Did Conference Expansion Hurt ACC Competitiveness in Football and Basketball?

Much has been made about the ACC's apparent decline in basketball since conference expansion in 2004 and 2005. The football, in all honesty, hasn't been that great for quite a while.

Some critics say that ACC basketball suffered after the conference supposedly sold its soul to try and become a football conference. The question remains: Did expansion hurt the ACC in the two major revenue earning sports of football and basketball?

There is one thing I would say and completely stand behind, and that is conference expansion was an absolute necessity. If this past year taught us anything, every conference in America has the potential of being poached.

Had the ACC remained at nine teams, they would have been in a much weaker position if other conferences came calling.

We are going to start with basketball back to question of expansion and competitiveness. I'm here to tell you it wasn't expansion that caused ACC basketball overall to slip.

Back in 2003, the ACC only had two NCAA Tournament teams (Wake Forest as a two-seed and Duke as three-seed) as higher than a six-seed. Earlier than that, in 2000, the ACC only had three NCAA Tournament teams.

The decline in ACC has less to do with expansion and more to do with the loss of elite coaches.

Dean Smith  retired from North Carolina in 1997, and sent one of the ACC's flagship basketball teams into a fall that didn't stop until the arrival of Roy Williams in 2003. 

Bobby Cremins had a significant run of success at Georgia Tech from the mid-'80s through the mid-'90s making the NCAA Tournament nine straight years at one point. 

Paul Hewitt arrived in 2000 had a Final Four team in 2004, but in recent years outside of last season 23-win year, the program is in shambles.

Herb Sendek had success at NC State, but couldn't turn the Pack into an elite team.

Clemson can't hold onto any coaches that are successful a la Rick Barnes in the late '90s or the recent departure of Oliver Purnell.

Wake Forest and Maryland had varying levels of success. The Terps did fill in nicely for the Heels during early part of the decade with a national championship of their own, but couldn't sustain it.

Virginia hasn’t been a consistent program since the mid-'90s, and Florida State had NCAA Tournament appearance from 1993 to 2008.

The depth of the ACC in basketball was slowly eroding, and it was well before expansion.

When it came to football, the ACC has suffered from the Florida State syndrome. They dominated the league so badly in the 1990s that it really hurt conference perception.

It wasn't FSU's fault, but when they declined in the 2000s they took the ACC with them. Miami was supposed to help the conference in football, but has been a major disappointment, and no one has stepped forward in BCS games since the Noles were winning them more than a decade ago.

The lack of depth in basketball and football started well before expansion, and that has hurt the ACC.  

Here's the good news, because I have some. While the depth of basketball has slipped, the championships haven't. There's still three national championships since 2005 and isn't that what we measure conferences by?

Duke and North Carolina aren't going anywhere. They just need a third or fourth team to step forward.

You need a flagship football school? Florida State and Jimbo Fisher will, within the next five years, finish the year in the top-five and I give them a 50/50 chance of competing for one national title.

Virginia Tech will remain a solid program, so I'd say there is a very strong possibility of two ACC teams finishing in the top-10 in the near future.

There have been some lumps the last few years, but I like the position the ACC is in. There are better days ahead.

This article is also featured at All About Sports.