According to ESPN’s latest football recruiting rankings, the ACC has three of the top 10 teams, with Notre Dame knocking at the top 10 at #11. Specifically, Florida State is at #4, Clemson is at #8, and Miami is at #10. The three traditional ACC powers are where they should be in the recruiting rankings. But there is other good news.
As a follow-up to the recent article about UConn‘s sad status of being left out of a “Power 5” conference (SEC, B1G, ACC, Big XII, Pac12), and speculation of Texas someday joining the ACC, I started to think about what could be next for the teams in the American Athletic Conference, as well as other “mid-major” football programs.
As pointed out by one of the astute commenters, the schools in the new Big East will make more money per year than schools in the AAC. It’s a sad fact that the schools WITH football teams are making less money than the BASKETBALL schools.
Frankly, if anyone can make a compelling argument for being included as “Power Conference” it’s the Big East (for basketball) and possibly the MAC (football).
Which is why I think that I may have finally found a solution that could work. Instead of trying to compete against each other to get the illusive “sixth spot” and be considered as an equal to the rest of the Football Conferences, the mid-major conferences of the MWC, C-USA, and AAC should form a new league: the Mountain West Conference USAmerican Athletic Conference. Read more…
It is being reported that ESPN News is going to broadcast the amnesty selection of highly-recruited leaker/traitor, Edward Snowden, the former government contractor that leaked confidential information from the NSA. Read more…
ESPN is reporting that former Notre Dame quarterback, Everett Golson, plans to return to the Fighting Irish in the spring. For Notre Dame fans, this is a good–but, of course, not nearly as good as having him for 2013. Quite obviously, Golson was instrumental in Notre Dame’s 12-1 season in 2012.
To the average pro-imperialism Big 10 fan, the ACC is ripe for colonization. Indeed, there is a certain sense of “Well, the grant of rights is nice, but we’ll be back for Virginia, North Carolina, and a few other schools soon enough.” Just take a look at the comments over at Frank the Tank. The only issue for them is whether the Big 10 goes to 16 or 20 or 24. Let’s assume, however, that the Big 10 was able to take Kansas and Virginia (as they predict) in the next round of expansion… do not be surprised to see Texas in the ACC. Consider this…
Syracuse has received a verbal commitment from 4-star WR recruit KJ Williams according to Syracuse.com http://www.syracuse.com/orangefootball/index.ssf/2013/07/syracuse_football_recruiting_o_9.html
While a 4-star recruit may not be big news for most of the ACC, this certainly is a good sign for the Orange. Now I’m just hoping the verbal stays solid through signing day!
The Confidential, candidly, is disturbed by this whole conference realignment thing. There are many schools–think Wake Forest and Iowa State–that are extremely vulnerable if the 5 major conferences turn into 4. There is something inherently “wrong” in dispatching a “have” team into the “have not” category. Even worse, there are schools that have already been relegated to this status. Think of the University of Connecticut Huskies.
Around halfway through the season last year UNC coach Roy Williams realized that his team was at their best when they went small. He plugged shooting guard P.J. Hairston into the starting lineup and played with only one big in James Michael Mcadoo. UNC went on to string off several impressive victories before making a deep run in the ACC tournament.
On Monday, the Confidential kicked off the countdown to, well, kick-off, with the announcement that we will be sponsoring free fantasy football leagues. As we begin to head towards the season opener, we will take a look at the ACC’s top playmakers–ergo, the top fantasy football studs–for 2013. Today, we will begin with the quarterbacks.
The Confidential 