stinger78
Helluva Engineer
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TBH, you made two points.So you are actually making my point, thanks. If everyone wants to pee on the SEC for football success (while politicking behind the scenes), shouldn't the same argument be made about the ACC?
The SEC built a football program and used it to expand into basketball. (It's been talked about for nearly 30 years, so no surprise.) But ... the ACC was unable to translate it's dominance of college basketball into adjacent sports (i.e., football).
It's not unheard of. But tbh, most of the ACC schools do not emphasize athletics as part of their academic/college experience. So, it's hard to sympathize that "we didn't get the results we wanted, but we didn't really care either". Everyone cares now. $$$$
1. The ACC got favorable treatment in basketball years ago and no one complained like we do today. That is not true.
2. The other conferences used their football program $ to help build a basketball presence. Probably so.
However, I'd still assert that it was the change in the NCAAT format, allowing many more teams in while restricting the ACC, that allowed the other conferences those slots. Yes, many of the expansion slots went to mid-majors, but the other power conferences also picked up what was taken away from the ACC. There were years we went from 6-7 NCAAT teams to 3-4 teams, a loss of 3-4 teams some years. That is a loss of $$/viewers and a gain of $$/viewers for other conferences. To their credit, they used it to rise up and tell recruits that they could put them in the dance, too.
It's called fair access, and it's really all I want in the CFP... regardless of The Narrative.