Rewind to the late '90s when VT's commitment to the Big East Football Conference was coming up for renewal. The CT ran an article talking about whether to renew it or explore its options. In that article, it talked about the SEC exploring the possibility of expanding to 16 members by adding Miami, WVU, VT, and 1 other school. Later I found out Miami killed that possibility similar to what TAMU did on the possibility of a group of Big XII schools joining the Pac-10 to form the Pac-16. Now things worked out for VT because JW used that interest to leverage full membership in the Big East in exchange for renewing its commitment to the BEFC. And the rest is history.

After that story was published, I had thought the SEC would have been the better option for VT given where the football program was at the time. If VT wanted to take that next step, then joining the SEC would have been the smart thing to do to achieve that goal. Yes, VT would have taken its lumps at first. However, I have no problem taking a step back in order to move 3 or 4 steps forward. Plus, I thought the SEC offered more attractive opponents in football than the ACC. Yes, it would be nice to be in the same conference as UVA to remind those Wahoo fans that VT "belonged" in the ACC academically and athletically speaking. However, I didn't think ACC football was necessarily a step up from BEFC football. I still don't after all these years.