ACC turmoil could benefit WVU

So, when a story breaks that Clemson, Florida State, Miami, North Carolina, North Carolina State, Virginia and Virginia Tech have begun looking into leaving the ACC, any number of possibilities that could improve West Virginia’s position seem to be out there before the Mountaineers.

Now, these talks certainly are being done with very little thought of WVU among the other schools as it is potential membership in the SEC for Clemson, Florida State and Miami front and center and with both North Carolina and Virginia potential jumps to the Big Ten.

But one could easily see Virginia Tech making a move into the Big 12, perhaps along with North Carolina State, making life far more comfortable in the new Big 12 for WVU than it has been, suddenly in an eastern wing of the ever-expanding conference with Cincinnati and Central Florida.

Would Louisville want to remain in the ACC without the seven other schools or would it more enjoy a relationship in a conference with WVU, Cincinnati and Virginia Tech, a conference that would almost certainly in football be more of a power base than an ACC without Clemson, Florida State and Miami?

Who knows what else would shake free if such a defection hit the ACC. Could not Pitt, which, with Syracuse, would prefer jumping to the Big Ten, not be courted by a bigger, stronger Big 12 if the Big Ten weren’t ready to adopt them?

The Big 12 has been interested in expanding into the West to have a shore-to shore footprint, having rumored to be talking with Utah, Arizona, Arizona State and Colorado, but would not expanding eastward at the same time give it even a bigger, richer, stronger geographic hold on the nation?

Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark seems proactive in making the move into the future an exciting one for his conference and there may not be a better time for creativity combined with a power play to allow the Big 12 to keep pace with the SEC and Big Ten, which are trying to become the dominating and ruling powers within college sports.

It doesn’t appear that anyone could match the SEC with Georgia, Alabama, Oklahoma, Texas, Florida, Clemson, Florida State, LSU, Auburn and Miami as members, but that really isn’t a change in the power structure.

If the Big 12 could somehow land Miami, which is not locked in as heading to the SEC should the ACC come apart, and Louisville to go with Virginia Tech and N.C. State you would have a solid lineup of schools with a history of success in both football and basketball.

If one could wave a magic wand, one would like to see the Power 5 conferences break completely away from the NCAA and take control of top tier college sports and split its teams up into conferences that would be regional in nature and competitively balanced, but the logistics of that and its effect on media rights probably presents too large a barrier to be scaled.

And while they are at it, it is time to drop the pretense that college sports and professional sports are different, for in reality the only thing that separates them in the modern world is the ivy-covered walls on campus.

A college’s mission is to prepare students for future life and it is becoming more and more evident that life in athletics as player, coach, agent, media member, advertising icon .... whatever should be made an educational major at schools within Power 5 conferences to ready those who enter that profession can be prepared for the life they have chosen to follow.