ACC's Forward Progress Limited

Several Miami sources said that despite the Hurricanes' 12-13 record over the past two football seasons, the program did what it was brought in to do. "The ACC got their TV contract when we were still good," said a former Miami official. "We easily delivered on the TV contract."

Still, Miami's on-field performance has prevented it from bolstering the marketability of the new ACC conference championship game. Before expansion, the conference did not contain the 12 members necessary to hold a league title game.

Florida State outlasted Virginia Tech, 27-22, at the inaugural ACC championship game in 2005 in front of 72,749 at the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Fla. The following year, Wake Forest beat Georgia Tech, 9-6, and attendance fell by nearly 10,000. "Wake Forest and Georgia Tech -- those aren't exactly marquee programs," said William S. Kern, professor of economics at Western Michigan. "The buzz outside of the region has not been as big as it might have been in the past."

Attendance dropped again in 2007. Virginia Tech knocked off Boston College, 30-16, before nearly 20,000 fewer fans than when it played in the inaugural contest.

Hitting the Books

Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College all were schools with athletic tradition and prowess; concern during the expansion process derived from the change those schools might bring to the scholastic reputation of a conference known for its academic prestige.

However, realignment provided impetus for the ACC Inter-Institutional Academic Collaborative, a consortium that organizes global research, leadership conferences and extensive study abroad programs. Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the ACCIAC's development has been the eager participation of the conference's newest members.

There is no commonly accepted, objective way to measure an institution's academic development. But the more involved the imported schools became in the collaborative, the easier it was for the ACC's veteran institutions to shelve their apprehensions.

"As you have years and years of informal networking among the original eight institutions and Florida State, there is a natural collaboration over the years," said David Brown, former Wake Forest provost and current ACCIAC coordinator. "When you have a new group come in, they have to work a little harder, in a sense, to get into the network. Now, each has become an integral part of the network."

According to Brown, Miami President Donna Shalala submitted the motion that designated $400,000 of the revenue generated from the conference football championship game toward funding the ACCIAC. The ACC presidents voted to increase that revenue portion to $450,000 a year and a half ago, Brown said.

John E. Dooley, Virginia Tech's vice president for outreach and international affairs, is leading a group of conference officials in determining the ACCIAC's future endeavors.

"When we came in, we didn't know what to expect," Boston College Athletic Director Gene DeFilippo said, "but the way we've been accepted by the other schools and by the conference . . . in our mind, it was a very smooth transition."

In the minds of many university officials contacted for this story, the expansion was a necessary component in keeping the ACC a viable contender for BCS supremacy. It had to grow more competitive. It had to reap more financial benefits. It had to retain its standing among the academic elites.

"I think there is much validity to the fact that if we didn't expand, if we became reactionary to what the evolution of conference alignment was becoming, we would not have had as much of an opportunity to do what we wanted to do," said former Florida State Athletic Director Dave Hart, who stepped down Dec. 31.

Five years after attaining what were believed to be the catalysts for unbridled development, the ACC waits for its growing pains to bear out.