Syracuse's ACC State of Mind

The East Coast felt another earthquake last weekend, and this time the epicenter was a few hundred miles north of Virginia in Syracuse, N.Y. On Sunday, Syracuse University – a founding father of the once formidable Big East – officially jumped into the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), set to officially take effect in June 2014. Syracuse, who is joined by Pittsburgh as the newest ACC members, not only made a swift, somewhat abrupt move, but the institution made the right move.  

Syracuse’s decision caught many by surprise – including current Big East members – but it wasn’t. While it’s hard to envision Madison Square Garden void of the color orange during the Big East Basketball Tournament in March, the NCAA landscape is changing…rapidly. A few conferences are aggressively expanding, with hopes of becoming super (rich), thanks to today’s media age fortunes. Meanwhile, the Big East appears limited by its inability to compete against the Southeastern Conference (SEC), Big Ten, Pac-12, and, now, the ACC.

In 2004, Syracuse almost went to the ACC, but decided against it. Instead, Virginia Tech, Miami and soon thereafter Boston College jumped ship, putting the Big East at a critical crossroads. The conference acted boldly and resiliently by adding Cincinnati, Louisville and South Florida in football (Texas Christian University arrives in 2012) as well as DePaul and Marquette in basketball.

The additions left the conference 16 members strong in basketball, propelling it to arguably the best top-to-bottom conference in America. Case in point: The Big East earned 11 bids in the 2011 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament – the most ever by one conference – with Connecticut cutting down the championship nets last April.

However, since money is king, there is one sport that drives the revenue in college athletics: football.

Despite its basketball prowess, the Big East’s football is and always has been lacking. Of the 16 current basketball members, only eight – that’s eight –are football members.  In fact, the conference has almost as many Catholic, non-football members as it has football members. And those eight football members – Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Louisville, Cincinnati, South Florida, Rutgers, Connecticut and West Virginia – are not quite on the same level when you consider the SEC’s dominance, the history and prestige of the Big Ten, the Pac-12’s rapid growth out west, and the profitable ACC.

With Nebraska’s move to the Big Ten in 2010, the Pac-12’s additions of Colorado and Utah (and likely soon Texas and Oklahoma), and now Texas A&M’s imminent move to the SEC, Syracuse had to decide:  stay in a Big East that clearly has placed basketball over football since its inception in 1979 (see Penn State, 1982) or move to a conference that is progressing and already has built-in revenue (e.g., a billion-dollar television deal and a conference football championship game). Speaking of revenue, just last Saturday the ACC featured home teams, Clemson, Florida State, and Miami, that played in front of crowds larger than 70,000 fans – a far cry from the Big East’s 45,000 average home attendance.  

Syracuse’s decision was easy.

Despite its abysmal 2005-2008 seasons (10 wins, 37 losses), the Central NY school has a proud history of football that for years was elite – from the Heisman Trophy-winner Ernie Davis days to the Donovan McNabb days to its 684 all-time victories. The ACC provides greater revenue opportunities while giving Syracuse the chance to compete at the highest level in the school’s three major sports – football, basketball and lacrosse. What institution would pass this up?  

Syracuse basketball, winners of five Big East championships, will no longer be the monarch of the conference. But the transition positions the program to play the two most recognizable programs – Duke and North Carolina – potentially twice every season. There will be no shortage of 33,000-plus attendances in the Carrier Dome on those chilly January and February days or shortage of nationally televised games.

As for Syracuse lacrosse – winner of 11 national championships and the benchmark of success in the sport – they will play among the best lacrosse programs in Duke, Maryland and Virginia in the nation’s hotbed of lacrosse.

There’s no question that collegiate athletics is primarily a business, and whether this rapid expansion is good or bad will be discovered in time.  But, as in any business, Syracuse needed to stay ahead of the rapidly expanding curve.

The super conference tidal wave is upon us – and Syracuse ensured that it was not to be lost at sea. 

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