and I do not work for Raycom. I am fortunate to count some of those businessmen you refer to as friends and to know people in Virginia government that had a nice view of the expansion drama. To address your questions I offer the following.

The three most likely options at the time were (1)Miami could have stayed where they were, (2)they could have split off to form a new conference with other BE football schools or (3) they could have split off with a combination of BE football schools and some others. The ACC, more specifically ACC football at that time and better known as Florida State and the eight dwarfs, was in a battle for its survival at that time with the BE as the most imminent threat. If they didn't shore up football through expansion they risked the possibility of FSU, Clemson and GT possibly going elsewhere and Miami was a convenient choice to shore up the ACC AND virtually gut its most imminent competitor.

The mention of Duke and UNC was not made with the contention that they made the ACC a great home. The mention was to properly explain the context you partially alluded to in claiming that the Virginia government and certain businessmen saved the ACC's bacon, a truth that would have never happened had either UNC or Duke voted for expansion. Your point about them not wanting VT ignores the far larger and more accurate point that they did not want expansion in any form.

I admitted the error of the Tampa game but, never said or implied they should be given a pass. The response explained the consistency of the decision and a reasonable rationale for why it was made. Can you explain your contention how that decision "cost VT tens of millions of dollars"?

I am not sure how you infer that saying not having all the info leads to a contention that you cannot have an opinion. It does call in to question how informed any actual opinion can be. More importantly, it recognizes the complexity of conference expansion negotiations and TV contract negotiations.

As far as Maryland rolling in the dough they have enjoyed increased revenue and it goes out the door as fast as it comes in because they still have a huge hole to dig out of. You couple that with the recent replacement of their AD(rumored to actually have been fired), the continuing decline in their ticket sales and contributions and their declining all sports ranking and it points up the reality that success is generated by other factors in addition to money.

You can term it denial if you like, however, it does have the advantage of being rooted in actual truth shared by many closer in proximity to the actual decision making and reflects the reality of the circumstances as they actually existed at the time. Once again, despite your spin, the debate has NEVER been to claim Swofford did not make mistakes(he did) or that he could not have done other things(he could) to strengthen the ACC. It has always been that your incessant desire to run down the conference and its leadership never fails to attempt to paint it as solely due to incompetence or worse and fails to consider the impact of existing realities and existing circumstances.
[Post edited by 2hhoop3 at 07/02/2018 09:47AM]