anybody. So please let that go. Also I said that getting in the P2 in my post is totally understandable. However, where we agree to disagree is the amount of positive post for the B12, but maybe that’s a wrong take, I will try to keep an open mind for future post. Thank you for explaining. PS I think the B12 has done better than the ACC lately, with not as good of schools, so I agree with you there too.

has been since the SEC and Big 10 decided to blow the entire geopolitical order up and try to choke everyone else to death financially. Everyone should understand that I have no philosophical problem with the ACC as a concept; my big problem with the ACC is that the people running the conference, both in title and otherwise, refuse to learn from the historical record when it comes to conference realignment, and continue to make baffling decisions at every turn that not only do not address the primary issues leading to the conference's progressive downfall, but have actually made things worse. If I'm getting metaphorical, the ACC is basically staring down a loaded gun in the form of both internal dysfunction and external pressures, and instead of trying to jump out of the way or otherwise do anything about it, it's just sucking on the gun.

get that out of their system. They’ve been sued by two of their four best football first programs for a reason.

schools for sure. Not a blue blood (football) in the bunch. However, 2nd tier schools like most in the B12 do have value, and media value at that. No matter how good ones programs are, unless you are a blue blood in football, you don't move the needle enough for a P2 invite. i think Baltimore looks at the ACC as if it's a forgone conclusion that the football blue bloods leave. The calculus changes dramatically if that happens.

They definitely have a solid history lesson in there about both FSU and the ACC. The two things they left out were the fact that since joining the ACC, FSU has won the ACC 16 times and has won 3 national championships. I’d say it worked out pretty good for them. The other thing they didn’t cover is the absolutely horrendous coaching hires since Jimbo left. They dug their own downfall, just like VT did, with their hires. I doubt they would be complaining quite as much if they were still winning 10+ games each year and making the playoffs. ** Edited by HokieAl at 5/18/2026, 10:00:48 PM

I get that a Hokie would want to be in a P2, but your hate for the ACC and adoration for the B12 just seems odd to me. Can you please help me understand? Especially the B12 adoration.

You can label my posts ACC "hate," but I would just ask, where am I wrong? The things I post are simply statements of fact. If I'm wrong, please feel free to point out where, and we can discuss. That's what message boards are for - conversation, discourse, etc. And, let me just point out for the record that the only thing I've ever really promoted the Big 12 for is being business savvy. The Big 12 has repeatedly been dealt the worst possible hand, but manages to play it in a way that puts it in the best possible position. The ACC does pretty much the opposite - it continues to shoot itself in the foot every way it can, over and over, time and time again. I'm sorry if that hurts your feelers, but I think anyone would be hard pressed to say that the ACC is anything but the opposite of business savvy. We could also put the shoe on the other foot here - why do you LOVE the ACC? Do you LOVE all the terrible business decisions? Do you LOVE engaging expansion that makes no geographic or financial sense to please Wake Forest? Do you LOVE being in a conference where the main identity is being poorer, crappier version of the SEC? Do you LOVE being in a conference where the primary media rights business partner's marketing points out that it's a poorer, crappier version of the SEC and never puts any teams on TV unless they're playing SEC teams? I mean, what's not to LOVE, right?

I think, other than Notre Dame, FSU might be the next most valuable non P2 out there. HOWEVER, they might become a victim of circumstance. I think the SEC would prefer NOT to take them. But they are valuable to the SEC in a defensive manner, to keep them from joining the B1G. So FSU's value to the SEC is dependent on their value to the Big Ten. And if we are to believe Greg Flugaur's latest, FSU is NOT a candidate at present according to his Big Ten contacts (take it FWIW). So, for the sake of discussion, let's say the B1G is not interested. Well, then that means the SEC might not be interested as well. And if it goes down that way, FSU is left to be the big fish in the best-of-the-rest pond with ACC and BigXII leftovers. So while many think FSU is just waiting a couple more years for a more favorable exit fee arrangement, perhaps the real problem is that they don't have a P2 invitation, and they might not get one anytime soon. ** Edited by Maroon Baboon at 5/18/2026, 5:26:15 PM

