(10-07-2020 07:03 PM)CrazyPaco Wrote:  

(10-04-2020 12:33 PM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  

(05-21-2019 06:55 AM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  A Clemson fan who goes by MSTiger02 [IIRC] on this site wrote a guest article for ACCFootballRx in which he contends that the ACC's original plan was to add Miami, BC and Syracuse (not VT). He goes on to assert that if that had happened, VT would most likely be in the SEC today (instead of Missouri).

What if everything had gone according to plan?

Sometimes it works out best when things DON'T go according to plan (e.g. Louisville replacing Maryland also).

Thoughts?

Pros of Maryland:
1) They are UVA’s historic rival and a peer university
2) They are culturally and geographically an ACC school (a founding member)
3) UMCP is a much larger university (double the size of Louisville)
4) UMCP has better academics (both undergrad and research)

Pros of Louisville
1) They care more about athletics (football and basketball programs are significantly better)
2) They have more competent management (higher fan attendance, higher revenues and self-sustaining programs)
3) They want the conference to succeed (Maryland was more of a prima-donna, self-interested objectives)

Bottom-line, Maryland is about tradition and future potential...while Louisville delivers results. Louisville is the better choice for the next 20+ years (although there is the outside chance that Maryland will one day gets its act together).

Louisville is a complete athletic upgrade over Maryland in almost every way that matters. They have more competitive programs, better facilities, generate significantly more revenue, deliver better media ratings, and have a more passionate fan base and it still has room to grow. UMD's great hope was Kevin Plank and that dream seems to be evaporating with Under Armour's earnings.

Louisville has no competition in their market. Maryland has major (really unsurmountable) competition from both Baltimore and DC professional teams, not to mention all the DC area colleges which include Georgetown, Navy, VTech, and UVA which all have coverage on local tv stations. To get any mindshare with football, they'd have to regularly win big, consistently, and that is unlikely to happen for them in the Big Ten East. To be honest, when I think potential, I think Louisville more than Maryland, because Louisville is the program that is a relative neophyte that is still building. They've added 20K seats to it stadium over the last 12 years, now surpassing Maryland's capacity and matching Kroger.

The only knock on Louisville is their academic profile, but athletic conferences are about athletics despite the academic lip service or message board debates.

That’s a really good point on “potential“.

My general bias has been that potential is more about macro demographics. DMV is fertile recruiting territory, with lots of potential fans. This viewpoint results from seeking a very long-time horizon.

Your counter is that potential is more about micro-issues...competition and program runway. Factors that impact programs in the next decade or two.

The B10 has an interesting mix of big city/suburban schools (in DC, Chicago & MSP), as well as college towns (in State College, Columbus and Bloomington). Definitely agree that programs in college towns have generally had better results over the past several decades...and will likely continue their relative success over the next 10-20 years.