Conference Realignment: Virginia Tech Staying Put

I'm reminded of that scene in Field of Dreams where Ray's brother-in-law Mark desperately tries to convince him to sell the farm.

Mark: Let's settle this thing now.
Ray: Look. I'm not selling.
Mark: You have no TV money. Come next fall, you'll have no marquee ACC programs to play. But, I have a deal that allows you to play marquee SEC football teams in primetime TV slots. On Saturdays!
Karin: Daddy Weaver? We don't have to go to the SEC.
Mark: You'll deliver the Washington D.C. market to a network already broadcast in our nation's Capitol!
Ray: What about UVa...
Mark: Do you realize how much the next SEC TV deal is worth?
Ray: Yeah. Yeah. $25 million a season.
Mark: We can't keep a great football program in a basketball conference.
Ray: Read my lips. We're staying, all right? We're staying.

And scene.

Remember all those apocalyptic, doomsday scenarios that send Florida State, Clemson, Miami and Georgia Tech to the Big 12, Virginia Tech and N.C. State to the SEC and Maryland, Virginia, Duke and North Carolina to the Big Ten? Well, that plan is news to Virginia Tech A.D. Jim Weaver who says the Hokies are staying put.

"Virginia Tech is in the middle of the footprint of the conference, he said. "We have wanted to be in the Atlantic Coast Conference since its beginning in 1953. We're happy with our membership and the quality of the academic institutions we associate with and we believe we are in the proper conference for us."

Three ACC football titles, four BCS bowl games and five Coastal Division titles in seven years would probably make me happy with my conference affiliation too. As for all those other conference realignment rumors swirling, Weaver doesn't seem too concerned.

"I don't really think there's anything going on," Weaver said. "I think it was an individual who made some comments from his perspective that got things riled up a little."

While Weaver doesn't ultimately call the shots for Virginia Tech, the school's A.D. also probably wouldn't speak out of turn unless he knew he had the backing of the school's president and Board of Trustees. This seems to confirm what I've been saying recently: the ACC's untimely demise is greatly exaggerated.

I believe Weaver when he claims that Virginia Tech is in the right conference, a conference that it took the school over 50 years to finally join. And if Virginia Tech is staying, so is Virginia. And if Virginia is staying, so is North Carolina and Duke. And Wake Forest. And probably BC.