decision that I thought would bode best for the long-term future of the ACC, that I would not have added Cal, Stanford, and SMU to the ACC. And, I have been very, very clear about why. The problem facing the ACC was that there were not enough good football brands in the ACC, making it very difficult to drive interest and viewership. The money problems are just a symptom of that problem. Instead of trying to fix the football issue, they just added three more schools without good football brands, making it ultimately even more difficult to drive interest and viewership. - The football programs at those three schools do not drive interest or viewership for the ACC. To wit: - At the time of the additions, Cal football had been a non-entity for 20 years, and Stanford football for over a decade; both of those football programs, which are niche products on their best day, had been allowed to deteriorate to the point they honestly should have just been shuttered when the PAC-12 imploded. And, both schools are not just in California, but right next to each other in NORTHERN California. From a "let's improve ACC football" standpoint, it made zero sense to add either of those schools. - SMU, a relatively tiny, private institution, that caters to people with too much money that need a country club school where they can send their fail-children, had been a G5 football program for almost 40 years, with an ingrained history and culture of cheating, the 6th or 7th FBS draw in their own state of TEXAS, had been passed over by literally everyone else since the 1980's. SMU, in particular, made less than zero sense to add if you're trying to solve the "we don't have enough people that care about ACC football" problem. - The "free money" that you and others on here like to parrot about did not solve the immediate outstanding problems for the ACC, and it's not even "free money." Just like everything else in life, there's no such thing as a free lunch. The ACC, meaning whoever is left in it when the time comes, is ultimately going to pay for that free lunch on the back end. Instead of trying to fix the "ACC football sucks and nobody cares about it" problem, Jim Phillips and the freeloader schools chose to focus on the "how do we dilute the influence of the ACC's best football brands because we're mad at them" problem. And then they still had to capitulate to Clemson and FSU anyway. It was not a life or death decision to add those schools. Steps could have been taken with the membership as it existed to address the problems. I mean, look, we ended up with unequal revenue sharing anyway. That could have happened without having to fly handball teams to the bay area, or stooping to allowing a school like SMU in the conference. But, no, everyone was mad at FSU and Clemson, so they had to find a way to make sure their voices mattered less in conference governance. It was a stupid, panic decision, and it's going to look more and more stupid as time marches on. So, there, you don't have to put words in my mouth. Keep saying I don't explain myself, or that I have no real position. And, I've already written all this about a hundred times on here. You just don't want to hear it, because, for some reason, you're clearly in love with the idea of the ACC, and feel this unquenchable urge to take up for Jim Phillips and the freeloader schools. I'm a VT fan, not an ACC fan. Beyond how things directly affect VT, I don't care about the ACC, or the rest of the schools in the ACC. To me, the ACC is nothing but a means to an end for VT, and, from where I'm sitting and the things I've seen and continue to see, unless VT is smart, it's going to be THE end.