After all the back-slapping and high-fiving between ACC officials and
new members Miami and Virginia Tech was over during Tuesday night’s expansion
celebration, one question remained.
Who’s next?
While ACC commissioner John Swofford and Georgia Tech president Wayne Clough
said there was no timetable, no rush to add a 12th member to the league, maybe
they should revisit their comments. If you’re expanding, then why not punch
another hole in the belt.
It is no secret that most of the ACC presidents are in favor of pursuing Notre
Dame. This scenario presents the most difficult, the most challenging
possibility that expansion has to offer and frankly, I don’t think the ACC can
get the Irish.
Maybe for Wildcats
In my opinion, Kentucky is the way to go. For years, ACC folk have coveted the
thought of having the Big Blue in the conference. Just think of it. Duke,
Maryland, North Carolina, Kentucky.
Is that a Murderer’s Row of basketball powers or what?
Not only would the Wildcats bring more big-time basketball to the ACC, which
would keep the narrow-minded folks on Tobacco Road appeased, but it would give
UK more of a challenge than what the SEC poses in hoops on an annual basis.
Plus, Kentucky football could actually compete in the ACC.
Louisville Courier-Journal columnist Rick Bozich wrote this week that
“Kentucky in ACC: wedding of the year,” that “I believe the ACC needs the
University of Kentucky. More important, I believe the University of Kentucky
needs the ACC.”
Now some would argue that the Wildcats leaving the SEC would be sacrilege,
that Adolph Rupp would spin in his grave. But it makes perfect sense.
Arkansas athletics director Frank Broyles said Tuesday that the SEC might be
the ACC’s next target. By golly, Frank. I think you’re all over this one.
“I’d say the ACC will try and recruit somebody from the SEC, maybe Florida,
Kentucky or South Carolina,” Broyles said. “I wouldn’t be surprised at all if
the ACC went after one of our schools.”
No go for Gamecocks
Forget South Carolina. There are still extremely bitter feelings in the ACC
about how the Gamecocks left the conference even though it was three decades
ago. Mention the possibility of South Carolina coming back in to an older ACC
and you might just get cussed out.
The ACC would rather eat a spit sandwich than to consider bringing back the
Gamecocks.
Florida? Well, the ACC had its chance within the last 15 years to bring the
Gators into the league but wasn’t interested for some strange reason. Maybe it
had something to do with the Gators being on football probation at the time.
Obviously, Florida would be a great fit. Now that the ACC has the Noles and
the Canes, why not make it a trifecta? Certainly the Gators would be a great
addition for both football and basketball and would allow the ACC to rule the
football-rich recruiting grounds of the Sunshine State.
And no matter how many foot
ball championships FSU and Miami have won over the past dozen years, their fan
base is nothing compared to the legions that follow the Gators.
Kentucky would be a great addition. There are no minuses to bringing in the
Wildcats. The much-talked about “geographical footprint” would be kept intact,
although the ACC seal might have to be changed or at least modified.
Whatever the ACC chooses to do, it should start the process now and this time,
be a little smarter in how it does its business. However, I can’t see how
anyone in the ACC would vote against bringing in Florida, Kentucky or even
Notre Dame, which does not fit into the geographical footprint.
Even if the Tobacco Road voting block tried to squelch the move, their two or
three votes (depending on how N.C. State’s Marye Ann Fox feels on a certain
day) won’t carry the same clout in an 11-team league that it did in a nine.
Heck, maybe even the Governor would stay out of this one.
If an SEC school decides to leave right now, it wouldn’t have to pay an exit
fee. That probably will change the next time the SEC bosses get together. Our
guess is they’ll vote in a very expensive penalty around the $10 million mark
just to discourage such a move.
Notre Dame? I guess it’s possible, but far-fetched.
“We need to go after Notre Dame and we need to do it quickly,” Florida State
president T.K. Wetherell said this week. “As far as I’m concerned, it ought to
be No. 1 on the agenda.
“In my mind, the recruiting of Notre Dame has already started. I don’t know
about the rest of the ACC, but that’s who we should be going after ... We
ought to be sending Bobby Bowden and anyone else who wants to go to talk to
them,” Wetherell said.
I know there has already been feelers sent out to the Irish by various ACC
people, league officials, former league officials, presidents, athletic
directors, coaches.
The question is, will the Golden Domers make such a move without being pushed
toward a conference by NBC? As long as the big network continues to pay out
millions of dollars to televise Irish home games, revenue that Notre Dame
doesn’t have to share with anyone, then why would they make such a move?
And what makes the ACC think the Irish would choose the southern league over
the Big Ten or the Big East?
