The ACC Throws A Haymaker

If you know how to read smoke signals or tea leaves then you should have known something was in the works concerning Notre Dame and the ACC.  A good CSI investigator could see a trail of clues that something was getting ready to come down and today it did with the ACC announcing that Notre Dame will become the ACC's 15th member in all sports but football but ACC football  members will play ND every three years in football.

This system will work fine until the ACC gets a 16th member and I doubt whether the ACC grows again until after Notre Dame home football contract with NBC ends in 2015.  Don't be surprised that they don't join in football in 2016. 

There is no doubt ND is not the ND of the 1950's but they are the National Catholic college of this country and because of that they still walk with a big stick.  There is not a football conference in the world that didn't want them to join their conference.

The problem that we have talked about recently about wanting to be bigger in football but because academics comes first in the ACC is why ND came our way.  Notre Dame  thinks the way the the ACC acts so the two joining forces was the best fit for ND.  The Big Ten was their best geographic fit but  don't care how you slice you sanwich the tv markets of the ACC was going to add more money for ND down the road than what the Big Ten Could.  ND couldn't help the tv coffers of the Big T en either since that is already Big Ten territory. 

Let's be truthful money is the root of all college sports evil and the ACC and Notre Dame can make more being together than any other option available for anyone in the future.  It just happens to also be the best academic fit for all concerned since just about every school in ACC voted to add a  50 million buyout  if anyone ever wanted to leave.

The next question is who makes it a 16 team league when Notre dame comes on full time in football which somewhere in the future will happen.  If you follow the money trail  the CSI evidence leads to Rutgers.  The State University of New Jersey which pulls in the New York City tv market which the ACC doesn't have now.

If option one fails then?  U Conn  They are the next closes to New York City and since Syracuse and Pitt are coming to the ACC  would make them a natural fit for the Northern division of the ACC.  Remember that you have to bring a tv market with you when you join ECU is not an option ever for the ACC as long as the world rotates by the all mighty dollar.  

If those two fell through what is plan C.  Vanderbilt.  Remembr now the world of high dollars rotates to tv markets and the next market of any size where the ACC is not in is Nashville.  That would give the ACC  TV coverage in Florida which is considered a bastion of the SEC, Atlanta and maybe Nashville. Vanderbilt is an ACC school with the values of the ACC in the middle of a conference full of state universities that would cheat on their mother to win a football game.

Even though they are the laughing stock of college football right now option D is Penn State.  There are too many good options before them we will not commnet further.  I don't think the ACC can even think about their 16th member until Norte Dame comes full time in all sports.  Just wait within five years the ACC will have 16 full time members.