The Grounds

There is no clear cause and effect between their ACC move and improved football recruiting. What is true is that their move to the acc coincided with a (i) their football team increasing its consistency of success and (ii) their biggest recruiting rivals (uva, unc, mary) beginning a steady decline. The big east had some decent football teams in its old form (and still does). the only undebatable beneficiary of a move to the acc was the recruiting efforts of vt's basketball team.

sec membership does not automatically entitle its members to the best football recruits, otherwise vanderbilt (great school, great city) would be an unstoppable force. kids want to play for winners. This is why vandy, ole miss, miss st, arkansas, usc, tenn, and others have long periods where they struggle. i will argue until i'm blue in the face that this will be the beginning of the end of their football team. it is impossible for them compete in the sec long-term -- they're just not good enough on offense, their defense is gimmicky, their recruiting base is less fertile, they’re a regional not national program, and most importantly they cannot cheat on the same scale as the SEC powers. only the vt or uva fanbase would be delusional enough to think otherwise.

what people aren't talking about here is that that institution's core competency is football. the vt brand is football and nothing else. a 7-4 or 6-5 football team that doesn't attend bowls will bring unintended consequences, not the least of which is reduced applications for admission. The only use for the word catastrophic in this equation is the impact to their football team should they win 1 or 2 conference games in the sec, which is an entirely possible scenario. Vt is simply not in a place where it can afford to have a down cycle – that school offers nothing else! I must also highlight that VT is on the cusp of an incredibly difficult coaching transition that will bring massive downside risk under any scenario. Good luck doing that in the SEC.

on your second point, there is not great evidence that adding teams or switching conferences will be a massive financial windfall for teams involved, at least in the near-term. i can argue quite convincingly that the very long-term contracts signed recently by both conferences would have occurred regardless of the expansion. i'd also argue that in the future there is precisely ONE buyer for large-scale conference broadcasting rights and that that buyer knows its leverage because it's been demonstrated that in-house cable networks are not feasible. So it’s my opinion that the idiots that run these conferences are making moves that ultimately may have limited financial benefit + may damage their product. what is fact however is that in a move to the SEC, vt's expense budget for athletics travel will increase 4-5 fold (at least) unless they deem it fit to bus baseball, women's basketball, and other ancillary teams to places like oxford miss. i cannot emphasize this point enough. under no circumstances will there be a financial windfall which allows them to erect important buildings. If i was incorrect, every team in the ACC would be building like mad (right now) after the most recent contract.

so to conclude: only a hokie would be stupid enough to risk catastrophic damage to its only viable asset/golden goose and hence its university for (i) dubious long-term benefits and (ii) near-term weakening of its bottom line.

good riddance to them. That school sucks so badly.

Check out the schools in the Big 10, and then check out the schools in the SEC. You will see what JO is talking about as far as cold weather. Believe it or not, that does come into play with some recruits, as far as the SEC, look at what that sells a recriut as Jamie said. The best conference is college football according to many, national exposure every week, TV exposure galore, money etc, etc. I am with Jamie on this one, it would not be good for UVA recruiting in any way , shape or form.

Does the University of Virginia, a magnificent public higher education institution, really want to hang out with the SEC or some hybrid Big East/ACC combo? I will grant the SEC their rightful place to the king of the football throne right now but things change. Nick Saban went into that league and turned around 2 of their heavyweights in Alabama and LSU. That conference should build a statue for him. Our heavyweights are reloading or are close to reloading in Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, and Nebraska. As for TV exposure does every SEC team have exposure every week to a minimum 77 million homes when they are not on national television and what about all the other sports that also has access to that reach? What happens when our league reloads and 5 years from now and each school is making double or triple what the SEC makes? As for the best conference the fact is they are not the most powerful and the SEC might be the flavor of the month but what about 10, 20, 30 years down the road? I guarantee we will still be around. As for them, who really knows.

Excellent topic!

I am squarely in the camp that says UVa football recruiting would really take a nose-dive for the reasons already posted throughout this thread. I also think most people do not give VT enough credit. They are damn good and would do fairly well in the SEC IMO.