If Wake Forest had not been a charter member of the ACC, would they be in a BCS conference today, or would they be a mid-major school? With their not so stellar athletics programs right now, I wonder if they lucked out by being a charter member.

In the past decade, five different teams have won the ACC championship game. Wake is one of those teams.

This question might be asked about any number of schools that haven't accomplished that, so I say it's a moot point.

That's fine, but compare it with most other schools in the ACC and Wake's enrollment is much lower than all other ACC members, with Notre Dame being the closest. When it comes to attendance, their football program brings in a decent crowd, but their basketball program does not. I know all of this doesn't matter when it comes to the wins and losses of a school, but in an alternate reality, where Wake was not a charter member of the ACC, would they be a BCS school today?

Would Northwestern, Wake or Vanderbilt been included in any BCS league expansion of the last 25 years? No. So, yes they did luck out being founding members. But all have done well with there memberships, especially Wake. No need to rag on them. Would Miss St get into the SEC today? No, they don't bring a new market. Would Purdue get into the B1G, probably not, but they're in. It's just water under the bridge 50 years ago. No need to piss off Wake fans by saying they wouldn't have deserved membership under today's circumstances.

Wake helped found the conference. That's not luck.

Many of the decisions Wake Forest made, made the ACC what it is today. There's some argument to be made that the ACC would not have survived without some of the key votes Wake made that helped the conference hold together and grow. Without Wake's support, expansion with FSU would not have happened nor would the expansion to bring in Miami, VT and BC. Wake Forest also brokered the deal to bring in Notre Dame.

If you don't think our basketball program brings in a crowd, then you're basing that observation on a very narrow time frame.

(03-31-2013 08:27 PM)WakeForestRanger Wrote:  Wake helped found the conference. That's not luck.

Many of the decisions Wake Forest made, made the ACC what it is today. There's some argument to be made that the ACC would not have survived without some of the key votes Wake made that helped the conference hold together and grow. Without Wake's support, expansion with FSU would not have happened nor would the expansion to bring in Miami, VT and BC. Wake Forest also brokered the deal to bring in Notre Dame.

If you don't think our basketball program brings in a crowd, then you're basing that observation on a very narrow time frame.

Wow. I read over on the Hive how Wake fans give their school credit for virtually every ACC decision, but didn't truly believe it.

Cheers,
Neil

(03-31-2013 07:03 PM)rknj8993 Wrote:  That's fine, but compare it with most other schools in the ACC and Wake's enrollment is much lower than all other ACC members, with Notre Dame being the closest. When it comes to attendance, their football program brings in a decent crowd, but their basketball program does not. I know all of this doesn't matter when it comes to the wins and losses of a school, but in an alternate reality, where Wake was not a charter member of the ACC, would they be a BCS school today?

Let's go back in time, and say Wake isn't an ACC member. They would have been an Independent until conferences really started to take of in the '90's. In '91 the Big East began sponsoring football. I'd say it's likely Wake would have gotten the call over Temple, along with Miami, Rutgers, Virginia Tech, and West Virginia.

Wake has been the swing vote on tons of ACC issues over the years. No Wake, those votes go the other way.

(03-31-2013 08:37 PM)WakeForestRanger Wrote:  Wake has been the swing vote on tons of ACC issues over the years. No Wake, those votes go the other way.

Everyone was a "swing" vote in Miami and VT to the ACC.

And only 2 opposed ND as a partial member. So precisely how was Wake's vote critical in that?

Cheers,
Neil

The whole point to the OP is irrelevant. The fact is Wake Forest was a charter member. Plus the same question could be asked about nearly 35-40% of the "BCS" universities. It is what it is. Just because a school in a lower conference has recently made strives in their athletic programs doesn't justify their inclusion. Sorry...

Wake's President Hatch is the former Notre Dame provost. He and Clemson's president negotiated the deal for the Irish to join the ACC. Without him, maybe the ACC Notre Dame deal doesn't get done before the Maryland to Big Ten announcement. How do you think the ACC weathers that announcement without Notre Dame already in the fold?

