ACC Expansion: Louisville Leaves Big East for ACC

The ACC purge of the Big East continues, as the Louisville Cardinals were voted into the conference by the ACC presidents and chancellors on Wednesday morning, according to College Football Talk. 

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ACC officially announces they have unanimously accepted Louisville as its newest member.

— CollegeFootballTalk (@CFTalk) November 28, 2012"

News broke late Tuesday night that the ACC would be holding a conference call early on Wednesday to vote on expanding the conference, with Louisville, Connecticut and Cincinnati being considered for the spot to be vacated by Maryland in 2014. 

Louisville head basketball coach Rick Pitino told Jeff Goodman of CBS Sports that he thinks the move is "great for our program."

According to Howie Lindsey of CardinalsSports.com, Louisville's move is based more around the ACC's desire to add a strong football program to the conference rather than another basketball powerhouse, though the Cardinals are no slouches in that department. 

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The move for Louisville is seen as a response to football powers Florida State, Clemson and Virginia Tech requesting a strong football program be added to the league. The Cardinals won the 2007 Orange Bowl and have been ranked in the Top 25 for most of this season. 

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Louisville's football program has a chance to play in a BCS game this season, as long as it takes care of business against Rutgers this week and gets help from Connecticut against Cincinnati. 

At this point in the expansion process, the ACC should just change its name to Big East 2.0. In the last three months, Syracuse, Pittsburgh and Notre Dame (in all sports except football) have left the Big East to join the ACC. 

The revolving door for conference shuffling in college football just keeps spinning, and the Big East continues to look more and more like a mid-major with each revolution.

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