the premier conference. If FSU, Clemson, Miami, VT could have all remained strong, we would not be having this conversation in 2022.

VT was left out of the ACC, that we would be headed to the SEC. So, take that for what it is worth.

I watched an Ohio born AD destroy in several years a football program it had taken Frank Broyles nearly 40 years to build. Broyles was a Georgia born old Georgia Tech QB. Jeff Long did that by hiring Bret Bilelema from northern Illinois who ran off star athletes for missing classes and being late for team meeting several times. Look at that in contrast to Nick Saban tolerating his star athletes being arrested for being in possession of stolen guns. Bielema ran off player after player that literally disappeared from the program in the middle of the night. Then when that turned into badly losing football, Long steadfastly supported Bielema claiming that Bielema was building a program right with top level graduation rates. Long advised Hog fans that the sky was not falling. Long literally would not fire Bielema even with Bielema's worsening football record. Long had to be fired to fire Bielema which was done. However Arkansas was then in a big changeover and I think that allowed Jerry Jones to step in and steer the hiring of Chad Morris. Morris was a disaster. Anyhow Arkansas now has an AD hired from Houston who was born in Richmond, Virginia. Hunter Yurachek has he himself hired Eric Musselman & Sam Pittman. The basketball program & football program both look in the best shape in 20 years. Now let's go to Oklahoma. Oklahoma had David Boren as their President and Bob Stoops as football coach extraordinaire when the SEC supposedly came calling after Texas A&M announced for the SEC. Those two demanded the SEC take Okie Lite. Something they could have foresaw as not washing with the SEC. Now Oklahoma has Stoops & Boren both retired and a new AD born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Oklahoma is now headed to the SEC without Okie Light. I had heard Boren favored the B1G. I once went to an Oklahoma Scout blog board that had 7 Topic Threads about Stoops bashing the SEC as being overrated. Stoops was an Ohio Yankee just like Jeff Long. Bob Stoops hated the SEC. Now lets look at Virginia Tech in 2003 and in the later decade when Missouri was added to the SEC. Jim Weaver & Charles Steger were at the VT controls in those years. Weaver was from Pennsylvania & Steger was from Richmond, Virginia. I don't know if Steger was pro SEC or not. However judging from the situations that I saw with Long & Stoops. Weaver was probably not pro SEC. Therefore I doubt that Weaver would have ever left a snug eastern conference for the SEC. Virginia Tech does now have a Virginian and a Californian steering their athletic program. I think that is a lot better than Weaver.

One thing, was VT dream to join the ACC, these schools were the schools that were with them in the Southern and left. VT wanted to get into the ACC at anyway possible, geographic fit, easy for fans to meet. The ACC thing was more Stegar and Weaver followed. (weaver wanted to just stay in the Big East, felt VT did not have the resources and base to compete in the ACC or higher, simply VT maxed out.) Stegar is a VT graduate, architecture, and had many amazing assignments in the University from Dean of Architecture School, Chief of Development and finally University president. His reputation, he was a consensus builder, with the university, with the General Assembly with collegiate sports. When the news of Big East and ACC issues, he ratcheted it up, 1) first fight it (to buy time), 2) use every political capital (cashed all his chips) and VT get into the ACC. No way Stegar and BOV wanted to go to the SEC, (they didnt want to be branded such universities as tenn, Stegar wanted the VT brand to be with UVA, UNC, NC State, Maryland, Penn State. Also, we might say it's wrong, but after Dooley, the program was in excessive debt, (due to lack of sound business management). VT gave Athletics a loan to get out of it, (remember the Dutch Bouchmann, Dave Braine time). So VT watched every penny, reduced expenses, and frankly got out of it . Many leaders felt never go down that train again. So Big East was very good, ACC perfect. and that's it. In the future, behind the older generation, there is extreme concern, if the institution can operate in the SEC/Big 10 environment. I say hell yeah.....The school is the flagship university of the state and with 35-40 k school, much different than 2002

By then we had known for years that the Big East didn't really want us or care about us. That stupid conference could not get basketball out of their heads and wasted an opportunity with some elite level football teams. Prior to this move in 2003, the last time there was major conference movement was in the early and mid-90's. 1991 Big East football formed (VT didn't get full membership until 2000) 1992 FSU to ACC, Ark and USC to SEC 1993 PSU to Big10 1996 Big 12 formed So to our credit, we knew that this was a big deal. And we knew that being left behind in the BE after 19 years of being treated as an afterthought was likely not going to end well. Nobody had expanded like the ACC was doing in decades so it was a complete unknown what would happen to those left behind. And we do know now that the ACC raid had a huge ripple effect across almost every conference. So we were probably right to be worried. But I do suspect we had a tunnel vision for the ACC at the time (possibly because of UVA, but also the proximity of the NC schools).

We are right in the middle of it's footprint, where we would be on the outer edge of the SEC. The money was far more evenly split across all P5 conferences back then... If we only had a crystal ball...

John Casteen (president of UVa) was apparently always in our corner and voted consistently throughout the internal ACC expansion process. Wayne Clough was president of Georgia Tech and Dave Braine was the AD there. Both had deep roots in Blacksburg (Clough as a longtime faculty member and Braine as our prior AD). I don't have a lot of inside information to back this up, but I strongly suspect that the two of them also did a lot of heavy lifting for us behind the scenes. We also had academic partnerships with Maryland and Wake Forest that may not have had direct benefit on the athletic side, but they certainly didn't hurt. Duke and UNC apparently were never in support of us, but their absolute opposition to expansion of any kind made John Casteen's position valuable enough to keep our options open. My opinion is that Steger, Weaver, and everyone involved from our side played the cards that they were dealt in the best possible way and ultimately it became a situation where ACC expansion simply couldn't happen without us. Completely different world today, of course.

I think we applied in the mid-60s and I know VT was a candidate in like 1977 when GT got in. I remember thinking when we got in "Well, thank God we don't have to worry about that **** anymore." Ehhhh...

...valued academics far more than athletics. He complained about bowls interfering with student's studies and exams, thus we were not invited by the "athletics first" founding members.

As my father used to say, nobody is that dumb, even if they say the are! They're just hiding something that will hurt them. ** Edited by Stech at 8/23/2022, 8:15:10 PM

it all happened pretty quickly. and ummm weaver was so asleep at the switch when it happened....

From when I've heard about this conference realignment business in general is that the school contacts the conference. Not the other way around. Just think if one phone call would have resulted in a near term invite. Life would be a lot different now.

it was only a few weeks for the sh*t to hit the fan, the backtrack, and the invite of Canes and VT. As to Weaver, once the ACC bombshell hit, he was out of the loop , it was Steger, UVa pres., Mark Warner etc, saving the day. I doubt in that short interval Weaver was doing any freelancing with the SEC. Might had he have had prior low level talks before that all hit- possible. But I have good source that he was a bystander during the pivotal few weeks. His role became making us look good from a books/compliance standpoint when the ACC did their diligence. ** Edited by Vippie1 at 8/24/2022, 2:37:55 PM

After we showed up big time in Atlanta for the neutral Alabama game. They realized how culturally similar we were to them and what we would bring. I think they still want us more than a lot of other ACC schools you would think.

LSU fans in person and on the radio said, we learned something from their (VT) fans today. Probably needless to say, that was quite a compliment. Truly the Lane Loonies are, like it or not, are much like the Cameron Crazies!!

In the Pamplin parking lot the Thursday before the LSU game camped out. I don't think Tech Officials had ever seen RVs that early and didn't know what to do. Haha

Hokies aren't quite on that level yet...lol