He may have been fine as a conference commissioner when he was first hired. Then all conferences were designed differently and the ACC was a nice little compact conference with an outsized basketball operation.

Then things could be negotiated over a round of golf at the local country club.

But then college athletics began to change radically and rapidly. Swofford was completely out of his element at that point. The Big 10 and SEC commissioners far and away outclassed Swofford and Co.

Yes, he was negotiating from a position of weakness, but a forward looking, media savy commissioner wouldn't have made the long term commitment that Swofford did. Makes one think Swofford didn't think football would rebound in the conference so he wanted to get what little he could. Besides, Swofford was raised on ACC as a basketball league.

The very long contract was a bad move, in and of itself, but he then compounded the mistake. In order to show the schools he could make them nearly as much money as the Big 10 and SEC were making, he went all in, and sold all, as in all rights, to all ACC football and basketball games.

And to to further compound the error, Swofford insisted that ESPN sell to Raycom any properties that ESPN didn't want. Swofford had to protect his boy down at Raycom.