Expansion Anyone? I’ll take 16 teams to go!

Atlantic Coast Conference

You want conference expansion? Can you handle a 16 team conference? Well if you said yes I got your mega Atlantic Coast Conference right here! Sixteen teams, yes, Sweet 16 baby (sorry the for DickieV soundbyte)! Three would be out of the Big East, which, whether their fan base likes it or not that conference is destined to lose its BCS bid sooner or later and then will either have to go all basketball or will dissolve completely. The fourth one is an independent, probable the key piece to the expansion, but a big time conference, showing them what kind of money it could generate, might just stop them from being so stubborn in all of this. In this mega 16 team structure there would be two divisions (have not found names for them besides Mason & Dixon and I don’t think people would like that) with two conferences each. In the Northern side of things there would be the North and the Central (original eh?), while the one in the lower part of the US would be the Carolina’s and the South (even more original).

I do not think anyone would have a hard time figuring out who the four colleges would be in The Carolina’s. But just to be clear it would be: North Carolina, N.C. State, Duke and Wake Forest. While the other conference, The South, would be made up of: Florida State, Georgia Tech, Miami (Fl) and Clemson. On the other side of the coin, or should I say “where the Yankees live”, The North would be composed of three out of the four new comers, with Syracuse, Connecticut, (ex BE team) Boston College and Notre Dame would square off. Leaving the last four universities for The Central: Maryland, Virginia, Virginia Tech and new comer Pittsburgh.

There you have it, the sixteen teams, how would it work when it comes to football and basketball? Let’s begin on the gridiron…

Each team would play all the teams in their division and their sister division, for a total of seven games. They would then play one game from each of the remaining divisions, making it a nine game total for their conference play. Here is the twist to this, once all the team have played each other once (which would take four years) the match ups would be changed, like The Carolina’s would be paired up with The North for four years while The South and The Central would be the two conferences playing one another. Another four years and it would change again. This way when it comes to football all teams will be playing the teams from the other conferences six out of twelve years.

For basketball it would be a lot less complicated in the regular season as the teams would play the teams in their conferences twice and the rest once. This would keep the UNC/Duke rivalry intact, as well as the SU/UConn one. Where I would make a change is in the conference tournament, where the first weekend each of the four team conferences would hold their Final Four (Fri/Sun) with the winner going to play in the ACC Final Four (played the following Fri/Sun), which would be held in a venue from The North then The  Central, then The Carolina’s and then The South. Meaning that we could have it at MSG one year, or maybe the new Nets arena. I know that the work here would be a lot more, but this ACC post season tournament is going to give the teams an NCAA feel to it, as they will play a game, off a day, another game and then almost a week off, just like the NCAA does.

Now, let me talk about the four teams coming in. The easiest one to convince in my opinion would be Syracuse. Great basketball, still keeping a home and home game with UConn, adding teams like UNC and Duke to the mix and having plenty of open dates to take on Georgetown and other old rivals from the Big East. Football would do a lot better in the ACC than in the other conferences, making that also an ideal place for it. With the added bonus that the third team from the salt city, lacrosse, would end playing against some of the best teams in the nation (Duke, UNC, Maryland and Virginia) while still being able to go play against their old rivals. Of the four the one I would be most confident in coming in would be the Orange.

Second team that I think would also come on board is Connecticut. Ok, let’s forget about the problems they are having, but this is again a University that has a good basketball program and a rising football program that would prosper the most in the Atlantic Coast Conference rather than other conferences. With SU on board and BC already in the conference this would help convince the Huskies that they would not be on an island in the ACC.

(On a side note: I would also believe that Boston College would be very happy to have both UConn and SU nearby as they have been all alone in the North East for a while now).

Now for the two that would be a bit harder to make them join. Pittsburgh first, as they could easily go into another football conference and compete from season one. Would they be king of the hill? No, but they would not be bottom feeders either. Forgetting the history of the programs, focusing on today, of the four colleges the one that has a ready now football program are the Panthers. Of course the point could be made that in the ACC they could step in and in a couple of season be fighting for the right to go to the conference championships. Problem would be convincing them, and the other problem would be they would be the only team of this foursome that would have no team from the old conference with them, which could also cause a problem. In the end, believe it or not, I think Pitt would be the toughest to get into the ACC.

You are going to say how can it not be Notre Dame the hardest to convince? And my response to that is because while the Fighting Irish are still independent when it comes to football they are not when it comes to everything else, which if the BE was to go away they would have major problems for all their sports. Also, Notre Dame right now knows it does not have a shot at winning any football conference, but they know the easiest one to climb (which is looking to expand) would be the Atlantic Coast Conference. I doubt that touchdown Jesus would want to see his team losing to USC (OOC), Michigan, MSU and OSU on a yearly basis. In the four team pack (with SU, BC and UConn) I do not think the Irish would lose any of those games right now. If they could win four out of the remaining six conference games (which could easily happen if the draw is right) the Irish could head on up to the conference title game, something that in South Bend would make a lot of people happy. Basketball would need to step it up, but that is whether they are in the ACC or the BE, and meanwhile they too would bring a very good lacrosse program to join other five Top 10 national programs.

There you have it, the 16 team ACC conference. Would it ever happen? I doubt it, too many things to work out, too many rough edges to smooth out. But if it did imagine the games we could have during the fall? Notre Dame vs FSU or Miami (Fl), Pittsburgh and Clemson or maybe the renewal of a rivalry that was beginning to form before the Eagles parted, with SU and BC going at it. Then it basketball, UNC/Duke, UConn/SU, SU/Duke, UNC/UConn, and I could go on for a while with the hardwood match ups. Plus having six top notch teams playing lacrosse could be a cherry on top of it all. A dream? A far fetched reality? Or could it be something that happens and then we realize that the old saying is true “beware of what you ask for, you might just get it”? I am not sure, but I know one thing, it would be interesting to find out how it all would end!

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