(09-19-2019 09:57 AM)stever20 Wrote:  

(09-19-2019 09:52 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(09-19-2019 08:59 AM)stever20 Wrote:  But here's what I'm getting at. w/o the adds of Tulane/ECU- there wouldn't have been that flash point.... There was the thought that they would keep on going- but then when Tulane/ECU was added- that was too much.... That was the spark.

It wasn't that Tulane was added. It was that Louisville was leaving, on top of Syracuse and Notre Dame / West Virginia / Pitt (although those were balanced by Temple and Memphis). At that point, the balance of basketball power within the Big East shifted from the "football side" being better, to at worst the two sides being equal.

Combined with the evaporation of the false certainty that the New Big East was going to get a billion dollar TV contract from somebody somewhere somehow.

The New Big East hybrid was bound together by the insanity of a basketball group leaving UConn and Louisville, and by a pot of gold at the end of the Aresco TV rainbow. Once those two cords snapped, it was over.

The Tulane/ECU adds weren't even driven by the 12-team CCG rule so much as the leadership being hellbound to have a CCG in the year or two before Navy and TBA came on board.

Tulane/ECU was the bridge too far point though.....

Hard disagree. Let's say Aresco had deferred adding anyone to replace Louisville/Rutgers, since the cupboard was pretty bare by that point. Either the football side lives without a CCG for another year until Navy Plus One come on board, or Aresco pulls a 10-team CCG rule out of a hat.

The TV negotiations are still going nowhere. There is no pot of gold at the end of the Aresco rainbow. Even at half of what we got from Fox, a split made sense.

(FBS league at that point is UConn, Cincy, USF plus UCF, Houston, SMU, Temple, Memphis, plus affiliates Boise State, SDSU, NAvy and one open spot)

(09-19-2019 10:14 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(09-19-2019 09:57 AM)stever20 Wrote:  

(09-19-2019 09:52 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(09-19-2019 08:59 AM)stever20 Wrote:  But here's what I'm getting at. w/o the adds of Tulane/ECU- there wouldn't have been that flash point.... There was the thought that they would keep on going- but then when Tulane/ECU was added- that was too much.... That was the spark.

It wasn't that Tulane was added. It was that Louisville was leaving, on top of Syracuse and Notre Dame / West Virginia / Pitt (although those were balanced by Temple and Memphis). At that point, the balance of basketball power within the Big East shifted from the "football side" being better, to at worst the two sides being equal.

Combined with the evaporation of the false certainty that the New Big East was going to get a billion dollar TV contract from somebody somewhere somehow.

The New Big East hybrid was bound together by the insanity of a basketball group leaving UConn and Louisville, and by a pot of gold at the end of the Aresco TV rainbow. Once those two cords snapped, it was over.

The Tulane/ECU adds weren't even driven by the 12-team CCG rule so much as the leadership being hellbound to have a CCG in the year or two before Navy and TBA came on board.

Tulane/ECU was the bridge too far point though.....

Hard disagree. Let's say Aresco had deferred adding anyone to replace Louisville/Rutgers, since the cupboard was pretty bare by that point. Either the football side lives without a CCG for another year until Navy Plus One come on board, or Aresco pulls a 10-team CCG rule out of a hat.

The TV negotiations are still going nowhere. There is no pot of gold at the end of the Aresco rainbow. Even at half of what we got from Fox, a split made sense.

(FBS league at that point is UConn, Cincy, USF plus UCF, Houston, SMU, Temple, Memphis, plus affiliates Boise State, SDSU, NAvy and one open spot)

Yes. IMO, Tulane especially got way too much blame for being the straw that broke the back. The back was by then broken.

What broke the back was that with the losses of the schools that left for the ACC, Big 12, and B1G, the other conferences told the "Big East" that it would not be a Power/AQ league in the newly-forming CFP, and the networks told the Big East that the TV money had basically vanished.

It was the realization that Aresco could not sign a deal for anything but peanuts that did it. Even as much as the C7 disliked the emphasis on football and what they regarded as alien schools they had little common ground with, if the money had been good, Power level, they would have stayed.

To me, the biggest impact of the 10 team CCG rule this decade was its effective dissolution once the Big 12 got its waiver.