“I think Notre Dame has to be sitting around thinking what they are going to
do,” said Wetherell. “If it was up to me, I’d put a team together and go up
there and start talking to them immediately.”
Well, he has a good point. At least probe the Irish to see if there is any
interest. If not, then go after Kentucky or Florida.
It doesn’t make sense for the ACC to feel comfortable with 11 members because
unless the NCAA changes its rules, the ACC is going to need a 12th to produce
a football championship game.
Clough said during Tuesday night’s press conference in Greensboro that getting
the rule changed to allow leagues with less than 12 members to stage a title
game, isn’t as easy as it looks.
“One of the challenges is that of the 18 schools that are there [to vote on
such rules changes], a relatively small number of them are Division I-A,”
Clough said. “So I think the temperature has to be taken of those schools as
much as those who represent the Division I-A conferences. I don’t know at this
point what their feelings would be.”
One thing is for sure. The ACC doesn’t have to take advice from some research
guy in Denver to find out if Notre Dame, Kentucky or Florida would be a good
fit.
Even the ACC Council of Presidents could probably figure that one out.
GREENSBORO - Jim Weaver, the Virginia Tech athletics director, rode into the Atlantic Coast Conference last night in a white stretch limo. The limo, like the ACC's membership invitation, showed up as an unexpected gift from ACC headquarters.
'There were six of us coming here in our school plane, and I guess they figured it was easier to get us here that way,' Weaver said. 'Maybe they thought I'd feel comfortable because I had spent four years at UNLV. I don't know.'
For the second straight Tuesday night, what the Hokies didn't know didn't hurt them.
At about the same hour last week, the nine ACC presidents and chancellors kicked Boston College and Syracuse to the curb and asked Virginia Tech to join Miami on the membership roster. Last night, the ACC serenaded the new partners on a news-conference stage and made things official, for all the sports world and the decimated Big East to see.
The Hokies and Hurricanes will spend one lame-duck school year in the Big East and move to the ACC in 2004, an outcome that Weaver hoped for when he joined a Virginia Tech contingent at the ACC office on May 6. The Tech leaders initiated the foray, officially to assess the ACC's intentions. Every practical soul, including Commissioner John Swofford, interpreted the intent as a lobbying effort.
That time, Tech flew the school plane. The ACC sent a staff member as a free taxi service. Weaver walked into the ACC lobby and noticed a portrait of the league's first commissioner, also named Jim Weaver. He saw a portrait of the second commissioner, Bob James, who attended high school with his parents. In the retelling last night, which a skeptic might construe as revisionist history, Tech's Weaver insisted that the experience increased his confidence that things would work out eventually.
If true, then 10 days later his attitude darkened considerably. The ACC voted to pursue Miami, BC and Syracuse. Weaver remembers the moment because that's the day he landed in Florida for the Big East meeting.
'I thought that we were going to be in the Big East and that we were going to see how this thing played out,' Weaver said. 'We were committed to trying to keep the Big East intact as it was, as was the case with everybody in the Big East until probably as late as midday (Monday) with regard to Miami. Certainly, you can understand why. Miami has won five national championships in the last 21 years. They have had a most successful football program. We can certainly understand that. That's what all of us were committed to because we were fighting for our lives, literally fighting for our lives.'
The fight changed abruptly. Miami, BC and Syracuse opened their arms and their campus gates for required ACC site inspections. The rest of the Big East football schools threw up their arms in disgust. They hired New York lawyers and merged with Connecticut's biggest state politicians and filed suit against the conspirators from Greensboro, Miami and Boston.
Virginia Tech sued the league it just joined but removed its name late last week. The suit goes on.
The Hokies always wanted to join the ACC. They lobbied for inclusion during the ACC's formation at Sedgefield Country Club 50 years ago, when seven schools broke away from the overcrowded Southern Conference. Virginia soon joined those seven, but Tech remained outside the window.
Virginia Tech's persistence nearly paid off in the early 1960s. According to Marvin 'Skeeter' Francis, a former assistant commissioner who lives in Winston-Salem, the ACC was prepared to admit the Hokies, but Tech withdrew its candidacy.
This year, as the expansion campaign gathered steam, Tech revived the dream and nearly watched the dream die. The league lined up its three favored universities, the plums that would stretch the tentacles up the Eastern seaboard and grab untold millions in new TV money.
Tech sued. Tech's president, Charles Steger, publicly assailed the ACC and vowed that he wouldn't join the ACC that day if the conference begged him.
