Oregon Ducks need to join USC and put Pac-12 Conference on notice

[KrAzY3]

Other than Clemson, the ACC last year was mediocrity at best, and a garbage fire at worst.

I think it's easy to overestimate the importance of short term football success relative to conference success. You can still make a lot of money even if your teams are not especially successful. Having said that, the ACC was, and to some degree still is vulnerable due to being top heavy in football and really controlled by the basketball schools.

After the Big 12 managed to survive, the ACC was the next vulnerable conference. They lost Maryland, and there was some talk of Clemson and FSU to the Big 12. The additions (partial in ND's case) of Notre Dame, Pitt, Syracuse, and Louisville stopped the bleeding, but really only one of those schools did much and they're not a full time member.

If they lost Notre Dame, that could mean losing an important crutch. Right now though, there's only two rock solid conferences. The SEC is #2 in revenue but with a big deal coming up that could in theory put the SEC at double the per school payout as the lower power 5 schools. The Big 10 is #1 and will be at worst #2 for the foreseeable future.

The Big 12 got a sweetheart deal to keep them alive, so they're sitting at #3 and one reason it's not absurd to suggest they add a Pac -12 or ACC school (they're also geographically in the middle).

The Pac-12 is #4 and the ACC is #5 with a deal that seems to favor the basketball schools.

Ironically, one reason the Big 12 is relatively safe is that aside from Texas I'm not sure any conference really wants their schools. Meanwhile, the Pac-12 has USC, and the ACC has Clemson, FSU, Notre Dame (sorta) and North Carolina (a massive basketball school in a big state).

I don't know what happens next, but if the SEC gets a deal the size that has been reported, and they are paying their schools 30 million more than the Pac-12 and over double what the ACC is paying, that could make a lot of schools unhappy...

 

[TideEngineer08]

I think the ACC is in a really tough spot with regards to football recruiting right now, due to their proximity to the SEC (and Big Ten to an extent). Other than Clemson, they are behind the 8-ball in almost every single state or recruiting territory they inhabit. If a player has a choice between Penn State or Ohio State and Syracuse or Pittsburgh, he is going to choose the Big Ten schools every time. Likewise, Florida/Georgia/Alabama/Auburn are going to beat out Florida State/Miami/Georgia Tech every single time. This is not 1995 anymore. Only Clemson has a hold on their recruiting right now.

Can that turn around? Well, I would never say never, but the demographics are not in the ACC's favor at all. The SEC/Big Ten behemoth, as you point out with the money deals, is never going away. These are where the most passionate fan bases reside. You said it all in your first sentence: "it's easy to overestimate the importance of short term football success." I think we are finding out that even the Miami and Florida State runs during the 1980s and 1990s/early 2000s still must be considered "short term football success" in light of the histories already present in the SEC and Big Ten. Clemson is an anomaly to an extent, IMO. Their history runs very deep, even if the NCs never happened in the first century of their program. They never went full basketball like the rest of the original ACC.

 

[KrAzY3]

I think we are finding out that even the Miami and Florida State runs during the 1980s and 1990s/early 2000s still must be considered "short term football success" in light of the histories already present in the SEC and Big Ten.

I always felt that the SEC dodged a bullet, because they supposedly went after FSU and Miami (and flirted with Oklahoma before the A&M addition). I can't imagine a good outcome to that, it would have been redundant and who would have been knocked down a peg? As unattractive as South Carolina and Arkansas sounds out loud, they opened up new territory and didn't unsettle things in the SEC.

During expansion discussions I never really factored in recent success. I looked up things like athletic department revenue, population, attendance, historical importance, etc.... I didn't even bring up Miami in terms of ACC assets because they never seemed that attractive.

Their only plus is population, but they're the Texas Tech of Florida. Their attendance is unimpressive and even with their stellar run, they still sit directly ahead of Georgia Tech and Minnesota in the all time rankings. It also doesn't help that they're so far south, it isolates them a bit. Not a very attractive addition for anything short of a failing conference.

I'd add Virginia Tech to the list of ACC schools that never seemed that valuable to me. While they, due to their being in Virginia hold a bit more value than most ACC schools, I saw them as a one trick pony, and not every good at that trick at that. We're seeing now that the further they get removed from their one great coach, the less relevant they seem to be. To give an example, for the 17-18 year they were 39th in athletic department revenue (private schools don't report so they would actually be lower).

 

[Pilot172000]

Biggest mistake Miami ever made was leaving the Big East. They had a fiefdom with limited competition and strong markets.