Without that, the Big 12 almost surely holds its nose and takes two teams from the AAC and/or MWC to get to 12. That would then have caused the AAC/MW to steal teams from CUSA/SB/MAC to get back up to 12, etc.

Lots of dominoes would have fallen.

What happened in the Big East was no different from what had happened earlier with the Big West.

The loss of football schools hit the point where there were no football schools to add that fit the image of what the non-football schools wanted in a member.

(09-19-2019 10:37 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  To me, the biggest impact of the 10 team CCG rule this decade was its effective dissolution once the Big 12 got its waiver.

Without that, the Big 12 almost surely holds its nose and takes two teams from the AAC and/or MWC to get to 12. That would then have caused the AAC/MW to steal teams from CUSA/SB/MAC to get back up to 12, etc.

Lots of dominoes would have fallen.

This is an excellent point. I really don't think the 10-team CCG rule would have mattered at all regarding the Catholic 7 splitting off from the now-AAC schools, but it definitely curbed the Big 12 from expanding to 12 schools, which would have had ripple effects throughout the entire G5.

Here’s how I see things playing out in the Big East had the 10 team CCG Rule been in place:

Pitt, Cuse, WVU, and TCU all had made their departure announcements and then on 12/7/11 the Big East announced UCF, SMU, and Houston as full members and Boise and SDSU as fb affiliates. That would have been the 10 fb schools they needed and additional expansion would have ceased.

Realignment picked up again on 9/12/12 when ND announced they were leaving, followed by Rutgers on 11/20/12, Louisville on 11/28/12, the Catholic 7 on 12/14/12, Boise on 12/31/12, and SDSU on 1/16/13.

My guess is that the Catholic 7 have the voting leverage to simply muscle out Cincy, USF, and UConn and cancel the invitations of the newcomers and those 6 football schools are the ones who have to start a new conference and find 4 schools to join them—

(09-19-2019 09:43 AM)Wedge Wrote:  

(09-19-2019 08:19 AM)stever20 Wrote:  So on the biggest loser of the decade thread I brought up how with the MWC they probably don't get Utah St and San Jose St if they didn't need to go to 12(ok, they definitely don't).

The MWC added USU and SJSU when Boise State and SDSU had signed on to Marinatto's goofy Big East football idea. So the MWC didn't add USU and SJSU to get to 12 football teams, they added them to get to 10. Bringing back Boise and SDSU increased their membership to 12 football teams.

Also, if you want to do a "what if the CCG minimum had always been 10 teams and not 12" hypothetical, then you have to go back to the beginning, start by asking whether the SEC would have invited Arkansas and South Carolina even if they could have just staged a CCG with the 10 teams they already had, and go from there.

If we are going to go with that hypothetical, what if the NCAA had just said no to any FBS CCG? Determine your champion any way you want, as long as you stay within the limits of the number of allowable regular season games (which IIRC was 11 at the time). I think we'd have eventually gone to a 12 game regular season, but I doubt we'd have gotten past 10 members in most conferences.

In that case, would the Big 8 have added four Texas schools when the SWC imploded? Or just UT and A&M? Or even UT and Arkansas, who wouldn't have had a new home in the SEC?

The decision to allow a CCG was the real watershed moment.

(09-19-2019 10:00 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(09-19-2019 09:46 AM)GoldenWarrior11 Wrote:  

(09-19-2019 09:40 AM)stever20 Wrote:  

(09-19-2019 09:35 AM)GoldenWarrior11 Wrote:  

(09-19-2019 08:59 AM)stever20 Wrote:  But here's what I'm getting at. w/o the adds of Tulane/ECU- there wouldn't have been that flash point.... There was the thought that they would keep on going- but then when Tulane/ECU was added- that was too much.... That was the spark.

The spark was Syracuse and Pittsburgh going to the ACC, that started the Big East, as we then knew it, on a collision course for separation. Maryland and Rutgers getting the invite to the B1G, that led to Notre Dame and Louisville both leaving, was simply the final nail in the coffin.

The C7 didn't leave because of just ECU/Tulane; they left like all the other members left - they found greater value elsewhere. The reality was that after the losses of Syracuse, Pittsburgh, West Virginia, Rutgers, Notre Dame and Louisville, there was no school or brand that could recoup all of that lost value. The league was moving further and further away from its Northeast-based roots as a basketball-focused league, and the football-driven aspirations were literally killing what value was left of the conference. Foolishly, the (then) members were being sold on how the media markets of new members would easily replace that lost value. Not only was that foolish, it was a blatant lie (as evidenced by the finished contract values).

