By all appearances, the ACC’ and its very existence is under assault if the latest churning of the rumor mill is to be believed.
In fact, the board of trustees at both Florida State and Clemson has done the rumor mill one better, publicly hiking up its skirts confirming they’d be willing to listen to overtures from other conferences, specifically the Big 12. Miami has also been specifically mentioned by a soon-to-be Big 12 athletic director, forcing the Hurricanes to issue a public “I (heart) you” statement of support for remaining in the ACC.
Virginia Tech has kinda, sorta been on the periphery of expansion discussion as well, although -- much to the chagrin of the Richmond Times-Dispatch -- that’s seemingly more related to a potential future interest from the SEC than the Big 12.
Late this past week, the Hokies became the latest school to publicly scoff at the latest round of expansion speculation, with athletic director Jim Weaver telling VTEffect.com that his school is not looking at jumping the ACC ship.
“I can tell you I have not talked to anybody about relocation,” Weaver said. “Nobody whatsoever. But people write that stuff just to keep the topic hot.”
(Writer’s note: of course, Weaver doesn’t address whether anyone connected to Tech has spoken to other conferences about relocation.)
As for the speculation connecting other ACC schools to other conferences, Weaver said he takes his fellow AD’s words of commitment to the conference at face value.
“The thing about communicating with the ADs in our league is, I believe we can take their word for gospel,” Weaver said. “If they tell us there’s nothing to it then I believe them. They’re not going to lie to us.”
Of course they wouldn’t.
Also, for what it’s worth, Virginia athletic director Craig Littlepage was singing the same tune, telling the Times-Dispatch that the speculation connecting ACC schools to other conferences “is unfounded.”
“No one is talking about other conferences. No other conferences have been in touch with schools from the ACC,” Littlepage said.
(Photo credit: Virginia Tech)