Maryland headed to Big Ten, What Next for Swofford?

First I'd like to congratulate the Turtles for leaving the conference and giving the finger to Tobacco Road. I know those guys don't like the UNC-Duke Axis of Evil any more than we do down here, and I'd be more than happy if Clemson did the same thing one day. There may even be a mess on the keyboard afterwards if we ever go through such a thing. I'll be watching intently as the discussions over the new $50 Million buyout get dragged out on ESPN.

And it does confirm that in some cases theres fire to some smoke with conference realignment. We've heard for some time that Maryland was flirting with the Big Ten, and now that the picture is clear for Delany in regards to TV contracts (SEC's is nearly done negotiating I'm sure, and all of ours are done), it makes sense for him to be proactive and extend the invite. Some of the stuff is BS, but not all of it.

I don't want to detail the reasons why MD left, they're all obvious to us. The AD is broke, and they need money badly thanks to Debbie Yow. The others are similar to our reasons for wanting to leave the ACC. After they saw this pitiful Orange Bowl deal, I bet they just said "fuck it, lets roll on out".

Now the dominoes are ripe to fall. FSU will be watching intently on those $50M discussions as well, as they and Maryland were the only two who downvoted the new buyout. It appears Barker has us locked in here until he decides to step down. I doubt Radakovich could argue it with him at this point, so we may be stuck no matter what happens. I do believe that Clemson would try to follow proactively if FSU did leave however.

Before the SEC deal is done, they could make another move and try to get NC State and/or VT. We can hope they ask Clemson to join, but I'd doubt that. Clemson would pursue such an offer if we got any inkling, I can guarantee that much. The leadership isnt that dumb. They know there would be lynchings if word got out that Clemson got an offer to go and refused it.

So who does Swoffy get to bolster his basketball bias? Has he called up UConn and offered them the spot? I'd bet he has. I want no part of it. If he learned from the TV deals, he'd have called Louisville first. I'd call either South Florida or Cincinnati next, and tell UConn to F off. None of these potential schools gives me warm fuzzies inside.

Notre Dame probably would not join as a full member unless we picked another quality academic school. Louisville's academics are pretty poor. Well to hell with that I say, because academics doesn't bring more TV money. Conferences don't mean anything to academics in my eyes, not anymore. I don't see why ND would want anyone besides UConn unless they looked at things in terms of football money.

USF will someday be pretty good, as could Central Florida, if they were ever 'legitimized' in a major conference. Would FSU want that to happen? I do not know. If they had Leavitt still, they probably would be in far better shape than they are.

Cinci doesn't seem like a fit to me, and frankly neither does Louisville, but at least UL can consistently compete in multiple sports. Their budget is bigger than Clemson's if my memory serves. I've been to both cities and Looahville appears to be a better fit with us than Cinci does.

So its just a big shit sandwich, and we all gotta take a bite. I don't know what Swofford will do, I just know that theres a good chance I wont be too happy about whatever it ends up being.