Schools are league’s 13th and 14th members With Sunday’s news that Syracuse and Pittsburgh have left the Big East to join the ACC, this much is clear: Major conference realignment is happening fast, past loyalties are out the window and in the new landscape of college sports, it’s survival of the fittest.
With the addition of Syracuse and Pittsburgh, the ACC has taken a major step toward surviving realignment and the Big East is perhaps a step closer to extinction after losing two of its stronger members. The move is another indication that major intercollegiate athletics is heading toward four 16-team super conferences.
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“I can say that in all my years of collegiate athletics administration, I’ve never seen this level of uncertainty and potential fluidity in schools and conferences,” ACC commissioner John Swofford said Sunday. “Schools, they’re looking for stability, and when that stability doesn’t exist for whatever reason, as long as that’s going on, I think the conferences that appear to be stable moving forward are going to receive inquiries from schools that desire having that kind of stability.”
It is uncertain whether the move of Syracuse and Pitt would take effect in 2012 or 2013.
“Adding these two high-quality schools will enhance the marketing footprint of the league,” Maryland athletic director Kevin Anderson said in a statement. “Both Pittsburgh and New York City will offer the conference new opportunities to attract fans in all our sports. We look forward to discussions about the future of the league and would encourage a future expansion.”
It’s not the first time the ACC has raided the Big East. In 2004 and 2005, Virginia Tech, Boston College and Miami departed the Big East for the ACC. But those moves happened over time and in a public forum and included site visits and consensus building.
According to Swofford, the league’s invitations to Syracuse and Pittsburgh were agreed to in a matter of days. Discussion began Tuesday to increase ACC membership to 14 schools.
“While the foundation for it was laid starting a year and a half ago, up to this point our conclusions had continued to be to remain at 12,” Swofford said Sunday. “This week is when that shifted to a belief that, looking at the landscape and the circumstances across the country, that there were obviously schools that would add significantly to the Atlantic Coast Conference.”
Texas A&M’s expected shift to the SEC, becoming the league’s 13th school, is one of the “circumstances” that Swofford might have been referring to, though he declined to identify that as the tipping-point for the ACC’s action.
Swofford said that “double-digit numbers of schools” have contacted the ACC about membership.
“We are very comfortable with this 14,” Swofford said. “The only thing I would add to that is we’re not philosophically opposed to 16.”
According to ESPN, Rutgers and Connecticut could be the 15th and 16th teams added to the ACC.