In 2003, Wake voted against the other North Carolina schools. We could easily have voted in our own self-interest to block it.

I don't know how any sports fan could not like WF. It is a great school and their sports teams have been a part of some great moments in the ACC.

(03-31-2013 08:45 PM)WakeForestRanger Wrote:  Wake's President Hatch is the former Notre Dame provost. He and Clemson's president negotiated the deal for the Irish to join the ACC. Without him, maybe the ACC Notre Dame deal doesn't get done before the Maryland to Big Ten announcement. How do you think the ACC weathers that announcement without Notre Dame already in the fold?

Have you done an analysis of former Irish connections in the ACC? There are a ton of them, including Kevin White, the AD at Duke who, like the 2 presidents you mentioned, was part of the 4-4-4 committee. ACC expansion has been about enticing ND to join since the beginning. That's been the goal. And while the conference wasn't able to get it on a full-time basis this time around, they were able to come up with a plan that most could consent to, with the 2 dissenting votes (like everything else) being Maryland and FSU.

Quote:In 2003, Wake voted against the other North Carolina schools. We could easily have voted in our own self-interest to block it.

You voted against UNC and Duke. NC State was on board with Wake.

Cheers,
Neil

No one voted against adding Notre Dame as a partial.

NC State voted with Duke and UNC to block BC before switching. That's why BC was added later.

When the conference was formed, WFU was actually in Wake Forest. They were ~20 miles from NC State. They were arch-rivals and played for the Wake County trophy. I believe WF is UNC's most-played opponent. They may be right behind UVa. The ties go much deeper than the athletic departments.

Wake joined the Southern Conference in 1936. They were conference mates with the other 6 ACC founding members for 17 years before the ACC was founded. I think it was more than luck that got them in the ACC.

If the ACC were being formed today it would look very different. The same could be said of every conference. The conferences would choose one, two at the max, members from a single state.

(03-31-2013 09:06 PM)WakeForestRanger Wrote:  No one voted against adding Notre Dame as a partial.

The unanimous vote for ND was the "show" vote. The real vote which wasn't made public was 10-2.

Quote:NC State voted with Duke and UNC to block BC before switching. That's why BC was added later.

No vote took place on BC in June. After VT and then Miami were voted in a motion was made by Virginia's president Casteen to table any further votes. This vote was seconded by Fox from NC State and that vote carried. Interestingly, both of these presidents were attending via teleconferencing. Neither were physically present.

As I mentioned earlier, the point of ACC expansion was to make and market the ACC as the East Coast version of the Pac-12. But Swofford wasn't able to articulate it enough back in 2003 because BC and SU weren't going to do that by themselves. BC and SU were basically the "easy" targets to make the ACC more enticing to the next two they really wanted and would give the ACC pretty much control of most of the Eastern seaboard (which were ND and PSU along with who they already had or thought they would have in the league).

And if one of them didn't come in the next stage of expansion, then Pitt would take their place. But the anti-northern sentiment of the ACC ran stronger than Swofford realized which of course resulted in VT having to get in to ensure the current bird in hand - Miami.

When this came about, then the ACC needed to see if going in a different direction would result in a stronger conference. So they suspended votes on BC and SU, continued to talk with ND about partial membership followed by full membership in 7 years down the road, and tried to get a championship game with 11 members.

When talks broke off with ND and the ACC was rebuffed in terms of having a conference championship game with 11 members, BC became the target for #12.

Cheers,
Neil

It took three votes to block expansion. Duke and UNC were against any expansion. So any one school could then join them to block expansion. Virginia's governor took advantage of the situation and strong armed UVa into using their vote to expand only if VT was included.

It had nothing to do with "anti-northern" sentiment.

NC State wanted to take a run at Notre Dame and indicated they would vote against BC. So the ACC pursued that until became clear that Notre Dame would only join as a partial. NC State then removed their block on BC.

