A Conference Expansion Post

Everyone is treating the current round of conference expansion as if it's a given that the Big 10 will act, the SEC will respond, and the ACC/Big 12/Big East will scramble to recover.

That's probably true. But I think that it's time to strike for the little conferences. This is particularly true for the ACC, which risks losing some members should the SEC get hungry. The ACC model as it stands clearly isn't working -- their hilariously half-filled conference championship football games and dearth of legitimate national title contenders being the best examples. In football, the ACC is broken.

Basketball-wise, though, it's working pretty well. So the ACC should act with three things in mind:

1. Strengthen or at least don't further dilute your football brand.

2. Improve your conference's basketball prestige.

3. Prepare for the inevitable incursions of the SEC (and, possibly, the Big 10).

With that in mind, the ACC should consider expansion early, while it can get the drop on folks. I doubt the ACC will, because expansion was a mistake last time, and they got a bad reputation from it. But, as I said above, the conference obviously needs fixing. Further, who cares what people think?

If I were in charge of the ACC, we'd go for sixteen teams divided into two north-south divisions.

The Southern would include FSU, Miami, Clemson, Georgia Tech, and the four North Carolina schools. This would be the stronger division in both football and (especially) basketball.

The Northern Division would include current members Virginia Tech, Virginia, Maryland, and Boston College. Four additional teams would be added. I would make an offer to Penn State first, agreeing to pretty much whatever they want, but they wouldn't move. Instead, I'd have to raid the Big East for Pittsburgh, Louisville, West Virginia, and UConn.

The South is tougher either way. But I think it's a big improvement over the current conference in football, for a couple of reasons. First, while the South is a lot stronger, the North is deeper -- there's nobody that is a pit of football despair like Duke. Second, the conference championship game is almost certainly going to include one of the Florida teams, Clemson, or Georgia Tech, which should improve ratings and attendance.

As far as basketball goes, who cares how even the divisions are?