Swofford made a really bad tv deal and everyone just trusted him. But football became the driving sport and the acc product got really bad. When only a handful of games get more than 750k in ratings you’ve got a problem. Fortunately Clemson rebuilt and went on a run. But while that was happening many acc schools just became bad programs. Some of it was bad timing. But some was the schools focused on the Olympic programs. At least Clemson decided to self fund as many programs as possible. And they raised a lot of money due to the success of the football team. Mediocre would be a good word for the rest of the conference football product. I think the acc relied too much on the basketball product and how great that was. But the sec and big 10 started making so much money they ran away with the facilities arms race and began getting high quality gains in non football programs. For example; without football money it’s unlikely Bruce pearl is at Auburn. The conference leadership missed much of this. And I think the presidents and ADs did too. Maybe they did see it but couldn’t get swofford to act. At a minimum the UnC/duke/wake/nc state influence on decisions may have deemphasized football for too long. Had Miami, Florida State, VT and others not fallen off the football cliff maybe this is all different too. And each of those schools had different reasons from bad coaching hires to poor university leadership. Hell maybe it’s the fault of butch Davis and Willie taggart too. Complacency is a cancer. And it sucked the life out of our football product and spread to the rest of the athletic programs.