In Part 1, I looked back at the smack run by VT prior to last year’s game. Part 2, is devoted to dredging up the muck from this past spring and summer. It seems even more apt, as the Big East will formally announce the addition of teams from Conference USA today.
To recap: The whole thing started in the beginning of May/end of April. The ACC had been negotiating in (somewhat) secret to get Miami to bolt for the ACC. Miami was open to it, but wanted Boston College because of its strong alumni connections in the northeast. The ACC which wanted to get to 12 teams anyways for the conference championship game was willing, so they began discussions with BC as well as looking into Syracuse. The Big East commissioner found out about the secret discussions and well. Hell, the whole twists and turns would take forever. If you want to get my perspective on the whole thing as it unfolded. Go read my (many) old posts starting here (scroll around) and continuing here and here is a key moment where the other Big East schools agreed not to leave for the ACC if BC and Syracuse wouldn’t. The lawsuits were filed in the beginning of June by the Big East. Then the endgame go underway
ACC expansion nearly collapsed because of it and pressure from Virginia lawmakers on UVA to not let VaTech get killed in the raid on the Big East.
The Big East getting cocky and not being serious about doing what it needs to do to survive (jettison the b-ball only schools and expand to 12 football/b-ball schools) starts floating a stupid 16 team league with half being b-ball only.
To save its expansion, the ACC rescinded its offers to BC and Syracuse; and instead extended offers only to Miami and Virginia Tech.
The Hokies jumped.
Miami is hemming and hawing after receiving last-ditch offers spearheaded by former conspirators BC and ‘Cuse to stay. They will announce their decision tomorrow, or else they will owe even more money in exit fees to the Big East.
…
Adding Miami and VT is clearly a desperation move by the ACC to expand someway, somehow. It puts a lie to the earlier claim that they wouldn’t do anything rash or without careful consideration. This is exactly that. Expansion, just for its own sake. It really lends credence to the idea that the ACC really does want to destroy the Big East any way it can. Maybe it is out of recognition of its own potential instability, but the ACC is clearly in an all out push to expand. The ACC has ignored its own expansion procedures by inviting VT without even touring the campus yet.
The ACC had no choice but to call Miami’s bluff on the partners in expansion. Since this began it was heavily reported that Miami was all but insisting that BC be included in expansion. That it wouldn’t jump without BC to keep its strong alumni connections up East. And that one of the reasons to jump was to avoid the high costs of traveling to Blacksburg. Suddenly, they will lose that strong Northeast alumni connection and still go to Blacksburg if this happens. Add in the risk of now having another strong football program in the ACC, and this move isn’t so much an upgrade as it is a lateral move.
Being short a team for the conference is not too big a deal for the ACC and a championship game. They can petition the NCAA for a rule change or an exemption. Plus, the ACC can wait a couple years and pick off BC or even UConn when they are in the shitter, and would pay to join.
What the hell is the deal with Wake Forest supporting ACC expansion? Wake’s silence has been puzzling. The only explanation I heard before, was that they wanted BC and ‘Cuse because they are private schools so they could help with their specific and unique concerns. As it stands now, they look to become the Northwestern of the ACC. Miami may also be a private school, but they are nothing like Wake. The fact that Wake Forest has gone blithely along with this when it could have ended the whole thing by siding with Duke and UNC is the great mystery to me.
…
As for Virginia Tech’s betrayal of the Big East, and yes it is a betrayal…
The Big East Conference this week received commitments from its schools that none would leave for the Atlantic Coast Conference if Syracuse and Boston College stay.
That’s a considerable bargaining chip conference commissioner Mike Tranghese will use while trying to convince Syracuse and Boston College to remain in the Big East.
Both schools have entertained a leap to the ACC with Miami, believing if they declined to leave the Big East other conference members such as Virginia Tech, Connecticut, Pitt or West Virginia would jump into the breach with Miami instead.
But Tranghese has received assurances from the football schools in the Big East that that would not happen.
Josh and his Hokie brethren can rationalize it any way they want, about how this has been their destiny/destination for 50 years and they haven’t really betrayed the Big East since they always really wanted in the ACC. But they can not claim that “Virginia Tech handled itself honestly.” And no, the Big East didn’t get the commitments not to bolt in writing (as far as I know), so it was worthless as far as being a contract; but these are the actions that reduce a school’s reputation and integrity — not to mention more lawsuits.
My comments on the Hokies led to this exchange with Josh Crockett and further comments.
Josh sent me an e-mail defending his team betraying the Big East as not doing anything wrong.
Furthermore, the agreement to stay was only valid if Cuse and BC agreed to it.
Blame Cuse and BC for not agreeing, and thus giving VT the room to maneuver.
My answer:
You were very Clintonian in your response. You can split hairs and say that the agreement to stay was solely limited to only if BC and ‘Cuse chose to stay in the Big East — not if the ACC rescinded and extended it to VT — if you want, but it seems rather obvious that VT would have jumped no matter what the circumstances. There is always a difference between what is legal and what is moral.
As I said, you can say anything you want about how this is good for your school (and no one can disagree), but you can not claim that your school handled itself honestly.
I would also point out that BC and ‘Cuse while not rejecting the ACC offer, had not yet accepted it either.
I’ll let my friend Lee, give his thoughts:
Ah, the Hokies… the funny thing is that I never really cared one way or the other about that academically pathetic, isolated little hick school where farmers daughters go who can’t get into Penn State or UVA until all of this happened. And furthermore, they legitimately do belong in the ACC (although I would remind Chas’s buddy Josh that the only reason Virginia Tech wasn’t in the ACC to begin with is that they turned down an invitation to join 50 odd years ago). But now, I hate those hypocrites and pathetic wanna bees.
But two things console me about our castrated turkey friends. First, they will be reminded, in perpetuity, by their in-state rivals that they only reason VT still has an athletic program of any kind is because UVA intervened on their behalf. Imagine if Pitt was saved by Penn State’s intervention, and you can understand how tortuous this will be.
Second, Virginia Tech, or VPI, or whatever they want to be called this decade, has been absolutely lambasted in the national media for being the hypocrites that they are.
Final prior link was a beauty excerpted from an e-mail from the people in the VT administration regarding their pressuring the VA politicos to get into the ACC:
June 19, 2003, after rumors of a VT offer from the ACC
Email from Ralph Byers[, the VT Director of Government Relations,] to someone in the Virginia legislature, probably by the name of Phil Leone: “Obviously if we have a serious offer to join the ACC it would be tough not to do it, even with what’s happened. We all have demonstrated what this is about anyway, and it ain’t integrity.”
No. No it wasn’t.
Hokie fans have felt that their school has unfairly portrayed in the whole thing. They especially feel that Miami got a lot less flak than they did. I knid of would put it this way.
Miami is that asshole guy that hangs around your group. No one really likes him, but he’s got the money, the car, and he always seems to get the girls. So you tolerate him. You know one day he’ll probably screw you over on one thing or another, but you live with it and just try not to be too trusting.
VT was the guy who came along a little later. He’s been knocked about a bit by others, but he seeems like a really decent guy. Someone you can trust, and even believe to be your friend. Then he backstabs you the first chance he gets after decrying others who would do so. Simply put, he’s the backstabbing weasel that was using you to climb the ladder. The guy who shrugs off his actions with a “well it was either him or me.”
I’m feeling even more juiced for the game then before. And it’s only Tuesday.
Let’s go Pitt!