Notre Dame had left before that. Notre Dame left in September of 2012- before Rutgers and Louisville....

My original point still stands.

Agreed. Once those schools left for the ACC, that's when the C7 started looking for the exits. It's such a gross misnomer to believe the additions of ECU and Tulane were any type of flash point. That is a message board myth that has somehow permeated over the years. If anything, Tulane is actually the closest institutional and cultural fit to the C7 out of anyone that the now-AAC added.

Schools like Syracuse and Notre Dame were the whole reason why the C7 stayed with the hybrid Big East - not only was it the competition on the court, but also the residual power branding of being a BCS AQ conference (despite none of those schools playing FBS football). Once that was gone (and the writing on the wall was that it would be gone when Notre Dame, Syracuse and Pitt all left), then the hybrid served no real purpose for the C7 at that point. All the hybrid created was a league where it was always at the whims of conference realignment for football, which was fine for the C7 when the football Big East was a power conference, but certainly wasn't going to be fine for the C7 in the AAC context.

As with most things in conference realignment, this was about branding, revenue, power and stability *off-the-court/field*, even if people can make an argument that it would have worked out on-the-court/field if the hybrid stayed together.

Not to mention ECU was a FB only add and always would have remained that way if the C7 remained. ECU legitimately was a non-issue for them.

Is there really a number attached to the rule or is either round robin within divisions or round robin for the entire conference? Seems like a conference could have 8, 9 or whatever.

(09-19-2019 10:56 AM)ken d Wrote:  

(09-19-2019 09:43 AM)Wedge Wrote:  

(09-19-2019 08:19 AM)stever20 Wrote:  So on the biggest loser of the decade thread I brought up how with the MWC they probably don't get Utah St and San Jose St if they didn't need to go to 12(ok, they definitely don't).

The MWC added USU and SJSU when Boise State and SDSU had signed on to Marinatto's goofy Big East football idea. So the MWC didn't add USU and SJSU to get to 12 football teams, they added them to get to 10. Bringing back Boise and SDSU increased their membership to 12 football teams.

Also, if you want to do a "what if the CCG minimum had always been 10 teams and not 12" hypothetical, then you have to go back to the beginning, start by asking whether the SEC would have invited Arkansas and South Carolina even if they could have just staged a CCG with the 10 teams they already had, and go from there.

If we are going to go with that hypothetical, what if the NCAA had just said no to any FBS CCG? Determine your champion any way you want, as long as you stay within the limits of the number of allowable regular season games (which IIRC was 11 at the time). I think we'd have eventually gone to a 12 game regular season, but I doubt we'd have gotten past 10 members in most conferences.

In that case, would the Big 8 have added four Texas schools when the SWC imploded? Or just UT and A&M? Or even UT and Arkansas, who wouldn't have had a new home in the SEC?

The decision to allow a CCG was the real watershed moment.

The NCAA was never going to block FBS CCGs, because of the way it happened. The SEC just found a loophole, and went ahead and did it without asking. The NCAA was never going to push back against the SEC in those circumstances.

The Big 8 did not add schools from Texas because of the CCG. They did it because they were told they could not get a large enough TV contract otherwise. They would have invited only UT and TAMU if Texas state politics had not gotten in the middle of it.

Would be interesting to see what the WAC might look like today. Idaho, NMSU, SJSU, and Utah State might still be in it. Supposedly Sam Houston St and Lamar wanted invites. Does the WAC get desperate enough and invite Liberty?

(09-19-2019 12:28 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(09-19-2019 10:56 AM)ken d Wrote:  

(09-19-2019 09:43 AM)Wedge Wrote:  

(09-19-2019 08:19 AM)stever20 Wrote:  So on the biggest loser of the decade thread I brought up how with the MWC they probably don't get Utah St and San Jose St if they didn't need to go to 12(ok, they definitely don't).

The MWC added USU and SJSU when Boise State and SDSU had signed on to Marinatto's goofy Big East football idea. So the MWC didn't add USU and SJSU to get to 12 football teams, they added them to get to 10. Bringing back Boise and SDSU increased their membership to 12 football teams.

