I admit it’s possible that he’s deliberately being stupid as a trolling device, but assuming that he’s sincere, man, Bradley’s post about how all is not yet lost for the ACC is one incredibly moronic undertaking.
Start with this:
The ACC needs to tie itself to a big new bowl. This part is true. Indeed, this is essential. The chance of the champions from the SEC and the Big 12 being omitted from the presumptive four-team BCS playoff is small; the chance of an ACC titlist not making the final cut is rather larger. (No ACC team has played for the BCS title since Florida State in 2000, which was so long ago that Mark Richt was the Seminoles’ offensive coordinator.)
To be considered viable, the ACC cannot have its champ landing in, say, the Champs Sports Bowl. Nobody knows how the postseason matrix will look two years down the road — will existing bowls become part of the BCS tournament? — but the ACC can’t wait. It must find itself a worthy partner. That partner need not be the Big East, the least of the Big Six football leagues. Better for the ACC to forge an alliance with the runner-up from the Big Ten or the Pac-12 or even the SEC than to be doomed to a decade of playing Cincinnati.
Nothing says conference validation like agreeing to have your best team face off against somebody else’s runner-up.
Moving on, Bradley’s advice for FSU is to stay put. Its president knows best, y’all: “Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska and Texas A&M left the Big 12 at least in part because the Big 12 is not an equal share conference. Texas has considerably more resource avenues and gains a larger share (and I say this as a former dean of the University of Texas at Austin).” Except Barron’s wrong about that – the Big 12 is an equal revenue share conference. One that’s generating more TV revenue per school than FSU’s current home. Oh.
Finally, even though everyone knows the conferences are ruled by football TV money, Bradley thinks the ACC should seek its salvation by doubling down on its last expansion move.
Swofford should go hard at Kansas and Louisville, schools that graced the 2012 Final Four and that play creditable football. That would stretch the ACC map deeper into the Midwest — and into the Kansas City and Louisville television markets — and would make this the basketball league to end all basketball leagues.
That “Kansas plays credible football” is the part that makes me wonder if Bradley’s just trolling here for sport. But aside from that, all you’d end up doing by following this advice is to make the ACC into the Big East, redux. (You know, the conference that Bradley is telling Swofford to avoid like the plague.) If basketball was the glue that Bradley believes it to be, Pitt and Syracuse wouldn’t have left their old conference in the first place. And while I’m at it, here’s one more question: how do you reconcile the ACC’s better academics – remember, that’s a reason for FSU to stay – with Louisville’s admission?
I think Bradley needs to stick to his Paul Johnson is a genius in all ways material. Even that’s less stupid than this piece.
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UPDATE: By the way, Mark, this is how bad things have gotten for the ACC.
… Del Conte said that the once dead Big 12 “now has schools like Florida State, Clemson and Miami trying to get in.”
Yep. The AD at TCU, which was a proud member of the Big East about fifteen minutes ago and before that was holding court in the mighty Mountain West, is now looking down at some of the ACC’s crown jewels.
