USF/Big East Realignment Discussion Thread

[Rizman]

Pittsburgh and Syracuse are headed to the Atlantic Coast Conference.

The ACC announced Sunday that its council of presidents unanimously voted to accept the two schools from the Big East. The move increases the ACC’s membership to 14 and sends the Big East scrambling to replace two of its cornerstone programs.

Pittsburgh Chancellor Mark Nordenberg said in a release that the school’s leadership “could not envision a better conference home for Pitt.â€

The ACC says it extended invitations after the schools submitted letters of application to join the league. It is unclear when the move will take effect. The Big East’s exit fee is $5 million, and schools wanting to leave must provide 27 months’ notice.

The ACC scheduled a 9:30 a.m. ET teleconference with the media.

Commissioner John Swofford said the expansion “geographically bridges our footprint between Maryland and Massachusetts.â€

Syracuse Chancellor Nancy Cantor called the ACC “a perfect fit†for a program that was one of the founding members of the Big East.

“We are pleased that Syracuse adds a New York City dimension to the ACC, a region in which we have built strong identity and affinity, and we look forward to bringing ACC games to the Big Apple,†Cantor said. “Overall, for Syracuse, this opportunity provides long-term conference stability in what is an uncertain, evolving, and rapidly shifting national landscape.â€

The announcement caps a turbulent week of reshuffling for the ACC and likely will lead to another dramatic shift in college athletics. Texas A&M already has announced its intention to join the Southeastern Conference, leaving the future of the Big 12 in doubt. And the board of regents at Oklahoma and Texas are meeting Monday to discuss the possibility of the universities leaving that conference.

Saying the league was excited about adding to its “northern tier,†Florida State President Eric Barron confirmed to The Associated Press on Saturday that the ACC received application letters from Pitt and Syracuse.

He said 11 of 12 league presidents attended a meeting in Greensboro, N.C., last Tuesday, with the other participating by phone. During the meeting, they unanimously approved raising the exit fee to $20 million-up from $12 million to $14 million-for any member leaving the conference, a maneuver seemingly designed to keep the remaining ACC schools in the fold.

The latest moves are sure to create even more bad blood between two conferences that became embroiled in a nasty lawsuit the last time the ACC expanded by adding schools from the Big East. A multibillion dollar settlement reached in 2005 included the scheduling of nine interconference football games.

Pitt and Syracuse bring the number of programs making the Big East-to-ACC jump in the past decade to five, and Louisville athletic director Tom Jurich said the most recent moves were “kind of a shock to everybody.â€

Syracuse was one of the original targets of a previous round of expansion by the ACC along with Miami and Boston College in 2003. The ACC ultimately added the Hurricanes and Virginia Tech for the 2004 season and brought in BC for the following season as its 12th member.

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/news?slug=rivals-1266816

[Bull-by-Marriage]

What does all of this do to future schedules. I bet that AD's are scrambling all over the country. What conference is XXX going to be in? What conference are we going to be in? Madness rules the landscape.

EDIT: Bill McGillis usually sits behind us at Soccer matches, I'm curious to see if he's going to be there, and if so, what his demeanor will be.

[Jihme]

That 27 month rule really made it impossible Mac...

Seriously though. I think the Big 12 survives, we NEED to buddy up with them. The SEC is not happening. Nor is the Big 10

It didn't make it impossible and I never said it did.  I also have yet to see how long Pitt and Cuse will have to wait.  It is negotiatable, but how much will they have to pay to get out?  I said that any conference that wanted to grow NEXT YEAR might think twice because the remaining Big East schools might not be too willing to let the others leave more quickly without a big payday.

The going rate from the Big XII and the ACC is $20M.  If I'm the Big East schools remaining then I demand $20M from all leavers to waive legal rights and allow them to leave early.  That is something they can attempt to do.  Certainly the exit fee has to at least be doubled if they want to get out sooner.  

it's already too late!

[Jihme]

our best bet may be for the SEC to drop capital and pay the buyout for acc teams.  that would be huge for us.  the SEC could save our ass!

[BULL2001]

+1

And remember that going down to four conferences will require a lot of mods on the BCS agreement.  

We also don't know if the PAC-12 will even accept Oklahoma.  Their public stance has been that they're not keen on adding a member.  I think if they were then it would have already happened, just like it happened so quickly with Pitt and Syracuse.  Oklahoma might be taking their time because they may not have the options they're looking for.

I think the Big Ten really isn't interested in growing again right now.  The SEC obviously is wanting to add A&M, but they would have also probably already landed #14 if it were that easy.  

Looks like the ACC wanted to make a pre-emptive move, as did Pitt.  But the ACC will still look like a fairly weak football conference, no better than what the Big East has been overall with the exception of being pretty good at top with FSU and VT.

Now that the ACC has (s)Pitt and Syracuse the ACC is now targeting UConn and Rutgers which may force the Big Ten to expand again. The reason is the ACC just gave the Big 10 an opportunity to destroy the Big East by adding Rutgers (this also assumes WVU is #14 to SEC) which will force Notre Dame to consider conference membership, Big 10.

[NCBull]

There is no telling how this will all end up.  We are certainly on the bubble here.  Let's hope Genshaft and Woolard can pull another miracle out of their asses and keep us in a BCS conference.  But it may be outside their power now...

[dausfbulls11]

how does the "27 month notice" thing play out in all this? Are they still in BE for two more years?

[Jake_Ryan]

There is no way the SEC takes WV as #14. 

[USF_Grouper]

I've seen this posted here before, but I've never seen it anywhere else.  Where do you get this from?  I'm not saying you're wrong.

No where, just an assumption.  Granted, Pitt will now be an exception for the ACC, but that stadium was built with them in mind.  But the three places we could possibly go in the BCS:  ACC, SEC, Big XII are loaded with on campus stadium schools.  The conferences like the pomp surrounding the buildup on a campus and Bucs logos for televised games might not be their favorite thing.  The Big East was flexible enough not to care about it.

Maybe it's viewed differently because we're metro.  

Miami was already an exception, but like you said Pitt and Miami have different arrangements.  They have same name and similar colors to the professional organizations.  They both actually share the stadium.  You don't find Dolphin and Steeler signage all over their stadiums.  

You are absolutely correct though, the bright red seats really makes for awful television.  You see GA Tech at home this weekend and they probably had a nearly equal ratio of empty seats in their stadium - but they aren't highlighted in some color that brightly contrasted with the team colors.  With red seats, if we have 10 empty chairs in the entire stadium it absolutely shows up on television!

[tampabull]

our best shot is big 12 if the big east implodes, but don't rule out the sec.  i don't think we have much of a shot to get into the sec, but if it came down to a vote florida would not be able to block usf.  too much clout in talahasee.