That doesn't mean the ACC is dead (see the Big 12). Many FSU fans are complaining because they feel they deserve P2 status. We'll see if they get the invite. It may or may not come.

excepting ND. Both the SEC and Big 10 would snatch UNC up in a heartbeat.

overrated. But you are right, the SEC and B1G don't seem to care about that.

commercials have UNC gear in them. I can't stand UNC, how they got away with having a fake major for athletes blows my mind, but they're the tits so far as value.

other ACC schools in their neighborhood when it comes to the most valuable athletic programs, yet NO ONE thinks Louisville is in that category. Most valuable athletic departments rankings attached.

only play at this point. The situation has gotten so financially untenable that I am almost positive that certain programs are working behind the scenes to form a new conference. The only alternative for an FSU or a Clemson is to rot in the ACC where the programs you compete against for national prominence not only are extremely well funded by their boosters and university sides, but also are getting 20-30 million more dollars in media rights money a year; that's enough to fund your revenue share right there, before you even have to dip into NIL. Then, when you're done dealing with that, you also have to deal with the problem of playing in a conference that gets no respect and whose membership has a much narrower window for CFP at-large access. It's a boiler that is completely out of control, and the pressure continues to build. Something is going to give, one way or the other.

"The ACC attempted to respond through expansion, raiding the Big East for Miami, Virginia Tech, and Boston College. Miami and Virginia Tech had combined to appear in three national championship games and six BCS bowls in the five seasons prior to joining the ACC. The expansion was anchored on the assumption of recurring Florida State–Miami championship matchups. More than 20 years later, those two programs have never met in the ACC title game."

I think the bottom line, at least for anyone that isn't entirely delusional about the ACC anyway, is that the pre-CalFord/SMU ACC was a giant amalgam of public and private schools with competing interests and agendas that was built primarily for basketball promotion. Today, it's still that, but with the addition of 2 public schools in the bay area of California that aren't big basketball or football draws, and a private G5 school in Texas with no fanbase that had been trying to beg its way into the P5 for years and literally no other conference would take on, even for free. The ACC has no homogeneity in its membership, no unity of interests, no real identity (besides weakness,) and all the big brands that actually give the conference its value would do literally anything at this point to disassociate from the conference tomorrow if they could. It's all toothy smiles and votes of confidence at the conference meetings, then the second everyone gets behind closed doors, the knives are out and the plotting to leave continues. You couldn't telegraph the death of a conference any better if you tried; we are literally in the latter days of the old Big East. The next step will be the death throes.

That one can really use, agreed. The ACTC (Atlantic Coast To Coast) Conference has no definition, in a sense. Boston College to Miami to two California schools, with a pit stop in Texas. A confusing triangle, speaking in terms of geography. The landscape is ridiculous. The Pac12 basically destroyed. Nebraska in the Big 10? WVU in the Big 12? (What next? Women at VMI? Men at UVA?) 😂

Even Vanderbilt, the only real outlier to that homogeneity, has "opposable thumbs" entry criteria for athletes and hopped right on board with engaging in naked pay-for-play the second it became palatable to polite society. After the SEC, the Big 12 comes to mind, maybe not so much geographically speaking, but all the Big 12 schools are on the same page from an athletics standpoint. Where's the Boston College in the Big 12? You won't find one, because there isn't one. I have no idea what the Big 10 thinks its doing, but I guess I really don't have to, because the Big 10 prints money for its member schools.

institutions that are California's answer to the Ivy League; sometimes I forget that Stanford is that AND a private school as well.

M.O. of preferring to add private schools to mix. If we assume Cal behaves more like a private school than a public school in terms of its fan base.

That's absolutely insane for a large public state university.

Uva delivered in some ways because VT fans would watch and hope they lose. lol