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The ACC proudly announced the return of College Championships to the state of North Carolina. Boldly proclaiming “the return of neutral-site championships in the state of North Carolina,” all must now seem right again in the minds of those on Tobacco Road.

Perhaps the conference hierarchy that is from, lead, and run by those in the state of North Carolina can breathe more easily now that they are back in full control. UNC’s recent national basketball championship may highlight the strength of a great basketball conference, but those in Clemson and Tallahassee and perhaps Louisville and Miami who care about football and need comparable funds to compete with the SEC and Big 10 must feel like the budget guru’s in the Soviet Union felt when Ronald Reagan decided to try to outspend them. For those who failed history, it didn’t turn out very well for the side with less money!

It would be easy to dismiss facts, given that FSU and Clemson recently won National Championships in football, but leaders and fans outside of NC must consider several things: Is the state of NC a neutral-site if you come from Syracuse, S. Carolina or Florida? Is it time to rename the conference the NCC to fully recognize that the conference is housed, run and managed entirely in North Carolina by North Carolina schools? Why did we grant our rights to a conference that is led by people who are 5 years behind conference peers and worst of all, how can we compete with schools that get $20M a year more because their conference leaders created better deals for them than John Swofford and his NC cronies did for us in the ACC?

If Presidents and Athletic Directors at Clemson, Miami, Florida State, Louisville and even Georgia Tech, Boston College and Syracuse aren’t asking themselves these questions, then they should be charged with dereliction of duty.

The Great Conference Realignment of 2008-10 shook the world. It forced deals that were once unheard of (granting of media rights) and revealed in full glare that the most august, high-brow academics who often argued that these “conferences were about much more than sports” were right – we learned that conferences and all they represented were all about nothing more than money!

Regardless, the realignment craze created an opportunity to win or lose. The Big East was destroyed, the Big 10 and SEC grew stronger. It’s difficult to argue that the ACC won by adding two basketball schools in Louisville and Syracuse, and a half-pregnant spouse in Notre Dame. The missed opportunity did give John Swofford the chance to lock down the media rights of his member schools. Given these facts, it appears that the conference gained strength – but not against its peers, but against and at the expense of its member universities’ autonomy.