Five Years After the ACC's Expansion, Is Bigger Really Better?

Not a Slam Dunk

In the immediate aftermath of expansion, the ACC was thought to be in pristine condition to develop quickly into a football superconference that would match the league's clout in basketball. The Big East, on the other hand, was projected to see its basketball competitiveness decline.

Tranghese, who did little in 2003 to hide his anger at the ACC for raiding his conference, said he did his best to ignore predictions of the conference's demise and that he advised his members to do the same. Many Big East leaders used the uncertainty surrounding the league's viability as motivation.

"Everybody took it personally, the way we were being treated," Louisville Athletic Director Tom Jurich said. "The expansion propelled us forward, no question. That's probably the greatest story of this whole league right now."

The Big East responded to the ACC's growth with an aggressive expansion of its own, adding five Conference USA teams -- Louisville, Cincinnati, South Florida, Marquette and DePaul.

Over the past three seasons, three of those schools -- Louisville, Cincinnati and South Florida -- have been ranked among the top 25 football teams in the country, as have once-overlooked Rutgers and Connecticut. West Virginia has established itself as the conference's power, having represented the Big East in two of its past three BCS bowl games. The Big East is 3-0 in BCS bowl games since the realignment took effect before the 2005 season, the only conference to go undefeated during that span.

The Big East's success in football can be attributed to many factors. Nick Carparelli Jr., the Big East's associate commissioner for football, said the commitment of school administrators on spending for facility improvements and retaining high-quality coaches are key reasons.

Farrell, the Rivals.com analyst, said the turn in football fortune has as much to do with the three schools that no longer are present among the conference's ranks.

"The fact that Miami, Boston College and Virginia Tech are no longer in the Big East makes it a whole lot easier for those secondary schools to step up," Farrell said. "Look at Rutgers. They've won for two years. It's not like there's a huge winning tradition there. Is it a coincidence that those two years happened to follow the departure of Miami, Boston College and Virginia Tech?"

These days, those three schools compete in the ACC, where parity reigns and results are often surprising. The ACC conference title game, a critical prize sought through the expansion, has not lived up to its billing -- in part because of the surprising decline of some of the league's big-name football programs.

At the time of the ACC realignment, a league title game was expected to bring in around $6 million in revenue. In 2005, its first year, the championship game drew $5.7 million, according to tax forms. The following year, tax forms showed, the revenue total from the game dropped to $4.9 million. Revenue numbers from the 2007 championship game were not expected to be made public until this fall.

Repeated messages seeking comment from Gator Bowl Association President Rick Catlett were not returned.

Not only have Miami and Florida State yet to meet in the ACC title game -- which will move to Tampa the next two years after spending its first three in Jacksonville -- the matchups that have taken place may help to explain the revenue decline. A Florida State-Virginia Tech clash in 2005 was followed by a less glamorous Wake Forest-Georgia Tech game in 2006.

Last season's championship game featured Virginia Tech and Boston College, a more enticing contest but still not the marquee game ACC officials envisioned five years ago.

"I don't think there's any question that ACC football has been enhanced," Swofford said. "But I still think there is more we can do."

The reaction of some of those who participated in the expansion's inception is more sobering. For Moeser, the recently retired UNC chancellor, there remain too many shortcomings of the realignment to afford it a ringing endorsement.

"The expansion was all built around a football payoff, but it was not as great as people imagined," he said. "The potential is still there, and ultimately I think it will be a great beneficiary. So far, it has been a net positive."