonality. They also didn't make a concerted effort to compete in football.

That’s basically trading BC for WVU…11 of the 12 members were all in the ACC for a decade. With all due respect, WVU is not a transformative program.

With 20/20 hindsight the only way that the ACC could have kept-up with B1G or SEC is if it had convinced PSU and Notre Dame to join in full. The ACC went north to try to lure these programs, the B1G then squashed any chance at PSU and ND remains a football independent.

My point was that it was more geographically cohesive. Remember that there was a time when that was important to stability. I think the ACC culture would have developed a little more of a united front with that sort of move. As it was, the ACC entered a period where they grabbed all sorts of schools with all sorts of backgrounds and varied interests. The strongest conferences have always had large state flagships in relatively close proximity to one another.

Going to Boston served no purpose whatsoever, that's never been a fit.

And for WVU's part, I wouldn't boil it down to a straight trade for BC. Remember that the ACC initially wanted Syracuse instead of Virginia Tech. Their whole approach in that era was not well thought out. That's what I'm getting at.

It's weird, but going to Boston was Miami's idea. The original ACC plan was Miami, Syracuse, and BC. Syracuse and BC were long-time rivals of the Hurricanes, if I'm not mistaken. Not to the degree of FSU-type rivalry, but more of a secondary rivalry. I agree that WVU would have made more sense, but WVU had the reputation of having lawless fans, so a lot of a conferences avoided WVU like the plague, including the ACC. The Big XII only took WVU after WVU administration cracked down on its fans behavior, IMHO.
.

The idea of Boston College, Syracuse and Miami was a brainchild of a Media consultant recommended to the ACC by ESPN. So you could say that that trio was the idea of ESPN, not anything that the ACC thought up on it's own.