Last week, the ACC didn't have to beg. Steger jumped on the invitation like a dog on a filet mignon. His flip invalidated his moral argument, and critics nailed him as an amoral opportunist and turncoat who abandoned the Big East as fast as he saw a better deal.
Steger, returning from Switzerland, didn't reach Greensboro last night to explain his decision or accept an ACC lapel pin, which everyone on the news-conference stage wore like a company-issued badge.
The reason: bad weather and an Atlanta airport connection problem. Imagine that.
The rector of the school's Board of Visitors, John Rocovich, replaced Steger in the bright lights and said that during expansion upheaval conditions change every few hours or days.
Weaver blamed journalists' interpretations of Steger's words.
'The original question was: 'Would you replace one of the two other Big East schools?'' Weaver said. 'He responded no to that question. That answer was then taken out of context for the next couple of weeks.'
But isn't that what happened? The ACC dumped two Big East schools and added Tech as the replacement.
'No,' Weaver said. 'Not directly, because we weren't engaged in any dialogue at all. It wasn't like we were substituted for them with knowledge of the process.'
But Tech knew what had happened when the invitation came. The world knew.
'Well,' Weaver replied, 'the other thing I was going to say was - as Mr. Rocovich alluded to in his remarks - the facts, the climate, the issues change daily and sometimes hourly. When you're charged with making the best long-term decision for your university ... you've got to do that.'
Tech did what it had to do. Hokies almost everywhere are happy, Weaver is happy and Steger is probably as happy as any captive of the Atlanta airport can be.
They belong to the ACC, finally.
Beamer: road just got harder
ACC football will be among best in country
BY JOHN MARKON
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Jul 03, 2003
BLACKSBURG - Virginia Tech football coach Frank Beamer often
starts a press conference with a theme in mind. There was no mistaking his
emphasis yesterday.
Free to comment for the first time since Tech announced it will be bolting the
Big East Conference for the Atlantic Coast Conference next September, Beamer had
a definite take.
"I think we've joined maybe the strongest football conference in the country,"
Beamer said (many times). "You have to remember that next year's ACC won't be
the ACC of the past."
Tech gathered most of its coaches on campus, but Beamer was an exception,
phoning in from his vacation home in Georgia. He said his health continues to be
good, although he was hospitalized with chest pains nine days ago. He plans to
be back in his office Monday.
Beamer confirmed he had almost no role in the ACC expansion process, which was
controlled at the presidential level and resulted in Tech and Miami being added
to the nine-team league. He couldn't even say for certain if his chest pains
were due in any part to worrying over the future of his school.
"If you think about having to beat Miami, Florida State and then maybe win a
conference championship game to play for the national title, well, that's some
stress," Beamer said.
Even without the certainty of an ACC title game, Beamer said the new conference
will give Tech, which played in the Bowl Championship Series' title game
following the 1999 season, a more difficult path to return to the big game.
"Our road to the national championship just got harder," he said, "but so did
Miami's and Florida State's and Virginia's and everyone in our league. If we get
a conference title game, we'll also be on the same footing with the Big 12 and
SEC and the other conferences where they've said we had an advantage by not
playing one."
Beamer said he had noticed a slowdown in recruiting progress in the weeks when
it appeared Tech would be left out of the ACC's expansion drive. The past few
days have convinced him, however, that any damage would be temporary.
Also in demand yesterday was first-year basketball coach Seth Greenberg, who
said he'd become the answer to a million-dollar trivia question.
"Who's the only guy who was ever a head coach in Conference USA, the Big East
and the ACC in three consecutive years?" said Greenberg, who came to Tech from
C-USA member South Florida.
"We're going into a league with a tradition as rich as any league's where they
ever bounced a ball," Greenberg said. "If you're anywhere between 25 and 40
years old in this part of the country, you grew up with the ACC Game of the Week
on TV. If you have a pulse, you're into ACC basketball."
One reason Tech was attracted to Greenberg was his recruiting connections in the
Northeast, Big East territory. Greenberg said he was likely to expand his
recruiting base as the probability of increased television appearances for the
Hokies made recruiting over a larger area more practical.
As for the probability of a hostile reception on the Hokies' farewell tour of
Big East arenas, Greenberg said, "There are only so many ways a guy can tell me
that I'm bald."
Most of the coaches probably would have agreed that the Tech staff member facing
the largest challenge might be Jay Hardwick, who finished his 21st year as the
men's golf coach by winning the school's only conference title of the 2002-03
season.
"Six ACC teams were in the national top 25 for golf," said Hardwick, "including
the national champion [Clemson]. My life just got a lot more complicated."
