RE: Would Georgia Tech ever leave the ACC?
The ACC satisfies the academic side with Georgia Tech. The only academic slouch is Louisville, and quite a few are elite.
The SEC satisfies the athletic side with Georgia Tech. The only athletic slouch is Vanderbilt, and quite a few are elite.
The B1G does half-sies with both. And comes at the high cost of geographic isolation. They do have the CIC though, which is something neither the ACC or SEC does well.
So ... it depends. The ACC is last among the P5 where it counts (football, revenue). Being last is unsavory when you sold a lot of valuable things up the river (geography, double round robin in hoops, rivalries, etc) to expand. The ACCN needs to be able to convert a TV advantage into dollars. Failure to do so will be destabilizing to the conference. Clemson, FSU, GT, and Louisville are getting outgunned almost $20m/yr just in TV money against in state SEC foes. That matters on facilities. That matters on coaching salaries. That matters on staff sizes. It's not hard to picture a future where Alabama simply writes as big a check as is necessary to hire their own Coach K / Roy Williams and start cleaning up the hardwood too. The cash flow has a trickle down effect through the rest of the sports. But the ACC does have soccer well sewn up .... so for the Ninja Swofford crowd maybe the ACC is just playing the century long CTE game, eh? I don't see anybody -- including the ACC -- pushing for caps and other regulatory reforms to stop this runaway train at the NCAA level. It really matters how well the ACCN does, because TVs is the one revenue generating advantage this conference does have. It doesn't have the 50k+ enrollment factories, and I have my misgivings about those (how many of them are sociology degrees?). It isn't willing to be soulless in the pursuit of wins (Pedo State, Baylor, Jan Kemp, etc), nor should it be. So far the ACCN marketing push has been ..... tepid at best. So at the end of the day if we destroyed several things that defined us as a conference for the sake of TV sets which are then NOT converted into dollars ... then WTF are we even doing?
Feel free to scoff at GT and Louisville if you'd like, but if Clemson and FSU wanted to walk over to the SEC that would probably generate enough money to work. In no small part because the ACC payout would shrink dramatically. And forget your Grant of Rights -- that's an in house move for Fuhrer Mickey. No contractual pain necessary. And it would definitively spell the end of the ACC. If they weren't included in such a move, GT would take whatever lifeline it could at that point including the B1G. Removing Clemson and FSU removes half -- maybe more -- of the reason to stay in the ACC.
If GT could wave a magic wand it would be in a conference consisting of the old SEC East and the ACC's southern flank. A wet dream probably looks like having the SEC west of Alabama go to the Big 12 and then having GT, CU, FSU, Duke, UNC, and VT go the SEC. That depends upon whether the SEC is looking to be short term greedy and disruptive (CU/FSU or TX/OU only) or is truly looking to own the market (some enormous Fuhrer Mickey megaconference).
Regarding the smaller things GT "whines" about -- I noticed after they made media headlines the ACC made rule changes. It took Boston College plummeting from the ACC-CG all the way down to Boise, ID before the first merit based criteria was added to bowl selection. What a concept. And what an embarrassment to send your title game loser all the way out to Boise. The ACC bowl tie-ins are pretty transparently bad when you get into Tier 2. And they've persistently been terrible since expansion. GT played in Blacksburg two years in a row to make the scheduling Gods happy after expansion. To try to rectify the post-expansion scheduling problem (Clemson, VT, UGAg all home/away at the same time) we ate it again playing on the road at Clemson two years in a row. The ACC showed its gratitude by having a parade of byes scheduled. Byes for the opponent that is. UNC and Duke got byes all the time before playing the triple. At least FSU got screwed with byes almost as much. I believe that has now generated a rule change as well.
And lastly no, we weren't particularly happy with Bobinski. Neither was anybody else. Paul Johnson crapped all over him at his retirement presser. He fired all the recruiting extra staff to "save money" ... which is a bit like reaching for a jar of leeches if you're anemic. He was lampooned by the AJC publicly when he fled to Purdue. And the only reason he was hired in the first place is because Bud Peterson cares so little about athletics he let the booster who wrote the check for the new basketball arena decide who the new AD would be. Brilliant move numb nuts. Bud's apathy and Bobinski's ineptitude couldn't have come at a worse time: our two biggest rivals nearing all time highs, the ACC and particularly the Coastal nearing post-expansion lows. With Miami and VT changing staffs that was a Wonka golden ticket to do something in the Coastal if there ever was one. But the proper AD hire came one too late it would seem.
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