For Syracuse Orange fans, the whole conference realignment thing has mostly just been a crazy tornado ripping through the college football landscape somewhere else, far from our own reality. Until our name was finally included in a rumor, crazy and unsubstantiated as it might be. Because now the madness has hit home.
One source close to the situation said the ACC, which is trying to fend off a potential raid by the Southeastern Conference (Virginia Tech continues to be mentioned by sources as an SEC target), would possibly look to add Texas, Syracuse, Connecticut and Rutgers to grow to 16.
That source was apparently not ACC commissioner John Swofford, who kinda-sorta shot down this report as soon as he heard about it.
"I need to read more to see what we’re doing," Swofford said laughing. "That’s news to me."
"I think we see a lot of things that are written, blogged and speculated about right now," Swofford said. "We’re not a point at doing anything from a conference standpoint other than a lot of discussion, analysis and seeing what the landscape may hold moving forward. That’s way beyond any type of discussion we’ve had."
Even if this is all conjecture and chatter, it did the job. It made the whole conference realignment discussion feel real for Syracuse fans. Commence wondering what it might be like to play Duke and UNC every year in basketball and what it might be like to have Florida State, Virginia Tech and BC on the football schedule every year. It may never happen and it might have never been an option to begin with...but people are talking and we're in the discussion.