(05-23-2020 11:34 PM)Statefan Wrote:  1. How did the ACC goof on WVa if adding WVa was an existential no for UVa, MD, Duke, GT, and Wake Forest? Those 5 didn't want them for academic and social reasons.

2. Surely you don't mean the right combination to control the Northeastern US includes Rutgers and West Virginia do you?

3. People seem to forget that MD didn't want Penn State in the ACC for decades and that MD screwed the rest of the conference vis a vie Penn State back in 2012.

The thing about Maryland is, they aligned well with core members and then enough happened over time to really irk them. It would be one thing if they were consistently like FSU, in wanting football power schools. I don't know what or who they wanted, and maybe that's simply it: they didn't want expansion at all, just more money and the ability to see their old mates more frequently. Yeah, they've done their share of damage in the ACC. And set apart from the northeast.

I think the internal disdain for WVU is either or both overstated and hypocritical. This conference did so much to avoid Miami for years, until it became too evident Miami football could take away from the ACC's success. Even if academically, UMFL favors other ACC private institutions, it didn't extend to its football program, and basketball was pretty much invisible and pretty much useless to the conference. But, now they're together. And I believe there are internal schisms still over Notre Dame's arrangement, too.

It's a conference with decisions that haven't aged well all the time, but are what they are.

Does WVU define the northeast? No (and an OH-H***-NO for Rutgers). But, it becomes very hard to ignore WVU games versus Pitt, Cuse, VT, and others up in these parts.