Shore hop

Maybe tap the brakes on saying VT has better athletic department, recent football performance aside.

What does it take to breakthrough and be able to compete with the big ten schools at highest level? Or is there a practical ceiling at top5-10 for this program?

ND on football schedules across the conference, both exposure on television, and increase in ticket sales when ACC teams get to host them. I think ACC has benefitted from the arrangement, even though it was always highly unlikely they would join for football.

SEC in an almost perfect position strategically and financially. They dont need to add anybody, so if they were to do this, i think there would be qualitative factors in play, because other than Notre Dame, no one else moves the needle financially, and a few hundred thousand difference in average game viewership among UNC, UVA, VT etc really is not relevant Again, i dont think SEC or Big10 do anything outside of Notre Dame, and very likely ACC stays together, because i honestly dont think there will be any better options

Strong draw for TV games.

Key implication is that SEC is more attracted to UVA and UNC as “brands” that would add something different to the league in addition to footprint expansion, ie very deep athletic departments with multiple national championship level programs, as well as adding two very highly rated public universities. I think that means something to the SEC presidents, particularly Florida, Georgia and South Carolina who are aggressively trying to raise the academic profile of their schools. Obviously nothing wrong with academic reputation of TEch or NCSU, but SEC already heavy with land grant schools, so maybe doesn’t move the needle as much. Who knows. At end of the day, I still dont see the SEC expanding anytime soon.

or strategically attractive to the SEC. They don't really need to add any more teams. While Tech, NCST, Clemson and FSU fit the SEC both culturally and geographically, adding any or all of them would not be accretive to the overall conference, ie they most likely decrease the payout per team (assuming pro rata share of revenue) so would be dilutive overall. The way things are going, with the massive gap in revenue (media and NIL) at SEC vs ACC schools, the on-field gap between the leagues in football will continue to widen and the ACC schools will struggle to be relevant nationally. Clemson, the ACC flagship, will drop signficantly once Dabo leaves (likely within next year or two given his very public unease with the direction of college football) with Shane-led resurgent South Carolina, as well as Georgia, Tennessee etc quickly taking more shelf space in the Carolinas. Similary with FSU, they will find it increasingly hard to succesfully recruit and rebuild when their footprint is surrounded by SEC heavyweights will much bigger wallets (assuming Napier gets Florida turned around). For Tech and NCST, it would be like adding hybrids of Missisippi State and Auburn, awesome fan support, but dont move the needle financially in a conference already chock full of national brands. Only mention UNC because of the historic uniqueness of their brand (Nike/Jordan), national prominence of virtually all of their sports (just start with hyping new Kentucky-UNC basketball rivarly !), and on the margin, a better academic/institutional reputation than most of the league (the academic scandal from a few years ago aside!) Not a great time to be an ACC fan

Checked NCAA website, and going back to '82, no ACC team has ever won the world series and only FSU (last year) made the finals. Complete domination by Pac12, SEC and BIg 12.