Take this for what its worth. Found it on a Maryland board,
A guy named RedBankTerp posted it on the 12th. The body of the email was obviously written in the latter part of the season prior to the bowls:
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RedBankTerp
Registered Member
MD to Big East?
Posted: 1/12/06 4:35:45 pm
I got this in an email that was forwarded to thousands probably. Kinda interesting and prob BS but.....
Check out the scenario for the new Big East at the bottom though. I would not mind being done with all of the redneck schools personally.
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On a slow day yesterday due to the hurricane, I had a chance to
speak
with an influential FSU booster about the "new" ACC. He mentioned some
very interesting things.
1. To no one's surprise, all is not roses in ACC-land. The "raid" was
completely botched. The plan was to have the BE teams leave en masse at
the deadline, thereby costing the BE their status as a viable
conference
and creating a vacuum for the ACC to fill. However, the Skip Prosser
interview with Pitt allowed word to leak out and the BE exposed the
plan
much earlier than the ACC had hoped.
2. The lawsuit made the ACC look terrible and four schools were
particularly upset with the way that the conference was portrayed
(Duke,
UNC, NC State and Wake Forest).
3. Not only is the money not there that the schools were told to expect
(which was predicated on the ACC completely replacing the BE -- see
point one), several long-time ACC schools are upset that the BE teams
have come in and dominated the conference (Maryland, UNC, NC State,
Clemson, for example). This has led to some dissension.
4. Two schools that he claims are not happy with the new arrangement
have intimated that they might withdraw from the conference in a couple
of years, which would deprive the ACC of its championship game (and the
only reason that anything close to the promised money is even
available). He told me that one of those schools is Maryland, which is
not happy with being an also-ran. He wasn't sure about the other one,
but he thought that it might be UVA, which is now the second best team
in the conference from Virginia.
5. The next date of importance for all of us relates to the BCS. He
doesn't expect that the NCAA will ever implement a football playoff, so
the BCS will continue in some form or another. If the BE is able to
weather the storm (interesting that many of the most negative articles
about the BE have been written by writers who favor the ACC or have
been
published in newspapers where the ACC has representation) and survive,
there will be even more hard feelings within the ACC. He firmly
believes
(and is worried) that if the BE continues as a participant in the BCS
system, Maryland will petition to become a member of the BE because of
its dissatisfaction and its proximity to the BE schools. This would
give
the BE nine full members. Should that happen, he also anticipates that
between one and three other ACC schools will try to leave as well. His
prediction for the most likely: UVA. He also expects that BC will send
out feelers because, without Maryland, the closest school to BC would
be
Virginia Tech. If Maryland and UVA were to join the BE, don't be
surprised if UPS expresses an interest, partly because of the inroads
into PSU's recruiting territory that would be created by such an
Eastern
conference.
6. There is also some concern in the ACC that Kentucky, which has not
been happy in the SEC recently, will also petition the BE for
membership, should the conference survive. If that were to occur, and
should the Texas schools not move to the SEC as the SEC would like, VT
is first on the list for expansion -- new markets and big-time football
reputation.
He mentioned that clues as to whether he is right will be found in the
list of schools that the BE talks with about membership. If the
discussions about Navy, ND, etc. fade away, it should tell you that
something bigger is in the offing.
If this person is right, there are many reasons for the BE to win big
and win now. Even if he's wrong, the risk of the BE losing its spot as
an automatic qualifier in the BCS series has far-reaching consequences.
That possibility is why, as much as I dislike WVU, Pitt needs to win
its
next two games and WVU needs to win out and enter the BCS bowl as a
10-1
team. It will be the best result for the conference in the long run.
BE East -- BC (PSU?), Syracuse, UCONN, Rutgers, Maryland, USF
BE West -- WVU, Pitt, Louisville, Cincinnati, Kentucky, UVA
It's not all that unlikely
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Take this for what its worth. Found it on a Maryland board,