Also, if you want to do a "what if the CCG minimum had always been 10 teams and not 12" hypothetical, then you have to go back to the beginning, start by asking whether the SEC would have invited Arkansas and South Carolina even if they could have just staged a CCG with the 10 teams they already had, and go from there.

If we are going to go with that hypothetical, what if the NCAA had just said no to any FBS CCG? Determine your champion any way you want, as long as you stay within the limits of the number of allowable regular season games (which IIRC was 11 at the time). I think we'd have eventually gone to a 12 game regular season, but I doubt we'd have gotten past 10 members in most conferences.

In that case, would the Big 8 have added four Texas schools when the SWC imploded? Or just UT and A&M? Or even UT and Arkansas, who wouldn't have had a new home in the SEC?

The decision to allow a CCG was the real watershed moment.

The NCAA was never going to block FBS CCGs, because of the way it happened. The SEC just found a loophole, and went ahead and did it without asking. The NCAA was never going to push back against the SEC in those circumstances.

The Big 8 did not add schools from Texas because of the CCG. They did it because they were told they could not get a large enough TV contract otherwise. They would have invited only UT and TAMU if Texas state politics had not gotten in the middle of it.

Per one account, Big and SWC worked together on negotiations because they weren't pleased with what they were getting on their own. They looked at offering both leagues, both leagues with a guarantee of one non-conference cross-over between each school (OU-UT obviously a pairing, supposedly TAMU-Nebraska was to be a pairing).

"Just for funsies" Big asked for more options and was told a Big 8+UT/TAMU would get the same dollars as the Big 8 + SWC. They would have gone to 10 if it had politically worked for UT and TAMU.

(09-19-2019 12:51 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(09-19-2019 12:28 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(09-19-2019 10:56 AM)ken d Wrote:  

(09-19-2019 09:43 AM)Wedge Wrote:  

(09-19-2019 08:19 AM)stever20 Wrote:  So on the biggest loser of the decade thread I brought up how with the MWC they probably don't get Utah St and San Jose St if they didn't need to go to 12(ok, they definitely don't).

The MWC added USU and SJSU when Boise State and SDSU had signed on to Marinatto's goofy Big East football idea. So the MWC didn't add USU and SJSU to get to 12 football teams, they added them to get to 10. Bringing back Boise and SDSU increased their membership to 12 football teams.

Also, if you want to do a "what if the CCG minimum had always been 10 teams and not 12" hypothetical, then you have to go back to the beginning, start by asking whether the SEC would have invited Arkansas and South Carolina even if they could have just staged a CCG with the 10 teams they already had, and go from there.

If we are going to go with that hypothetical, what if the NCAA had just said no to any FBS CCG? Determine your champion any way you want, as long as you stay within the limits of the number of allowable regular season games (which IIRC was 11 at the time). I think we'd have eventually gone to a 12 game regular season, but I doubt we'd have gotten past 10 members in most conferences.

In that case, would the Big 8 have added four Texas schools when the SWC imploded? Or just UT and A&M? Or even UT and Arkansas, who wouldn't have had a new home in the SEC?

The decision to allow a CCG was the real watershed moment.

The NCAA was never going to block FBS CCGs, because of the way it happened. The SEC just found a loophole, and went ahead and did it without asking. The NCAA was never going to push back against the SEC in those circumstances.

The Big 8 did not add schools from Texas because of the CCG. They did it because they were told they could not get a large enough TV contract otherwise. They would have invited only UT and TAMU if Texas state politics had not gotten in the middle of it.

Per one account, Big and SWC worked together on negotiations because they weren't pleased with what they were getting on their own. They looked at offering both leagues, both leagues with a guarantee of one non-conference cross-over between each school (OU-UT obviously a pairing, supposedly TAMU-Nebraska was to be a pairing).

"Just for funsies" Big asked for more options and was told a Big 8+UT/TAMU would get the same dollars as the Big 8 + SWC. They would have gone to 10 if it had politically worked for UT and TAMU.

Under that premise, If the TX state legislature had stayed out of it, the SWC would have likely survived with 5 remaining members

(09-19-2019 12:55 PM)solohawks Wrote:  Under that premise, If the TX state legislature had stayed out of it, the SWC would have likely survived with 5 remaining members

That's actually an interesting hypothetical I haven't seen batted around a bunch - an SWC of Houston, Rice, Baylor, TCU, SMU and TT sticking around and adding, like, some mix of UTEP, Tulane, and/or La Tech.

