The college-sports landscape was thisclose to apocalypse – if only Texas wasn’t Texas, and had gone along with a move to the Pac-10 that had seemed to be in the works, instead of building itself a UT TV network and convincing the nine dwarfs left in what was the Big 12 to be its programming fodder.
The changes that appeared albeit briefly to be in the offing seemed to have the ACC as we know it in the crosshairs – the idea being that an SEC looking to keep pace with the Pac-16 would be interested in Florida State, Miami, Georgia Tech, maybe Clemson, with the ACC perhaps then picking up the pieces of the Big East to focus its attention from North Carolina toward the Northeast.
ACC Commissioner John Swofford told reporters at this weekend’s ACC Football Kickoff that the league was engaged in “quietly evaluating the landscape” internally to determine what the league’s best interests were moving forward, “and what ramifications, if any, might come from expansion in other conferences.”
In the end, Swofford said, what was seized upon was the realization among ACC leaders that there remains a strong commitment to the ACC among the member schools at the presidential level.
The consensus, Swofford said, is that “12 remains the right number for us,” but the powers-that-be are willing to re-examine that if the situation on the national scene changes, he said.
“I, for one, am very pleased that the Big 12 Conference remains as a conference. I think that’s in the best interest of the greater whole in intercollegiate athletics right now,” Swofford said.
“And we’re very comfortable with not only 12, but the 12 that we have,” Swofford said.
Story by Chris Graham. Chris can be reached at [email protected].
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