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RoadRage · 10-13-2003, 11:03 AM

It's no longer "if".

http://www.sportsline.com/general/story/6715523

Quote:

BC accepts ACC invitation to become 12th member

Oct. 12, 2003__

GREENSBORO, N.C. -- Boston College will join the Atlantic Coast Conference as its 12th member, guaranteeing the league a future football playoff game while landing another major television market.

The school had until Nov. 1 to accept the ACC's offer but agreed in less than four hours after ACC presidents and chancellors voted unanimously Sunday to include Boston College in the league's expansion plans.

"This just adds one more excellent school to what now will be a 12-member mix," ACC commissioner John Swofford said. "If you look at their graduation rates, BC will jump right into the higher echelon of our conference. They bring a lot on both fronts."

Big East bylaws require 27 months notice to leave that conference or face a reported $5 million exit fee. It's unclear if Boston College is willing to pay such a fine to join the ACC before 2006. Miami and Virginia Tech will begin ACC play next season.

"We are disappointed with the ACC's continued attack on the Big East Conference and in Boston College's decision to turn its back on its fellow members of the Big East," Pittsburgh AD Jeff Long said.

West Virginia deputy athletic director Mike Parsons was confident the Big East can regroup.

"The conference will be strong," he said. "It will come out of this thing. We'll have some rebuilding, but we'll come out of it."

The addition of Boston College will give the ACC the number of members required by the NCAA to stage a lucrative league championship football game.

Boston College's president said athletics, academics and finances were reasons for the jump from the Big East.

"The ACC is a strong, stable conference," The Rev. William Leahy said. "The move to the ACC will generate greater revenues in the future."

Sources told SportsLine.com's Gregg Doyel the decision to invite BC wasn't originally the unanimous agreement that was announced.

When ACC presidents and chancellors began their conference call Sunday at 9 a.m., North Carolina's James Moeser and N.C. State's Marye Anne Fox reiterated their opposition on grounds of geography and tradition. Within minutes, though, a straw vote on the matter showed the other seven ACC schools supporting Boston College. With expansion needing only a 7-2 vote to pass, that meant the opposition of UNC and N.C. State was futile.

For unity's sake, in the face of pending litigation accusing the ACC of conspiring with Miami to tear apart the Big East, Swofford then asked Moeser and Fox to officially vote in favor of Boston College. Moeser and Fox acquiesced, allowing Clemson president James Barker, chair of the Council of Presidents, to announce a "unanimous agreement" later Sunday.

Barely an hour after it began, the conference call that would complete the ACC, and again undercut the Big East, was finished.

Assuming Boston College joins Miami and Virginia Tech as former members, the Big East is expected to try to reestablish its presence in Florida by approaching South Florida or Central Florida, perhaps on a football-only membership.

Miami and Virginia Tech were added to the nine-team ACC in late June and will begin play in 2004.

In a statement, Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese said: "We are extremely disappointed with Boston College's decision to leave. Our membership is very surprised that the ACC presidents continue to come back into our league for membership."

Barker said it became apparent recently that an 11-team league was not ideal for the ACC.

"It's almost like a suit, you put it on and wear it for a while and then you decide it needs some alterations," Barker said. "In this case this was true. We began to envision ourselves in the summer as one-sized league and we felt an adjustment would be wise to position us for the future."

Boston College and Syracuse were the Big East schools in the ACC's original expansion plans -- along with Miami -- but were voted down in favor of adding the Hurricanes and Hokies. Duke, North Carolina and N.C. State voted against adding Boston College at the time.

But other pro-expansion schools in the ACC kept pushing for another member.

"Our position is we wanted to expand the league which we've done, expand the footprint," Florida State president T.K. Wetherell said. "We wanted those northeast markets and Boston gives us that opportunity."

ACC bylaws require campus visits of each school being considered for prospective membership. That requirement was satisfied before ACC presidents initially rejected Boston College for membership in June.

"They were one of the school's we targeted from the get-go," N.C. State football coach Chuck Amato said. "It's a big media market and they have a lot of good Italian food up there."

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal threatened to sue Boston College if the school leaves the Big East.

Four Big East schools have already filed suit against the University of Miami for leaving the Big East to join the ACC. A Connecticut judge dropped the ACC as a defendant in that lawsuit on Friday.

"Our claim is that Boston College is part of a continued conspiracy to weaken and destroy the Big East as a competitor for broadcast revenue and other rights," Blumenthal said Sunday.

Is ACC expansion now over?

"We would never say never, but adding BC is clearly a completion of that phase," Barker said. "The expansion idea has moved to the back burner but it's not off the stove."