ACC Media Days: Syracuse & Pitt Fit Institutionally, Academically And Athletically

Does anyone actually believe that the ACC will still be a 14-team conference by the time 2020 gets here? Due to circumstances, either created by them or created for them, the conference will almost certainly look different and likely have added at least one if not two schools.

Also, we'll all be driving hovercrafts and taking vacations on the Jupiter moon, Europa, but that's neither here nor there.

The ACC media days kicked off on Sunday and ACC commish John Swofford had some things to say about the Syracuse Orange & Pittsburgh Panthers as well as the status of the conference as a whole.

In a wide-ranging, 45-minute question-and-answer session, commissioner John Swofford said the league’s focus is "totally on 14" schools. In discussing the latest published reports about Miami and the NCAA, he said the "sooner we can get the several problems totally behind us that we’ve had in this league, the better."

When a reporter asked Swofford if he thinks the Irish would eventually join the ACC, the commissioner quipped that he "couldn’t hear the question" and later said the league was focusing on making things work with 14 schools.

Sure. Fine. Great.

Swofford also noted that the conference will not be helping Syracuse and Pitt with their $7.5M exit fees from the Big East. Thanks a lot, bro. (To be fair, the ACC TV contracts will more than make up for it).

He did have plenty of nice things to say about the Orange and Panthers of course...

he is excited about adding them and said he is really excited about the "fit" both are with the rest of the conference in terms of academically, institutionally and athletically. He said they close the footprint by filling in the gap geographically between Maryland and Boston College. But he was most excited about what they add in terms of academic institutions and he said that anyone who doesn't think that is a major component just doesn't get it - especially with the way academics are now being stressed in terms of the APR and the way schools are being punished for poor graduation rates and whatnot.

By the way, check out the bottom of that Paul Zeise recap for some funny/not-that-funny points about how the ACC problems kinda-sorta looks like the Big East problems we are trying to get away from.

The big issues seem to be the unbalanced conference schedule (five home games one year, four the next) and of course the status of the pink elephant in everyone's room, Notre Dame. The whole Clemson-FSU-leaving kerfuffle seems to be over, though we all know to never say never.

Like so much in college athletics today, those are topics that are unresolved and unresolvable for the time being. All we know is Syracuse is going to someplace more stable and more lucrative than where we are now and that's good enough for us.