(09-19-2019 01:08 PM)Bogg Wrote:  

(09-19-2019 12:55 PM)solohawks Wrote:  Under that premise, If the TX state legislature had stayed out of it, the SWC would have likely survived with 5 remaining members

That's actually an interesting hypothetical I haven't seen batted around a bunch - an SWC of Houston, Rice, Baylor, TCU, SMU and TT sticking around and adding, like, some mix of UTEP, Tulane, and/or La Tech.

La Tech wouldn't have been in the mix, remember CUSA didn't take them.

A survival SWC would have looked at UTEP, Tulsa, Tulane, Memphis, Southern Miss, maybe as far east as Louisville or Cincinnati. Keeping Houston and one of Tulane, Memphis, USM joining either kills CUSA or CUSA likely ends up adding football only members (which it did in real life with ECU and Army) or one of Metro and Great Midwest likely survives and maybe adds football via football only members.

(09-19-2019 02:26 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(09-19-2019 01:08 PM)Bogg Wrote:  

(09-19-2019 12:55 PM)solohawks Wrote:  Under that premise, If the TX state legislature had stayed out of it, the SWC would have likely survived with 5 remaining members

That's actually an interesting hypothetical I haven't seen batted around a bunch - an SWC of Houston, Rice, Baylor, TCU, SMU and TT sticking around and adding, like, some mix of UTEP, Tulane, and/or La Tech.

La Tech wouldn't have been in the mix, remember CUSA didn't take them.

A survival SWC would have looked at UTEP, Tulsa, Tulane, Memphis, Southern Miss, maybe as far east as Louisville or Cincinnati. Keeping Houston and one of Tulane, Memphis, USM joining either kills CUSA or CUSA likely ends up adding football only members (which it did in real life with ECU and Army) or one of Metro and Great Midwest likely survives and maybe adds football via football only members.

I imagine that SWC looking like:

TTU
Houston
SMU
TCU
Baylor
Rice
Tulane
USM
Memphis

Louisville and Cincy get an invite if they want it. Tulsa is another alternative/addition.

(09-19-2019 03:05 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  

(09-19-2019 02:26 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(09-19-2019 01:08 PM)Bogg Wrote:  

(09-19-2019 12:55 PM)solohawks Wrote:  Under that premise, If the TX state legislature had stayed out of it, the SWC would have likely survived with 5 remaining members

That's actually an interesting hypothetical I haven't seen batted around a bunch - an SWC of Houston, Rice, Baylor, TCU, SMU and TT sticking around and adding, like, some mix of UTEP, Tulane, and/or La Tech.

La Tech wouldn't have been in the mix, remember CUSA didn't take them.

A survival SWC would have looked at UTEP, Tulsa, Tulane, Memphis, Southern Miss, maybe as far east as Louisville or Cincinnati. Keeping Houston and one of Tulane, Memphis, USM joining either kills CUSA or CUSA likely ends up adding football only members (which it did in real life with ECU and Army) or one of Metro and Great Midwest likely survives and maybe adds football via football only members.

I imagine that SWC looking like:

TTU
Houston
SMU
TCU
Baylor
Rice
Tulane
USM
Memphis

Louisville and Cincy get an invite if they want it. Tulsa is another alternative/addition.

New Mexico (and possibly some of the Front Range schools) was also a target of a possible SWC rebuild. The potential loss of the eastern half of the WAC was one of the reasons by the league to expand into the Southwest. And to balance it out, they had to take some western teams to get the votes. Thus the eventual expansion to 16 teams.

ECU was going to be FB only, The C7 would have left anyways. They wanted to be in a single minded conf.

(09-19-2019 01:08 PM)Bogg Wrote:  

(09-19-2019 12:55 PM)solohawks Wrote:  Under that premise, If the TX state legislature had stayed out of it, the SWC would have likely survived with 5 remaining members

That's actually an interesting hypothetical I haven't seen batted around a bunch - an SWC of Houston, Rice, Baylor, TCU, SMU and TT sticking around and adding, like, some mix of UTEP, Tulane, and/or La Tech.

