joined the ACC. However, I was approaching this thread from the standpoint that (perceptually speaking) the ACC may have a PR issue when it comes to football. What I mean is that nationally speaking the ACC is not viewed as a strong football conference. It may even be viewed as the weakest link among the power conferences or at least battling the Big XII for that honors.

If the ACC is going to expand to 16 football members (either full or partial), then it probably needs to add 2 "football schools." I say that because everyone can agree that the ACC's reputation in basketball is pretty much set in stone as being either the best basketball conference or one of the best (battling the Big Ten for that honors). So adding 2 "football schools" (even if they are weak in basketball) won't have any impact on the ACC's reputation.

If you look at the 5 schools the ACC has added since it expanded from 9 members, then you will see that 4 of the 5 (BC being the only one) had an average attendance of at least 40K most years/every year in the 5-10 year window prior to joining the ACC. UConn's stadium is capped at 40K and I don't believe it has come close to averaging a sellout for a season. Heck I am not sure it averaged a sellout when it played at Memorial Stadium on campus. Just to be clear I don't have anything personal against UConn joining the ACC. My concern is that because the landscape of college football is changing the ACC may not be in a position to where it can afford to miss. What I mean is this:

Let's assume the ACC does add UConn as a member and UConn only averages between 28-34K in football attendance regardless of how it does each season. Would the national media view the addition of UConn as a boost to the ACC's football reputation? Would the national media view the ACC as being that much more of a "basketball conference" because UConn is just another BC, Duke, or Wake?

Now by no means do I think attendance average is the definitive measure on whether a school is a football or basketball school. However, I do think the size of the stadium and the attendance average does have a large influence on how a program is perceived. Not only can it influence how people perceive the program when regular season home games are televised, but it can also influence the quality of bowl games a program receives each season. The best example is the Sugar Bowl game that shall not be mentioned against THAT Big Ten school. Realistically there were probably more deserving teams that year, but VT and THAT Big Ten school got it basically on their reputation.

Another thing that makes me nervous about UConn is that it is depended upon the state government if it wants to expand the stadium. If the state is onboard, then not a problem. However, if the state would rather use taxpayer dollars for other things, then UConn may not have the luxury to raise the funds itself to expand the stadium because other organizations use the stadium too.