Jim Weaver, Tech's athletic director, said he had no plans to add or drop any of
the school's 21 varsity sports because of the change in conferences.
Weaver also said the school won't be a full participant in ACC revenue-sharing
until 2006. Tech's and Miami's shares of pooled conference revenues will be
capped somewhere between $6 million and $7 million until the ACC can negotiate
its next television contract for football.
"We understand the financial arrangements," Weaver said. "They're entirely
acceptable."
Hokies brace for changes
Tech's lame-duck Big East year to provide plenty of challenges
By Norm Wood
Daily Press
Published July 3, 2003
Virginia Tech football coach Frank Beamer is still trying to figure out what
caused the chest pain that sent him to an Atlanta hospital last Tuesday, but ACC
expansion had to play a part.
"I'm not sure I'm going to rule that out," said Beamer, who is still in Georgia
vacationing at his lake house. "I had some tightness in my chest, and I'm not
sure that was because of expansion or just vacationing too hard or what."
The most stressful part is over. The only things Beamer has to worry about for
the rest of the week are whether to wet a line, strap on the water skis or
slather on more suntan lotion. He can worry next week about preparing his team
for its final season in the Big East and for its move to the Atlantic Coast
Conference.
Beamer's ACC to-do list is lengthy. There are new recruiting territories to
consider, scheduling concerns and the burden of proving that his team's 10-year
run in the Big East will stand up in what will be one of the nation's best
football conferences. By the time the Hokies begin ACC play in 2004, Beamer will
make sure his players are prepared.
"Kids don't seem to get too involved. ... I don't think they got nearly as
concerned as their coach was," Beamer said.
Beamer's players are already excited. Virginia Tech signees Xavier Adibi of
Phoebus High and Chris Ellis of Bethel High say they are thrilled to play in a
conference that will have had eight Bowl Championship Series participants since
1998.
"I think it'll probably be the best conference," said Adibi, who has helped the
Phantoms win two consecutive state Division 5 crowns. "I thought it was the SEC
for a while, but now I think the ACC is right up there.
"Knowing how good the conference is and how good it's going to be with us and
Miami in there is exciting."
Of course, those prophecies will not make the Hokies' last year in the Big East
any more comfortable.
With trips to Pittsburgh and West Virginia this season, Virginia Tech will have
to endure fans who will be more hostile than usual, considering Miami and
Virginia Tech's move could mean a death sentence for Big East football.
"I'm sure the coaches will talk to us about it the week before those games, but
I'm going to have to rely on a lot of the veteran players to prepare me for
those games," Ellis said. "That'll make the competition a lot more difficult."
Beamer hopes the atmosphere is the only thing that will make Virginia Tech's
final season in the Big East a chore.
He said he doesn't anticipate calls going against his team, or the conference's
athletic directors voting to make Miami and Virginia Tech ineligible for the Big
East title.
"They're good people in the Big East," Beamer said. "My feelings haven't changed
from (Tuesday) about (commissioner) Mike Tranghese and the cast of people in the
Big East."
Will ACC do the dozen?
By BRYAN STRICKLAND : The Herald-Sun
bstrickland@heraldsun.com
Jul 2, 2003 : 11:50 pm ET
When ACC commissioner John Swofford presented Miami and Virginia Tech's
athletics directors with color-coordinated clothing Tuesday night to commemorate
their addition to the conference, the wild, wacky and winding issue of ACC
expansion finally came to close.
Actually, it came to a close for all of 15 minutes.
Before Miami's Paul Dee and Virginia Tech's Jim Weaver had a chance to try on
their shirts -- much less their new conference affiliation -- for size, talk
turned to the topic of whether the 11-team ACC would become the 12-team ACC.
And in the question-and-answer session that followed Tuesday's
welcome-to-the-neighborhood gathering in Greensboro, Swofford and other ACC
officials did little to downplay such discussion.
"A number of our schools and a number of our presidents are very interested at
some given point at looking at 12," Swofford said. "There's no particular
timetable for that and I don't think any absolute guarantee that it will happen.
"But there's a certain interest level with a number of schools in continuing to
look at that if there should be an opportunity that our presidents feel is the
right fit."
Swofford thought the conference had found the right fit for an even dozen on May
16, when the member schools voted 8-1 to pursue Miami, Boston College and
Syracuse as its expansion targets. But when political pressure exerted on
Virginia for the sake of Virginia Tech mounted, and later when some schools
weren't comfortable with bringing in Boston College or Syracuse without the
other, the ACC expanded to the not-previously-discussed total of 11 schools.
