(06-06-2019 10:58 PM)CardinalJim Wrote:  Above are predictions that were made. How many came true?

This was the same week UMD announced its departure. Oh, what fun times those were.

#9, but was that even a prediction? It's a contract. That chatter is SOP. And, every other conference expanded and made more money, so a conference that shrank was supposed to get similar distributions just because?

#3, because there was a big enough FSU stakeholder faction that was ready to move on. It took FSU's then-president to bring "Ninja Swofford" in to swoon the critics. It didn't hurt that Barron probably didn't even follow up very much with the SEC, because, Barron was so in love with the ACC that objectivity and actual metrics would have hurt his running hypothesis that the ACC was just better.

Of course, we knew FSU was an easy target because there were only two schools who nixed the increased exit fee. FSU was one, and UMD was the other. The real horse**** was Clemson. Heck, they voted for the increased exit fee AND apparently had no qualms with the GoR. Wrong school...because wasn't it someone in VA (or was it NCSU) who also needed some assurance along with FSU?

#6 might have happened, if the two were among the mostly unnamed Big East applications after the news that Pitt and Cuse were leaving. But that was 2010? And, I guess if you see this parcel from either school, and see the request, does that millisecond between reading the statement and then screaming "no" count as "considering?"

Geez, even back then they had it wrong with the schools. Villanova, iirc, hadn't yet finally closed the book on FBS. And they apparently DID apply to the ACC and really only wanted some kind of track to the ACC to justify moving to FBS.

On a tangent, I do wonder if there was more chatter between Villanova and the ACC during that run of years. Not that UConn wasn't the bigger and more credible candidate, but it wasn't like Villanova didn't have allies in the ACC who might have been supportive of a kind of roadmap for future membership. That's one where had there been more chatter, I bet you might have seen a split and some more ACC schools leaving. If someone wanted to really troll and see the ACC further shed, I bet such a fake story would have been damaging.