(02-22-2018 02:24 PM)ken d Wrote:  

(02-22-2018 01:31 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(02-22-2018 12:13 PM)esayem Wrote:  

(02-22-2018 12:02 PM)esayem Wrote:  

(02-22-2018 10:53 AM)ken d Wrote:  What I would be interested in knowing is which four ACC teams voted for Syracuse in Corrigan's straw vote.

Well, it was just the AD's from what I understand, and not the presidents. Just a guess:

Syracuse - UNC, Duke, Wake, UVA

FSU - Clemson, UMD, GT, NCSU

Although, Maryland had long ties with Syracuse and GT could have gone either way. I think we'd have to look at who the AD's were at the time and which ones were more football-minded or football-influenced. I'm pretty sure UNC, Duke, and Wake were against expansion with FSU, and the final vote was 6-2. I think I remember Wake finally switching to a "yes", but I could be wrong.

After a little digging, it seems most likely:

Syracuse - UNC, Duke, Wake, UMD

FSU - Clemson, GT, NCSU, UVA

I've now read that Duke and Wake were the two most against FSU and that Duke and Maryland were. So who knows?

"Corrigan woke up on Sept. 12, 1990 certain he had the six votes necessary to move ahead and expand. Duke and Maryland, he knew, would cast the only no votes. He was even more certain that if the league agreed on expansion, adding Florida State would be nothing more than a formality.

In a matter of minutes, Corrigan saw all the hard work on the delicate issue come apart. Clemson, Georgia Tech and Virginia, the strongest supporters on the issue and FSU all along, voted for expansion. Duke and Maryland voted against, but to Corrigan's surprise, North Carolina, North Carolina State and Wake Forest abstained; the equivalent of three no votes."

In other words, in 1990, the ACC was far closer to failing to invite Florida State than they were to adding FSU plus 3 more schools.

And if the ACC had failed to invite Florida State, and FSU had then gone on to join the SEC... that would have started a chain of dominoes falling that probably would not have turned out well for the ACC.

Just as is the case in politics, a "no" vote doesn't necessarily mean that the voter is opposed to the issue. Often it means "what will you give me if I change my vote to "yes"?". And I don't mean to imply this is a bad thing to do. It may just be that the process of finding consensus is still going on. The trick is knowing when you have already gotten all you are going to get.

What does that mean?

According to that report, the realistic possibilities at the time of that vote were (1) no invitations, (2) invite FSU, (3) invite Syracuse. Cuse could have received the invitation if its AD hadn't been too clever by trying to play hard to get. And inviting 4 new members was never on the table. So my previous statement was correct: In 1990, the ACC was far closer to not inviting FSU than they were to inviting FSU plus 3 more.