No More Expansion Talk Please, I Like the ACC the Way It Is

All this conference expansion talk is really starting to bug me, and I'm going to say it right now: I have no idea who is going to end up where.

I won't even speculate which schools the Big 10 has talked too. I don't know what the SEC is doing and I have no idea if Notre Dame will finally join a conference.

What I do know is that the last few years, I've grown to really like what the ACC is doing and where it was headed. Now it's all in jeopardy.

I know there are plenty of Clemson, Georgia Tec h, and Florida State fans that would jump at the chance to join the SEC. I can understand that. Clemson and Florida State probably have the most SEC-like fan bases, and Georgia Tech was a former SEC member.

Atlanta, Ga. is a perfect location for a SEC team. The SEC also makes A LOT of money. Their TV contract is second to none, but I think the ACC was making several moves "finally" that could make the ACC an even more prominent conference particularly in football.

We know the ACC is at the top of the heap in basketball. Eight national titles and 21 Final Four teams since 1990 prove that, but the ACC is on the verge of having some really strong football teams as well.

In 2010, they could start the year with four or five top-25 teams. Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech, Miami, North Carolina, and Florida St. all could be in.

Did you know that the ACC's Georgia Tech was one of only four major college programs that made a BCS game and the NCAA basketball tournament along with Ohio State, Texas, and Florida in 2010? That's elite company.

The conference championship will at last be played in Charlotte, N.C. where attendance will be much higher than the games in Florida. The ACC also looks like they will sign a TV deal with ESPN. It's not confirmed, but it's close.

That's never a bad a thing to sign a contract with the biggest sports network in the country.

Outside of Boston College   and Miami, the conference is fairly tight-knit geographically with all the rest of the teams hailing from North Florida to the Mid-Atlantic. In addition, most of the schools are strong academically.

The ACC was positioning itself nicely, but with expansion the conference could be ripped apart. Left behind will likely be the North Carolina schools that will pick up what remains of a ravaged Big East .

In effect, the ACC becomes a glorified basketball conference where it will look more like the Atlantic 10 than the former ACC. That's even if Virginia Tech doesn't bolt.

It will be interesting to see how this all plays out, but I hope the ACC  is pro-active about the possibility of their own expansion, while still keeping its current teams. At the very least I'd like to see the ACC stay intact as it is. Now about those ACC Bowl tie-ins, let's fix those...

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