(03-31-2013 09:41 PM)WakeForestRanger Wrote:  It took three votes to block expansion. Duke and UNC were against any expansion. So any one school could then join them to block expansion.

Thank you for conceding my point above that everyone was a swing vote, not just Wake Forest.

Quote:Virginia's governor took advantage of the situation and strong armed UVa into using their vote to expand only if VT was included. It had nothing to do with "anti-northern" sentiment.

Virginia was powerless if either Duke or UNC or both came on board. Go back and read the hundreds of articles written back in 2003 and you will find those that made clear that a major part of UNC's objections by then president Moeser was the fact he didn't like expansion into the northeast.

Quote:NC State wanted to take a run at Notre Dame and indicated they would vote against BC. So the ACC pursued that until became clear that Notre Dame would only join as a partial. NC State then removed their block on BC.

They were already making a run at ND. The Irish were approached in March of 2003 and were rebuffed. When the ACC went ahead with the Miami, BC, and SU announcement, ND was approached again at the end of May before the ACC even sent their teams to visit the three Big East targets.

And even as those discussions continued, the ACC was offering a 7 year deal as a partial member with a full commitment to follow. In other words, when the vote came in late June, the ACC already knew ND wasn't going to join fully until at least seven years later.

Do you honestly think the ACC leaders (outside of FSU's Wetherell) were stupid enough to believe the Irish were going to give up independence in football and decide to join a fully southern league right there and then in 2003? Of course not.

Look what it took to get the Irish on board with a 5-game scheduling arrangement. Do you honestly believe that was going to happen without BC, Pitt, and to a lesser extent SU being part of that equation?

Cheers,
Neil

Wake traditionally votes with Duke and UNC on most issues if they had done that in 2003 there would have been no expansion. Wake was the swing vote because everyone else except for UVa because of VT voted the way they were expected to vote.

Duke and UNC opposed expansion because it would end the double round robin in basketball.

"In June 2003, Fox played a role in the expansion of the Atlantic Coast Conference. Reached in Switzerland at a conference, she cast an unexpected and deciding "no" vote against Boston College in the first round of Atlantic Coast Conference expansion.[5] Her unanticipated vote at the 11th hour resulted in months of turmoil in college sports. Miami President Donna Shalala delayed her university's acceptance of the ACC invitation to the last possible day explaining "We had numbers on Boston College-Virginia Tech. We had done numbers on Miami alone. But we had not anticipated that Virginia Tech and Miami would be the only two invitees."[6] The ensuing delay forced the ACC to spend the 2004-5 academic year as an 11-team conference, one shy of the dozen required by the NCAA for the ACC to hold a lucrative championship football game, and resulted in Boston College playing a "lame duck" year in the Big East.[7] Media reports suggested Chancellor Fox, a University of Notre Dame trustee, may have cast her vote against Boston College to provide time for the ACC to consider extending membership to the Fighting Irish.[8]"

(03-31-2013 06:50 PM)rknj8993 Wrote:  If Wake Forest had not been a charter member of the ACC, would they be in a BCS conference today, or would they be a mid-major school? With their not so stellar athletics programs right now, I wonder if they lucked out by being a charter member.

The ACC is unique among BCS conferences because of its "mix" of schools: small private colleges and large public universities; BB-centric and FB-centric schools; Northern and Southern schools, and (soon) more "new" members than "Founding" members. While not a fit for the B1G or SEC, Wake Forest is a good fit for a conference like the ACC. Also consider that another small private school (TCU) joined a BCS conference (Big-12) just last year.

Considering its size, I think WF has done a fine job sports-wise especially in football. Academically it is an outstanding university which has close ties to VT through the Virginia Tech--Wake Forest School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences. I also think Wake Forest could play a crucial role in keeping the ACC together through its long-standing ties to the other three North Carolina ACC schools and through its political pull in Raleigh....