acknowledge which way the winds were clearly blowing. In spite of all the available information to indicate football should be the sole focus, basketball interests remained the priority for the conference, which couldn't be more clear when you see the additions when the conference continued to expand. Without exception, the ACC added basketball-first schools that showed and continue to show very little interest in fielding nationally competitive football programs. In 2005, 2011, and 2012, you'd have thought it was 1979 when you saw who the ACC was adding to the conference. Nobody since at least 1979 has taken, or will ever again take Louisville, Pitt, Syracuse, or Boston College seriously when it comes to football. The ACC, for whatever reason, failed to recognize this clearly obvious element when it added those programs. The conference was thinking about basketball, and quality basketball opponents for Duke and UNC, and NCAAT units. But, probably the bigger problem is that the ACC allowed, and continues to allow, it's primary "business partner" to disseminate constantly at the loudest possible volume the narrative that the ACC is an inferior, JV product that should only be viewed as an alternative to its primary business competitor, the SEC. This is the most egregious error committed by the conference, and it continues to this day. The damage to the ACC's reputation and viability done by "It Just Means More" is, quite frankly, incalculable. It's a knife that continues to enter the ACC's back every single day. As it stands today, ACC teams can't even get on ABC anymore unless they're playing an SEC team. "Business partner," my ass. The ACC should have had some dignity and demanded that that line of BS get nixed, or it wasn't going to do business with ESPN. Now, they've been enshrined as "little brother" and the inferior product for 20 years, and in another five or so years, the enterprise is going to implode. All of this just goes to show what can happen when you have a culture of self-importance mixed with a stout combination of greed, incompetence, laziness, and cowardice running your enterprise. It's always just a matter of time before they run it right into the ground.