I do agree Louisville is a good add for the ACC, I just find it contrived to see the ACC try so hard pushing propaganda. Here is the combining the word 'stability' with the word 'ACC.'
The ACC is anything but and the next 5-10 years will show that. It might stay together, but that doesn't equal 'stability.' My guess is football schools will get increasing frustrated at coming revenue differences and promises made during GOR time that won't be kept.
But again...that is just all old news....but this is worth repeating:
"Louisville is the seventh former Big East member to enter the ACC since 2004"
That is NOT good for the ACC, but revenue dynamics and now the actual schools themselves show the ACC future to be very much in line with the Big East part 2.
Expect lots more propaganda coming for the ACC in future years to try and win the battle they are in with empty words and slogans instead of actual revenue, networks, and competitive football teams outside FSU/Clemson.
Louisville's arrival likely to bring welcome stability to ACC
"The ACC has expanded from nine to 15 members in the last decade, but if you want to see a growth spurt that would make Yao Ming blush, check out the University of Louisville.
"When I took the job 17 years ago, I think our budget was $14.9 million," Cardinals athletic director Tom Jurich said. "Now we're pushing $100 million, and although it's been rapid, I think it's been very smart growth. We had a goal in place, and the ultimate goal was to find our way to a conference with the (status) of the ACC."
That ambition will be officially realized Tuesday when Louisville enters the ACC, a forceful counter to charter member Maryland's exit for the Big Ten. Announced in November 2012, the move certainly enhances both parties and likely dawns an era of welcome stability for the league.
"Louisville is just riding a crest of momentum coming into the league that really is pretty remarkable," Swofford said. "As a former athletic director (at North Carolina), I have a lot of respect for what Tom Jurich has done in his time there and the leadership he has shown and where he's brought that program from to where it is today.
"I don't know that there's an athletic director in the country over that span of time that's done a better job. Their facilities are top-notch. Their teams are top-notch. They have a tremendous fan base that will be great for our league as well."
The Cardinals are 23-3 the last two football seasons combined and have sold out their 63 suites for 2014, a first. They join an ACC Atlantic Division that includes the reigning national champion in Florida State and Orange Bowl winner in Clemson.
Louisville won the 2013 national championship in men's basketball and perennially ranks among the nation's top five in attendance. The women's basketball program has reached five Sweet 16s in the last seven years, twice falling in the NCAA title game to Connecticut.
Softball, rowing, women's lacrosse and men's swimming also were nationally prominent in 2013-14 as the Cardinals placed 30th in the Directors' Cup all-sports standings, their second-best finish, but behind five of their new league rivals.
"We're strong across the board, (but) we're going to have some incredible challenges," Jurich said. "I think the ACC is the best conference in the country, especially in the Olympic sports. They just excel like nobody else. We have to raise the bar on our campus."
Previously the athletic director at Northern Arizona and Colorado State, Jurich has steered Louisville from Conference USA to the Big East to the American Athletic Conference to the ACC. Most impressively and improbably, he has orchestrated a 545-percent increase in department revenue, without power-conference television windfalls and without burdening students with onerous fees.
Louisville reported $96.2 million in athletic revenue for 2013-14, more than any ACC public school and 18th nationally, according to a USA Today database. No public school from outside the five power conferences — ACC, Pacific 12, Big 12, Big Ten and Southeastern — approached those numbers.
Connecticut of the American Athletic reported $63.3 million, but $18.9 million was courtesy of student fees/subsidies. Rutgers, departing the American for the Big Ten on Tuesday, took in $79.0 million, but $47.0 million in subsidies. Louisville's total included only $10.9 million in subsidies.
Since 2005, the Cardinals' revenue has more than doubled, from $41.2 million, with exponential increases in merchandising, donations and ticket sales. Rather than hoard that money, Jurich has used it to build state-of-the-art infrastructure and to hire and retain quality coaches — Louisville spent $92.4 million in 2013-14.
"I want to make sure our coaches have the resources to compete," he said.
"Louisville's had the foresight and good sense to recognize an outstanding leader and understand what that kind of leadership over an extended period of time can mean, and have kept him there, because Tom's had numerous opportunities to leave," Swofford said. "I think the fact that he has stayed and built something very special has to give him a great deal of satisfaction. Tom won't make it about him, and good ADs don't, but you can't help but understand that much of what has happened at the University of Louisville is due to his vision and his leadership and his energy."
Louisville is the seventh former Big East member to enter the ACC since 2004, joining Virginia Tech, Miami, Boston College, Pittsburgh, Syracuse and Notre Dame. This for a conference that added only Georgia Tech and Florida State the previous 50 years, while losing only South Carolina.
With current membership bound by a grant of media rights signed last spring, the ACC is poised to remain intact long-term. Such stability can do nothing but help the league as college football's Bowl Subdivision adopts a four-team playoff in 2014 and Division I braces for radical reform authored by the major conferences and designed to empower athletes.
Moreover, the ACC has no reason to even consider expansion unless Notre Dame joins for football. And no one is holding his breath waiting for the Fighting Irish to forgo football independence.
"That would be a welcome change, obviously," Swofford said of Notre Dame football entering the ACC. "But I say that hesitantly in the sense that I don't think people should have that expectation. If Notre Dame does join a conference in football, it would be the Atlantic Coast Conference. But when we as a league made the agreement with Notre Dame on full membership with the exception of football, but playing five ACC-Notre Dame football games per year, we did that on face value, not on some anticipation that Notre Dame would be expected to join (for football)."
Louisville is among the ACC schools playing the Irish this football season, and the Cardinals debut as conference members with a nationally televised, prime-time home game versus Miami on Labor Day. Further extending the welcome mat, the ACC scheduled marquee home basketball games for Louisville against Duke and North Carolina.
"This is our fourth conference (in 17 years)," Jurich said, "and hopefully it's our last. … It's been incredible for this community to stand behind us the way they have and to be so generous and gracious. … We can grow so much more. The doors that will open in the ACC will be phenomenal for us."
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