Swofford recently referred to the pursuit of a 12th member as a "backburner
issue," and indeed other issues are on the league's hot plate for now. Without
the required 12th team in place that would allow the conference to host a
football championship game -- a key component to the financial feasibility of
expansion -- the ACC's next step will be a push to change the rules.
The league has until July 15 to make a written proposal asking the NCAA to allow
conferences with 10 or more teams to hold a football championship game. The rule
change couldn't go into effect until 2004, the same year that Miami and Virginia
Tech are scheduled to begin play in the ACC.
"Clearly I would be supportive of it, but there are 18 votes that have to be
swung," said Georgia Tech president G. Wayne Clough, the ACC's representative on
the 18-member NCAA Division I Board of Directors -- the group that would
eventually decide on such a proposal. "One of the challenges is that of the 18
schools, a relatively small number of them [11] are Division I-A schools --
they're Division I but not Division I-A.
"So I think the temperature has to be taken of those schools as much as those
who represent the Division I-A conferences, and I don't know at this point what
their feelings would be. But certainly the ACC is going to go forward with the
recommendation that we do this."
If the rule change doesn't happen, that could move the ACC's pursuit of a 12th
member back to the frontburner. And if an icon like Notre Dame began to show
interest in the new-look ACC, the league would surely listen regardless of how
the rulebook read.
"We've talked to them about their position," Florida State athletics director
Dave Hart said. "They have a unique position within the landscape of collegiate
athletics with their television contract. And, I think, they are satisfied with
their position.
"Now, we've had a landscape change -- rather than a forecast of a change, a
change has now taken place. I believe everybody will have to reassess their
position, including Notre Dame."
Notre Dame has two years remaining on its exclusive football package with NBC,
and the current Bowl Championship Series contract that favors the Fighting Irish
has three years remaining.
A source close to the Notre Dame football program said that the Irish wouldn't
make any moves as long as those elements remained in their favor. In addition,
school president Rev. Edward Malloy is on record as opposing conference
affiliation.
But Malloy has indicated that he might retire in a couple of years, and if NBC
and the BCS in any way turn against Notre Dame, anything would be possible.
"How realistic is it? At this juncture, I don't think anybody but Notre Dame
could give them answer to that," Hart said.
If the possibility of Notre Dame proves a pipe dream, several other schools
could figure in the fray, but nearly all of them present potential problems.
Penn State and Pitt appear to be possibilities, but Penn State might lean toward
the Northeast-based Big East if it looked to leave the Big Ten, and Pitt is
already in the Big East -- a conference that is obviously leery of any advances
by the ACC at this point.
For the basketball factions that feel they were ignored in the expansion
process, the addition of Kentucky or Louisville could quell their qualms. But
those schools aren't truly within the "geographic footprint" of the league --
something that became a hot topic late in the expansion process -- and
Louisville is believed to already be looking at the possibility of joining the
Big East.
Within the geographic footprint, Arkansas athletics director Frank Broyles has
said that Florida and South Carolina are schools he thought the ACC might
target, and East Carolina has often been pitched by in-state supporters.
But given South Carolina's unceremonious exit from the ACC in 1971 and the lack
of serious consideration given to ECU in the past, Florida seems to be the most
likely candidate out of that bunch. Miami's move now puts two of the three
Florida football powers in the ACC, and the league is feeling more and more at
home in the Sunshine State with each passing season.
"We certainly appreciate the fact that in Florida, almost all the schools in the
ACC have a large number of alumni," Clough said in reference to the ACC's
addition of Miami -- a statement that could apply to the Gators as well. "That
is a great fit for us because that means we have a lot of fans down in Florida
that will love the relationships and rivalries that we'll develop with Miami, in
addition to the great ones we already have with Florida State.
"As we got further into the process, we started looking at a lot more of the
details, like where our alumni really were and where we recruit our students
from -- all those kind of issues."
NOTES -- Swofford said he didn't anticipate a need for divisions with an 11-team
league; in fact, he said the schools had agreed to play without divisions in
basketball even if the league had expanded to 12 teams. ... All the football
teams obviously won't be able to play each other every season now, and the
basketball teams won't be able to continue their double round-robin, but
Swofford said every attempt would be made to protect the league's top rivalries.
"In all the different scenarios that had been run and discussed with the
athletic directors, the one common thread through all of that is the desire to
maintain those special rivalries," he said. "Certainly that will be a
fundamental aspect of our scheduling policy." ... Swofford said that with the
addition of two football powers, the league would sit down with television
partners at Jefferson Pilot, ABC and ESPN to discuss renegotiating the final two
years of the league's football TV contract. The contract runs through 2005.
