A Crystal Ball Look at the ACCpocalypse...

Mike is tired of realignmageddon.  Too much conjecture, guesswork, turmoil, and anxiety.  I generally dislike those things too, but for some reason I just have a completely insatiable hunger for tracking, chronicling, and trying to predict the twisting gyrations of conference realignment.  I love reading about it, I love thinking about it, I love talking about it, and I love writing about it.  So there you go.

To fill this space, I had originally planned on a "how the ACC can save itself" puff pastry post.  But in the last two days I've learned that you can find those literally everywhere, and none of them break any sort of new ground.  Mine wouldn't, either.  It'd just be more of the same blah blah blah seduce Notre Dame, blah blah blah adjust ACC bowl revenue sharing, blah blah blah tinker with the divisions and scheduling system, blah blah blah make our own version of the Champions Bowl by partnering with the Big Ten or Notre Dame, blah blah blah blah blah.  It's already tired and old, and frankly, pollyanna thinking.

The reality is that the ACC can't save itself.  Either Florida State will save it, or Notre Dame will save it, or Texas will save it (by halting Big XII expansion), or ESPN will save it.  The conference is powerless to save itself.  And in my approximation, the conference won't be saved.

That's not to say the ACC is doomed, either.  It's not the WAC, left with New Mexico State and Idaho, and with nowhere else to turn.  That's DOOMED.  No, the ACC will survive.  It might not have a seat at the table when it comes to power conference, elite-level, "big boy" football; it might not be anything more than a basketball-centric, *oh how cute, they still play football* conference.  And that's okay.

But how will all of this go down?  How will the realignmageddon and the ACCpocalyspe play out?

Separating my blog from everyone else's, I have those answers.  After hours and hours and hours of reading, conversing, thinking, pondering, and learning all about game theory, I think I have the answers.  ALL of the answers.

Organized neatly with chronological headers, here's how it all plays out.  Peering into the crystal ball...

The Playoffs are Finalized
Four teams, we already know that.  Without boring you with all of the details and minutia, some power players want the four best (read: highest-rated, or committee-selected) teams, regardless of conference champion status.  Other power players (the ACC's John Swofford included) want a strict conference champions only rule.  Instead of either, the decision makers reach a compromise, the "three-and-one" model, as detailed by SI.com's Stewart Mandel in today's excellent piece.  It's the obvious solution. Three-and-one (3+1) includes the three highest-rated conference champions and the one highest-rated at-large team.  It ensures that no conference champ in the top four would get left out and guarantees a team like No. 2 Alabama in 2011 wouldn't be excluded from the playoffs in favor of No. 10 Wisconsin.  It also provides an entry point for Notre Dame, the ACC, the Big East, and any other conference that can boast a legit title contender.

Notre Dame Makes a Decision
The 3+1 allows Notre Dame a window - the plus-one - to remain independent.  But to make the playoffs, the Irish would need to be the highest-rated at-large team, which means it would need to beat out at least one team that ended up winning the championship in a "big four" conference (SEC, B1G, Big XII, Pac-12), not to mention all of the semi-pro SEC teams (like 'Bama in 2011) that don't win their conference championship.  If Notre Dame joined a conference, it would double its potential entry points to the playoffs, so I think it's a relative no-brainer that they join a conference.  But that conference isn't the ACC, mostly because the ACC would kill ND's strength of schedule, certain to be one of the primary factors for rating the teams for playoff berths.  Can Notre Dame win games against Duke, Wake, Syrcause, terrible BC, terrible Maryland, mediocre Pitt, mediocre UNC, mediocre NC State, etc. and still boast an elite-level strength of schedule?  No.  Even if its three non-conference games were against USC, Michigan, and Navy, it still wouldn't be enough.  So the Irish really only has one realistic option: join one of the big four conferences.  The Big XII has rolled out the red carpet and Notre Dame looks apologetically at the ACC and then accepts the Big XII's offer.

Further Big XII Expansion
With Notre Dame added as the conference's 11th team, the Big XII will look to add just one more team in order to get to 12 and stage a championship game, while at the same time not making the road too tough for Texas and Oklahoma to emerge as playoff contenders.  The conference wants a good team, a good program, a "move the needle" type of program, to further buoy the national perception and to pump up that strength of schedule matrix for its member schools.  Florida State, done deal, welcome to the Big XII.  But the Big XII stops at XII, and Clemson, Miami, Virginia Tech, and Georgia Tech are left behind to circle the wagons with their conferencemates.  Now at 13 teams, the ACC is the teetering, wobbling Jenga tower with the football foundation block pulled.

