The conventional wisdom is exactly as you say.

My post was to present the ACC wishful thinking approach and how it inevitably leads to WVU and UConn. Since fortuitous grabbing FSU, the ACC's approach to conference building has always been based on wishful thinking. Trying to lure school A by acquiring school B. Building a footprint to attract cable viewers (particularly in regions where few watch college football and fewer watch southern football), and then having no plan to launch a network.

I do believe Penn State or Kentucky would be better off in the ACC than in their current leagues. UK is a natural for the ACC and it would thrive in a way that it can't in the SEC. Penn State is a better fit for the B1G now than it was 30 years ago but I think Nittany Lion fans would gladly trade football schedules if it meant PSU would be viewed as a more powerful football program in its league. PSU will always stand in the shadow of Ohio State and Michigan, but I don't think the same would be true as to Clemson, FSU, Miami and Tech - even though Clemson clearly has a leg up at the moment.

If the ACC added Notre Dame and either UK or PSU - and especially if the other school was Penn State - the ACC would be able to have very nearly the same kind of television revenue as the SEC and Big Ten. UK basketball against all the ACC powers would be pure gold and football would hold its own. Penn State would immediately become the most marketable football program in the ACC not named Notre Dame, simply because it is an old, established power that happens to be in the northeast and has a bunch of built in rivalries.l

Personally, I would rather that there be no more conference expansion. I prefer contraction. I think the Big 12 has it right. Conferences should have 9 or 10 members and play round robin schedules, just they did years ago. The fact that Tech will play "non-conference" games against Notre Dame four times during the period in which it plays conference members like Louisville once just makes no sense. Unless some consolidation of the P5 schools occurs that would create a single league with conferences and divisions that would resemble the NFL, smaller conferences is the way to go.


[Post edited by Tailgate Guru at 12/01/2020 11:21PM]