ACC Realignment: College Football's Selfishness Will Hurt March Madness

With the flurry of talk that has continued to swirl throughout the college sports world about conference realignment, two more storied programs are showing that their selfishness is more important than tradition.

News broke that the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) was accepting the transfer bids of Pittsburgh and Syracuse from the Big East, and while these moves don’t have giant football implications, the NCAA basketball landscape will be rocked.

Syracuse and Pitt are two of the cornerstone programs in the Big East, which is arguably the most powerful conference in college basketball today, and their departure will leave a void in the Big East and it will change the way rivalries are looked at for those teams.

It’s obvious that this is a money move driven by the football team’s financial opportunities, but whatever happened to having pride in where you were aligned and the rivalries you built as a school.

Big East commissioner John Marinatto said in a statement on Saturday:

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Although I was obviously very disappointed to learn the news about the ACC’s being in discussions about membership with the University of Pittsburgh and Syracuse University, I continue to believe the Big East Conference is well positioned for the future and that the events of the past 24 hours will unify our membership. We have been working steadily to solidify and strengthen the Big East Conference and position us for our upcoming TV negotiations and I am confident that we will again emerge from this situation and remain strong.

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College football will not care about this move more than any of the other second-tier moves, but it will be very noticeable when the quality programs of the Big East don’t look as good when the Syracuse Orange are making their national championship push in the ACC.

The football programs at these schools are obviously not making as much money as they see their neighboring schools and the conference shift will be the remedy to further sell their soul to the corporate gods.

The fans will not be making much noise until March Madness kicks off in 2012 and things look odd, and by the time people realize they hate what has happened, it will be too late to do anything.

This is another shining example of greed having a firm grip on everything now a days and college sports are becoming a playground for the selfish.

Check back for more on the NCAA Football as it comes, and check out Bleacher Report’s College Football Page to get your fill of College Football.

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