The SEC is Goaded Into Action
Just like they did when the Big Ten got stronger by adding Nebraska, the Southeastern Conference will see the rising tide in the Big XII and feel its throne as "best conference" challenged.  The SEC will then respond by moving quickly to stay ahead of the conference cold war.  Besides, its member schools are totally unafraid and in fact embracing the quest to become college football's first (and only?) 16-team SUPERCONFERENCE.  It is the nature of the SEC to not be afraid of increased internal competition.  It is that internal competition - iron sharpening iron, so they say - that helped win the last six national championships for various and assorted SEC teams.  Blocked by the so-called "gentlemen's agreement" (Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, and South Carolina voting together as a bloc to prevent conference inclusion of their respective in-state rivals), the SEC is unable to even consider Miami, Georgia Tech, Louisville, or Clemson for their further expansion efforts.  So with that as the backdrop, and with the added incentive of increasing its media footprint north along the east coast, the SEC works fast to extend invitations to UNC and Virginia Tech.

The Tarheels and Hokies Make Their Decisions
North Carolina is to the ACC what Texas is to the Big XII --- the one school that sort of defines the identity of the conference.  As hard as this is for me to admit as a UVA fan, UNC is the throbbing, beating heart of the ACC.  And the Tarheels know it.  So out of loyalty, self-importance, arrogance, delusion, whatever, North Carolina declines the SEC's offer.  Virginia Tech, feeling beholden to Virginia after the way Mark Warner leveraged UVA into stumping for VT to join the ACC back in 2003, gives the SEC an ultimatum: include Virginia in the expansion offer, or have the offer denied by Virginia Tech.  [Very noble of the Hokies.  I'm sure their fans will love that move.]  With UNC off the table and with Virginia Tech being the only available option that delivers the requisite football cred, the SEC obliges the request, and extends their offer to both VT and UVA.  After lots of soul-searching and political intrigue, UVA declines the offer, freeing Virginia Tech to jump to the SEC sans guilt.  NC State joins them, as the second best option in the state of North Carolina (Wake Forest is a joke and the SEC has no interest in Duke.)  UVA and UNC now become fused together in an unholy union, having both eschewed incredible football riches in order to retain their integrity in the now-sinking ACC.  There is nobility and honor in going down with the ship, I suppose.

The B1G Does... What?
Long rumored to covet the media markets to which Rutgers (NYC) and Maryland (Baltimore/DC) would grant access, the Big Ten now is faced with a decision: expand from 12 to 14 with those two schools, or look to move ahead to 16 with Georgia Tech (Atlanta) and a 16th school and forge the second 16-team SUPERCONFERENCE.  Looking long and hard at the pathetic football Rutgers delivers, along with the shabby shape the Maryland athletic department is in, the B1G ultimately decides to stand pat at 12 teams, leaving Maryland and GT to twist in the wind after making whorish overtures toward [B1G Commissioner] Jim Delany.  If UVA and/or UNC hadn't just spurned the SEC, maybe the B1G comes calling for those two, but instead, the unholy UVA/UNC union manages - in a weird, roundabout way - to protect the conference from further poaching.  Content at 12, the B1G makes a formal announcement that they are sticking with that number, more or less forever.  That leaves three 12-team conferences in the Big Four (adding caps to that now), the Pac-12, Big XII, and B1G, and one 16-team monstrosity, the SEC.

With the Big Four Set, the ACC Jockeys for Position
The 3+1 playoff model still offers a glimmer of hope for an undefeated ACC champion to make a playoff appearance.  And like everybody knows, if you create a playoff system, it's inevitable that you eventually expand those playoffs.  So now the ACC has to make sure it is solidified as the 5th-best conference, and will be in a position to benefit from eventual playoff expansion.  To that end, the remaining constituency of Boston College, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Duke, Wake Forest, Clemson, Georgia Tech, and Miami look to go boldly back to 12 teams and restore the right to stage a conference championship game.  But why stop there?  With enough "good enough" east coast-ish Big East teams available for poaching, the ACC decides to forge the second SUPERCONFERENCE, this one built around basketball dominance, with a chance to earn increased TV money from hoops and the theory of throwing numbers against a wall to see what sticks in terms of football.  So the ACC extends invitations to UConn, Louisville, Cincinnati, USF, and Rutgers, and the next Frankenstein's Monster is born.  Rutgers and South Florida make the cut for media market access -- with Syracuse and Rutgers, the ACC now has New York City, and with USF, Tampa is added to the mix.  It's a big, weird creature conference, but it just might do our bidding.

And as for UVA?
We end up being just fine.  Maybe we lose a few more kids to Virginia Tech because of their SEC membership, but we'll still be able to get enough to compete in - and occasionally win - this new-look, expansive ACC, just like Mike suggested earlier this week.  And like I've been saying, what would you rather do, lose to Florida State or beat UConn?  Those wins pile up over time, the program becomes important, and eventually, nationally relevant.  And once that happens, we emerge as a consistently legit occasional contender for the playoffs.  That's Virginia's glass ceiling, anyway -- and we don't need FSU or Notre Dame in the ACC in order to get up there and start tapping on it.