Bundle up, Virginia, the ACC is about to get a lot colder.
In a move which shows how little even its own members think of Big East football, Syracuse and Pittsburgh have applied to, and were subsequently unanimously accepted to, the Atlantic Coast Conference. The teams must give a 27-month notice to the Big East, so, for those of you who may not be very familiar with Virginia's new conference brethren, allow me to share quick preview of the new kids at school and what it will mean for the Cavaliers once the two schools officially make the jump to the new super-conference in the upcoming years.
Syracuse:\nEstablished in 1870 and a founding member of the Big East Conference in 1979, Syracuse is known primarily for two things: basketball and snow. According to my sources, however, there's actually much more to the school than those two things. The school is also well known for its ironic sense of humor. For instance, the school's athletic programs are known as the Orange, even though the school's annual 115.6 inches of snowfall on average and cold climate are in no way conducive to growing any type of citrus fruit.
Additionally, the school's athletic achievements rank the Orange among the nation's elite. Of special note is the Orangemen men's lacrosse team, which has won a record 11 national championships in the NCAA era. Although Syracuse's football team has been the butt of some jokes in recent years, the team has actually held at least a share of the conference championship as recently as 2004. The team has yet to reach the heights the program hit in the late 1990s when it won three straight Big East championships on the backs of future NFL stars Donovan McNabb, Marvin Harrison and Dwight Freeney, but with its victory in last season's Pinstripe Bowl, the program seems like its back on the track to national prominence.
However, when you think of Syracuse, you think basketball - and rightly so. In his 35 years as head coach, Jim Boeheim has helped to give rise to one of the most storied programs in the nation. Boeheim has led the Orangemen to a record 33 20-win seasons, five Big East championships and 25 NCAA tournament appearances - including the 2003 championship on the shoulders of Carmelo Anthony. Tony Bennett's squad will certainly have its hands full when it visits the Carrier Dome in upcoming seasons.
Pittsburgh:\nAlthough Pittsburgh's athletic teams are constantly among the nation's elite, they all lose points for creativity, as the school is one of 33 collegiate programs to go by the nickname of the Panthers. Unoriginal, alliterative names aside, the Panthers have long been a national powerhouse, being one of only five current NCAA Division I programs to capture multiple national championships in both football and basketball.
Although the Panthers excel at many non-revenue producing sports as well, Pittsburgh is best known for its football, and more recently, its basketball team. The basketball team has made the NCAA Tournament every year since 2002, securing two No. 1 seeds, one No. 2 seed and three No. 3 seeds during that span. The football team, meanwhile, has won at least a share of the Big East conference championship twice in the past six seasons, and made an appearance in the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl in 2004. New coach Todd Graham has attempted to introduce a no-huddle, high octane offense to the team, and has so far helped the Panthers average more than 30 points per game. If these first few weeks are a telling sign for the future of the program, then coach Mike London better start game planning now for the Cavaliers' first trip to Heinz Field.
Fun fact: The program also holds the honor of being the first collegiate football team to wear numbers on its jerseys - the first jersey modification in a direct, ancestral line to Maryland's new, eye sore jerseys. Just another reason to start hating the Panthers.
At the very least the inclusion of Pittsburgh in the ACC now means all Virginia fans have the opportunity to eat a sandwich at Primanti Bros. whenever they follow their heroes to the Steel City.\nNow, what does this mean for the balance of power in the ACC? Well, let's just say it doesn't help the Cavaliers' bids to return to prominence in the major sports. There's no telling where either program will be in three years once the move becomes official, but both Syracuse and Pittsburgh are top schools, and having to play either one of them will make Virginia's quest that much more difficult.
The greatest impact of the two schools' move, however, might be that their departure starts the snowball that leads to an avalanche of change throughout the Big East and ACC. Already schools like Rutgers and Connecticut have been linked to the ACC, and ACC commissioner John Swofford has gone on the record as saying that the conference is not "philosophically opposed" to expanding again to 16 teams. With the Pac-12, SEC and the increasingly misnamed Big-10 also contemplating moves toward a 16-team super-conference, the ACC might feel as though if it doesn't add more schools, it could fall behind in the race for network deals - such as the one the SEC has with CBS or the Big Ten Network - and other sponsorships. This move might be just a stepping-stone on the path toward the college athletic scene being dominated by just a handful of regional super-conferences.
Whether or not any of that speculation comes to fruition is beyond me, but out of these moves come two things I do know for certain: 1. Virginia's road to the top of the conference is about to get a lot harder in 27 months, and 2. the Cavaliers better bring their jackets along the way.
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