(05-16-2016 01:05 PM)upstater1 Wrote: (05-16-2016 11:11 AM)adcorbett Wrote: What if the Big 12 expanded initially as they were looking to do with Pitt and Louisville? Does the ACC even expand to 14?
According to BC's AD at the time, UConn was the choice ahead of Pitt, but when he blackballed UConn, they went with Pitt.
Sorry, but this the kind of laughable nonsense that often occurs when fans form conclusions in the echo chamber that is their own fan board and parrot this stuff on here.
I think you would be hard pressed to find any concrete data to support the claim that Uconn was "ahead" of Pitt as the choice of the ACC - other than in the CT media, blogs, or other speculative reports.
Boston College didn't "blackball" anybody, IMO.
The idea that Boston College had the power in the ACC to "command" the rest of the schools who to to accept into the Conference is absurd (and, remember, I am a BC guy) - especially coming from a fanbase that laughingly referred to BC as the "red-headed stepchild" of the ACC. So which is it? Conference small-fry or Conference power broker?
The truth, IMO, is a bit more nuanced. I am sure that BC was a "no" vote for Uconn at that time, as the former BC AD indicated. Not hard to understand why. Yes, they were concerned about another local team coming into the Conference from a region that was not "CFB rich" to begin with. (No different than many other teams from "CFB rich" regions.) They were also upset about the way they were treated in the lawsuit by the CT AG (suing BC admins personally, basically accusing them of participating in some sort of illegal scheme, etc.). The former BC AD said as much.
Lots of bad blood, to be sure. But, make no mistake, IMO, BC had no influence over the other ACC schools in this decision - to the extent they would change their support for one school and switch it to another. Maybe....just maybe...other schools were likewise upset about the fact the Conference was sued. (Yes, Pitt was also a plaintiff, but the case was handled out of CT, by CT officials.) I don't think we know for a fact who were the yay's and nay's, but I would not be shocked if Miami was also a "nay," given their admins were also sued personally by the CT AG, if memory serves. I think it only took three or four schools at the time to deny a school admittance to the Conference; so it is not a stretch to see how this played out, IMO.