Painful process yields joy
Virginia Tech football coach Frank Beamer has endured health problems, but the Hokies move to the ACC has him feeling better.
By RANDY KING
THE ROANOKE TIMES
Even if Virginia Tech football coach Frank Beamer lives to be a 100, it's highly doubtful he will ever forget the evening of Tuesday, June24, 2003.
On the same night Beamer lay defenseless in an Atlanta hospital bed with severe chest pains, ACC school presidents surprisingly reversed their field, pancaking Boston College and Syracuse from the blind side and packaging long-shot prospect Tech with prime target Miami in the league's expansion plans.
"Stunned would be a pretty good word for it," Beamer said of his reaction when informed of the ACC's well-disguised, trick-play audible.
Eight days later, Beamer was feeling no pain Wednesday. The same can be said for all Hokies, who after 50 years of rejection from their backyard neighbors are totally giddy about the fact they will become full-fledged members of the ACC's exclusive country club starting next fall.
Beamer is relieved that the ACC's long-running and ever-changing expansion saga is over. Tech is an officially confirmed piece of the ACC's future puzzle, and nothing else counts.
"Whether expansion was the reason or vacationing too hard was the reason I wound up in the hospital, I'm not sure," said Beamer, 56, addressing the media publicly for the first time Wednesday on Tech's ACC inclusion.
"But I'm not going to rule out the stress of the expansion. I'm not sure if it was when we felt like we might not get in, or when we found we might get in and have to beat probably Miami and Florida State, then play in a [league] championship game to get to the national championship.
"I'm really happy for Virginia Tech. This is such a great move for our fans. They love to come to our games and they're going to be able to get to them easier than ever before. I think for Virginia Tech to become a member of maybe the strongest football conference in the country ... well, you've got to feel great about that."
Beamer, who has overseen the Hokies' rise from the depths to national prominence in his 16 years at his alma mater, didn't call any shots in this game. He was quick to credit all of those who helped Tech finally score with the ACC. Thus, he awarded the equivalent of game balls to Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, Attorney General Jerry Kilgore and University of Virginia President John Casteen, all of whom played pivotal roles in Tech's ACC entry.
"We are indebted to those people for their effort and standing up and doing what I think what's right for the state of Virginia," Beamer said.
Beamer particularly singled out Casteen, who made it known to his ACC cohorts he was not in favor in any expansion move that didn't include Tech. When asked if the Tech-UVa rivalry will be even more intense now that both schools will be housed in the same league, Beamer couldn't help but bring up the man who helped make the key to the ACC door for the Hokies.
"For what they did for us, I think we're going to have a hug session," Beamer said, laughing, about the next meeting with Tech's archrival. "I'm going to look up John Casteen, I can tell you that for sure."
While it ranks among the nation's top 10 winningest programs in its current 10-year bowl run, Tech is going to find things much tougher in its new neighborhood, Beamer said. The Hokies have built their football riches the past decade in the Big East, where they will compete for the final season this fall.
Beamer knows it's possible the ACC will be granted its wish of holding a conference championship game in 2004-05, despite the fact it could still be one short of meeting the NCAA's current 12-school requirement for such a game.
"I don't think there's any question that our road to the national championship got harder as of yesterday," said Beamer, referring to the ACC's formal introduction of Tech and Miami on Tuesday.
"And so did Miami's, Florida State's, Virginia's and every other team in the ACC. You add another game that you generally figure you will have a 50-percent chance of winning and it certainly makes it tougher."
Beamer made the popular call concerning the play selection for the 12th member that the ACC will eventually annex.
"I'm sure the team everybody wants is Notre Dame," Beamer said. "I think it's going to be tougher and tougher for them to get that BCS bid. Maybe a few years down they will change their position."
Beamer, who was talking via conference call from his summer home on Lake Oconee in Georgia, said he has been told that his players haven't been too inquisitive about all the hullabaloo that has put many Hokies in a frenzied state the past two months.
"I don't think those guys were nearly concerned about all this as their coach was," he said. "I try to not worry about things that's out of our control. I probably did a poor job of that here lately, and that's how I ended up in the hospital."
GREENSBORO - They just left the Big East for the ACC, incurring the wrath of one league while dividing another, and all Miami and Virginia Tech got was a lousy golf shirt?
That was the ACC's welcoming present Tuesday night to Miami athletics director Paul Dee and Virginia Tech's Jim Weaver. Both men seemed pleased, laughing as they received an ACC shirt from Commissioner John Swofford -- putting a happy face on one of the most divisive incidents in NCAA history.
