I’d accept Texas to the ACC, but please no pandering to the Longhorns.

With the ACC’s gigantic football weekend coming up, this will be the last I write on the Texas to the ACC rumors until sometime next week. I’m going to focus on the games on the field. That said I haven’t commented on the Texas to the ACC rumors. I have no idea if this is Texas propaganda to get a sweeter from the Pac-12. I don’t know if there are some serious under table meetings between Texas and the ACC that have gone further that some preliminary discussion. As a fan of the ACC I want the conference to keep the teams it has and if necessary continue to grow. I just can’t decide if I really want Texas in the ACC.

At first glance you might say Hello ACC! it’s the Texas “freaking” Longhorns! They are easily one of the 5 biggest entities in college football, heck college sports. You bring the Texas market to the ACC, and you immediately give credibility to ACC football that has struggled in recent years. The Longhorns basketball program is pretty strong too, and you open the ACC to the great big recruiting base of Texas. TV revenue would certainly go up. What’s not to like?

This is where things get a little messy. Talk to a Texas A&M, Nebraska, or Colorado and they’ll tell you Texas is devil that ran off the rest of the Big 12 with their Longhorn Network agreement with ESPN. That the conference was run into the ground by Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe and his lack of vision, and that Texas treated everyone else in the conference like they were beneath them and coerced the conference into un-equal revenue sharing.

Before anyone says well Texas is thousands of miles away from the Atlantic Coast Conference base, let’s get one thing straight in the current makeup of collegiate athletics geographic responsibility means nothing. All I have to say is TCU is joining the Big East, and Oklahoma\Oklahoma St may join the Pac 12. At the end of the day, Texas just offers too much as a national brand to be ignored.

The ACC must be careful though. First no moving the conference headquarters from North Carolina to Texas, like when the Big 8 expanded to the Big 12, when the conference headquarters went from Kansas City, Missouri to Texas. It maybe ok for the Longhorn Network to exist, my understanding is that Tier 3 TV contracts with the schools are acceptable. In addition since the ACC’s TV contract is with the ESPN and the LHN’s is too, I imagine something could be worked out there. Even to outsiders there was the appearance that Texas ran the Big 12. This can’t happen in the ACC, and I don’t think it will.

With all that has happened to the Big 12, the ACC and it’s teams will enter any discussion with Texas eyes wide open. If there is a feeling of pandering to Texas, any number of ACC schools could make a move elsewhere. Unless the ACC is the most-mismanaged conference in America outside of the Big 12, this won’t happen either.

The Big 12 has taught the rest of the country everything not to do with a conference. If the ACC was paying attention, which I am sure they were, then yes if the possibility arrived I’d be ready to accept Texas to the ACC. Texas bring along a couple of friends and we can make this 4 team 4 pod system work.