I think it would come down to what Houston and Texas Tech wanted to do. Houston might want to cast lot with big city Metro Schools. I think there would be a push to get Houston and possibly Texas Tech into CUSA. If they go to CUSA then Baylor takes Tulsa's spot in WAC 16. If they stay with the TX privates, Tulane and Tulsa would be natural adds and I bet they could pull in New Mexico and UTEP to anchor a true southwestern conference. It would be fairly balanced with public and privates with a strong geographic core.

I think this conference would push for Memphis but the Tigers would cast their lot with CUSA and Louisville and Cincy basketball


Here is my survival SWC
Houston
Texas Tech
Baylor
TCU
SMU
Rice
Tulsa
Tulane
UTEP
New Mexico

CUSA Football - Starts in 1997 instead of 1996
Louisville
Cincy
Memphis
USM
ECU (1997, Football Only)
Army (1997, Football Only)
UAB (1999)

WAC
Hawaii
SJSU
SDSU
Fresno
UNLV
Air Force
Colorado St
Wyoming
BYU
Utah

Other Options
UCF
La Tech
North Texas
Ark St
ULL
ULM
New Mexico St

Therefore, you could argue the Texas legislature ruined what could have been common sense geographical realignment by forcing the Big 8 to evolve into the Big 12

(09-19-2019 12:28 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(09-19-2019 10:56 AM)ken d Wrote:  

(09-19-2019 09:43 AM)Wedge Wrote:  

(09-19-2019 08:19 AM)stever20 Wrote:  So on the biggest loser of the decade thread I brought up how with the MWC they probably don't get Utah St and San Jose St if they didn't need to go to 12(ok, they definitely don't).

The MWC added USU and SJSU when Boise State and SDSU had signed on to Marinatto's goofy Big East football idea. So the MWC didn't add USU and SJSU to get to 12 football teams, they added them to get to 10. Bringing back Boise and SDSU increased their membership to 12 football teams.

Also, if you want to do a "what if the CCG minimum had always been 10 teams and not 12" hypothetical, then you have to go back to the beginning, start by asking whether the SEC would have invited Arkansas and South Carolina even if they could have just staged a CCG with the 10 teams they already had, and go from there.

If we are going to go with that hypothetical, what if the NCAA had just said no to any FBS CCG? Determine your champion any way you want, as long as you stay within the limits of the number of allowable regular season games (which IIRC was 11 at the time). I think we'd have eventually gone to a 12 game regular season, but I doubt we'd have gotten past 10 members in most conferences.

In that case, would the Big 8 have added four Texas schools when the SWC imploded? Or just UT and A&M? Or even UT and Arkansas, who wouldn't have had a new home in the SEC?

The decision to allow a CCG was the real watershed moment.

The NCAA was never going to block FBS CCGs, because of the way it happened. The SEC just found a loophole, and went ahead and did it without asking. The NCAA was never going to push back against the SEC in those circumstances.

The Big 8 did not add schools from Texas because of the CCG. They did it because they were told they could not get a large enough TV contract otherwise. They would have invited only UT and TAMU if Texas state politics had not gotten in the middle of it.

Did the SEC expand to 12 solely to get a championship game? If the NCAA would have allowed them to have a championship game without expansion at 10 teams would they have felt the need to grow?

What if the answer was Yes they only wanted a championship game and were willing to stand pat at 10 if they could do so and have their extra game.

Arkansas would have gone to the Big 12 with Texas and A&M leaving a lot of questions to be answered.

Would Baylor or Texas Tech have gotten that 12th slot? Would the Big 12 have had to become the Big 14 to accommodate Texas politics?
Who would have been school #14

I would think that Texas politics would still win the day and to avoid an awful 13 team alignment Houston would have gotten to tag along.

This leaves the remaining SWC 3 to join the WAC 16 if that still would have been a thing. If not they would have had to rebuild SWC with the eastern Big West schools (NMSU, North Texas, La Tech, ULL, Ark St).

CUSA would be pretty much the same except South Carolina would take Houston's spot as they wouldnt have many other options, unless they could have pulled off a A10/Big East football spilt like WVU and Va Tech did. They may even get back into the ACC as school #10 if they were lucky.

I think its safe to say though this #12 team championship game rule became the greatest destabilizer in the game