The ACC became an 11-team conference and the Big East took two steps closer to irrelevance at the ritzy Grandover Resort and Conference Center, located within sight of the ACC's offices in Greensboro.
While one process is over, others are just beginning. Four Big East schools have sued the ACC and Miami, and a number of leagues soon could change membership in the wake of the ACC's raid on the Big East.
Miami and Virginia Tech will begin conference play in 2004-05, with the ACC in one big division. Teams will play eight league games in football and 16 in basketball, ending the round-robin scheduling in both sports.
Swofford said the league will try to accommodate traditional rivalries.
"That will be a fundamental aspect of our scheduling," he said.
Swofford said the ACC basketball tournament, the league's signature event, should look the same from Friday's quarterfinals through Sunday's title game, with three first-round games instead of one Thursday.
Things could change if the ACC adds a 12th team.
"There's a sentiment (among ACC schools) to do that," said Georgia Tech Chancellor Wayne Clough. "There's a certain logic to (12)."
An NCAA rule requires 12 members for a league to stage a lucrative football title game, though the ACC will seek to amend that rule for the 2004 season. A title game with 11 members, Swofford said, would be "tricky ... but do-able."
Miami and Virginia Tech owe a $2 million ACC entrance fee along with their $1 million exit fee from the Big East, though Swofford said the entrance fee isn't due right away.
For Miami, it was about the future.
"Since Florida State came into the (ACC in 1991), we have seen all the things it has meant to them," Dee said. "It was not lost on us as we watched them grow into a tremendous university through this conference."
For Virginia Tech, it was about time.
"It's as though Virginia Tech has finally come home," Weaver said, clutching his new shirt.
Elsewhere, the mood was less upbeat. Syracuse Chancellor Kenneth Shaw said his school wouldn't consider becoming the ACC's 12th member, calling this expansion process a "debacle."
"It's pretty clear that it's impossible to have any kind of discussions (with the ACC) that aren't immediately leaked and a matter of public information," Shaw said. "Whether or not they can contain those leaks, I don't know, but it's an interesting way to do business."
Swofford had called Syracuse athletics director Jake Crouthamel late June 24 to say Syracuse had been eliminated from consideration. Crouthamel said Swofford's tone was one of "embarrassment."
"It didn't take long," Crouthamel said of their conversation. "I was speechless. I was walking upstairs to bed ... and had to brace myself against the counter."
Duke athletics director Joe Alleva issued a skeptical statement that welcomed Miami and Virginia Tech but criticized the end result.
"I am personally disappointed," said Alleva, whose school championed the addition of Miami only. "I am very concerned about the financial implications of an 11-team league and negative effects on scheduling. I am concerned that this will be detrimental to several sports, especially basketball, and change the culture of the league significantly."
Should the ACC expand again, Swofford said he would make two procedural changes. First, fewer conference calls and more in-person visits among chancellors, who spoke by phone four times before voting to invite Miami and Virginia Tech.
Second, Swofford said, the ACC won't do to another school what it did to Boston College and Syracuse. ACC officials visited those schools, leaving the distinct impression that invitations would be forthcoming.
"That part of the process didn't treat (Syracuse and Boston College) fairly, and didn't treat our conference fairly," he said.
Clough chimed in with perhaps the first statement that everyone involved -- from schools to fans to media -- could agree on.
"Next time," he said, "we'll look for a more efficient process."
And golf shirts for everyone.
FSU: ACC needs to add Notre Dame
Knight Ridder News Service
Tallahassee -- With Miami officially added to the Atlantic Coast Conference roster, T.K. Wetherell believes now is the time to tackle another football power.
"We need to go after Notre Dame, and we need to do it quickly. As far as I'm concerned, it ought to be No.1 on the agenda," said the Florida State president this week.
Wetherell knows the football-independent Fighting Irish -- with their $9 million-per-year broadcast deal with NBC -- won't present an easy target, but he is at least willing to give it the ol' college try.
"In my mind, the recruiting of Notre Dame has already started. I don't know about the rest of [the ACC presidents], but that's who we should be going after . . . We ought to be sending coach [Bobby] Bowden and anyone else who wants to go to talk to them."
The additions of Miami and Virginia Tech in the past week will expand the ACC to an 11-team league beginning in the 2004-05 athletic year.
FSU athletics director Dave Hart, in Chicago for a Bowl Championship Series meeting, said the conference's goal is to add a 12th team but that the ACC presidents would have to decide on a timetable for further expansion.
"I would hope we would not wait too long and be too comfortable at 11," said Hart. "I would hope that we would treat that as a very high priority for reasons that are obvious."
