ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, September 22, 1996 TAG: 9609230141
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Jack Bogaczyk
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
The dust on the college athletics landscape has settled. The Big 12 is huge, the Western Athletic Conference, with 16 schools in five time zones, is bigger - although still not big enough to be part of the new bowl alliance.
However, just when you thought it was safe to check the standings and be comfortable that you knew where to find your school, rumors on new movement in conferences at the top of Division I-A started flying with the footballs.
The talk - and it's just that at this point - revolves around two unsettled subjects. First, some conferences already are unnerved by the new deal made by the Big Ten and Pacific-10 with the Rose Bowl. That backdoored the new alliance before it even got off the negotiating table. The other is rooted in the impending retirement of ACC commissioner Gene Corrigan.
There is one notion that the ACC, once it finds Corrigan's successor, will begin discussing expansion from nine to 12 members, thereby creating divisional play for a football championship game like the Southeastern Conference has played and the Big 12 and WAC will inaugurate this season.
It's an attractive lure. Outside of a true national championship playoff and finalized bowl alliance, a conference title game is the most lucrative game a league can create. The SEC title game brings the league more than $7 million annually. That's about $600,000 to each school.
The other opinion is that the ACC, with nine members the smallest league among the top 10 basketball-playing Division I conferences, likes its hoops comfort too much to change for football - again. That's what it did when Corrigan wisely engineered the entrance of Florida State, for its football wealth.
Although the SEC is at 12 schools, there is some talk the league may want to add two teams. That rumor, and the ACC's situation, intrigues Virginia Tech, which is enjoying its Big East Football Conference membership but still is looking for an all-sports home.
Asked about potential expansion in the ACC or SEC, Tech athletic director Dave Braine said, ``I get the feeling the atmosphere for expansion is more congenial in the SEC than the ACC.'' He also said that doesn't mean either league is calling the Hokies about a move.
ESPN football analyst Mike Gottfried fueled the rumors during the Aug.31 Pitt-West Virginia cablecast by saying the Hokies and WVU would be in the ACC in the not-too-distant future. There even has been talk among administrators that some teams in the ACC and SEC might swap conferences.
Who would the ACC add? Virginia Tech, Vanderbilt and West Virginia? Syracuse? Kentucky? There's one school of thought that Florida State might want to leave the ACC for the SEC. If someone moves somewhere, does East Carolina fit into something besides Conference USA? Louisville also is attractive to some.
Tech might have its best chance at all-sports membership in the league where it is the defending football champion. The Big East has 13 basketball members, and there is no indication that number will grow anytime soon.
That could change if Temple - the only Big East football player besides Tech not in the league for other sports - drops its struggling gridiron program to I-AA or drops it, period. That would make acceptance of one school easier. The Hokies know they're not going to get into Big East hoops by trying to leverage the private-school dribblers with Tech's football success.
Tech's best hope for an all-sports tie with the Big East might be for the Blacksburg school to be invited by the ACC or the SEC, meaning the Big East could lose one of its top football members. Then, of course, Tech would take the ACC or SEC offer, because, despite the residence of most of the alumni, it's still a Southeastern school in a Northeast conference.
Big East football is going to grow, but not by more than Connecticut. As the Big East approved when it admitted West Virginia and Rutgers for hoops a few years ago, UConn's board of trustees has accepted a plan for moving from I-AA to I-A in football. The Huskies need a suitable stadium, but the timetable figures UConn as a Big East football team in 2002.
Is UConn going to make Big East football any more attractive? No. There are two ways Big East football could become more attractive to the Hokies. One would be hoops membership. The other would be Notre Dame asking to play conference football with its new basketball brethren.
That seems about as likely as the ACC expanding - and that's nothing more than an eyebrow-raising topic at this point.
LENGTH: Medium: 79 linesby CNB