The main reason would be to stage a conference championship football game, which is limited to leagues with at least 12 teams by a NCAA bylaw. Both Wetherell and Hart expect the ACC to petition the NCAA to change the rule, but they aren't optimistic that will happen.
"I'm not sure, at the end of the day, the various championship committees would want to set that precedent set," said Hart.
With the Big East now forced to replace Miami and Virginia Tech to remain a viable football conference for a BCS berth, Hart said most conferences are expected to increase their exit fee.
That's another reason Wetherell believes Notre Dame will be courted by the ACC, Big Ten and Big East. The Irish already compete in the Big East in all sports but football.
"I think Notre Dame has to be sitting around thinking what they are going to do. If it was up to me, I'd put a team together and go up there and start talking to them immediately," said Wetherell.
12th team may be ... Kentucky?
CAULTON TUDOR, Staff Writer
Next stop: Kentucky. That's the smart place for the ACC to shop if television is
going to determine its next expansion move, which it will.
Why Kentucky? Why else? Basketball.
While the ACC's movers and shakers were in a big football huddle for the past
several weeks, ACC basketball quietly got weaker.
Two teams -- Miami and Virginia Tech -- were added that could make even Clemson
and Florida State look decent in basketball.
Add those four to a mix that includes slumping Georgia Tech and Virginia, and
what you see is a downright mediocre basketball conference.
What's more, Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski is 56 and Maryland's Gary Williams is
58.
Even if both decide to stay on the bench until age 65 -- which is unlikely
considering their wealth -- the ACC is already running low on aces.
Roy Williams, about to begin his first year at North Carolina, will turn 53 next
month.
Wake Forest's Skip Prosser and N.C. State's Herb Sendek are younger, but neither
has won an ACC tourney championship or advanced very far in an NCAA event.
By comparison, just look at the ACC's likely lineup of football coaches for 2004
-- Larry Coker (Miami), Bobby Bowden (FSU), Ralph Friedgen (Maryland), Chuck
Amato (NCSU), Al Groh (UVa), Frank Beamer (VT) and John Bunting (UNC). Although
three of those men have been head coaches for less than four seasons, all have
had eight-win (or better) seasons and have won bowl games over legitimate
opponents.
ACC commissioner John Swofford said Monday that he would likely approach the
league's television partners and ask for the current football contracts to be
renegotiated.
The response Swofford might hear from TV folks is, "Fine, but let's cut back on
what you're getting paid for that motley crowd from the middle down in your
basketball standings."
All of which brings us back to Kentucky.
Assuming Notre Dame can't be lured in as the 12th ACC team, Wildcats basketball
is the second-best money play. Having gone to 11 teams, the issue of going to 12
is all but irrelevant now. What's the difference? Actually, 12 teams make more
sense than 11.
The hard part would be selling Kentucky on leaving the Southeastern Conference.
It wouldn't be easy, but you have to remember that football isn't the engine at
Kentucky and probably never will be.
In the SEC, the Wildcats will always be assured of a spot near the top of the
basketball standings. But that also would be the case in the ACC. The difference
would be greater national exposure and much more basketball money in the ACC.
With the problems at Arkansas and Georgia of late, Kentucky's only big SEC games
come against Florida. That situation will change if Gators coach Billy Donovan
gets hired away by a more entrenched basketball program.
In the ACC, any and all Kentucky games against Duke, Maryland and UNC would be
national headliners, ticketed immediately for Sunday afternoon or prime-time
mid-week tipoffs.
And even for a program with Kentucky's clout, there should be recruiting
benefits from playing an ACC schedule. Trips to Athens, Ga., for instance, would
be exchanged for Atlanta. Rather than playing in Starkville, Miss., and
Fayetteville, Ark., there would be playing appearances in metro-Washington,
Miami and the Triangle.
The question is would the ACC, having just gone through an agonizing expansion
fight, have the stomach to go hunting again?
On the one front -- football -- there may be little choice. Unless the league
can gain approval from the NCAA to hold a league championship game with only 11
teams, a 12th member will have to be found to generate the kind of income that
now will be needed to fill all those athletics coffers.
It's not like the ACC is going to look any worse shopping for a 12th member than
it did going after 10 and 11.
Finally, there's the matter of timing. As of Monday, the Big East is officially
looking for teams. You can bet that Kentucky, Louisville and Penn State are
going to be among the first schools approached. If Kentucky is ever going to
seriously consider leaving the SEC, that time could just around the corner.
For the future sake of the sport that made the ACC what it is, league members
now have little choice except to state their case to the Wildcats.