FSU & Conference history

With FSU at a bad point football wise, ACC payout at an all time deficit, and FSU fans again sick of the horrible officiating state of the ACC (I hate this complaint....Miami was the better team, but ACC officiating is a problem), this topic has come up again.  



https://floridastate.forums.rivals.com/threads/okay-i-admit-it.234442/page-2

The SEC sent a letter to FSU in order to prepare to be invited. It was not initiated by FSU. The ACC wanted a football team and they asked Syracuse first, who turned them down. By the time the ACC contacted FSU, the SEC had already spoken to them. When the SEC came to Tallahassee to meet with FSU, the SEC was in shock that FSU was serious about joining the ACC. The LSU reps tried to talk about culture and ticket sales, but to no avail. Afraid that FSU would publicly turn down the SEC in favor of the ACC, the SEC decided to pull the invitation. So you can stomp your feet and cry out that the SEC never invited FSU - and you would be correct - but it was only because the FSU committee was enamored with the SEC. There was a group of influential boosters that thought that FSU did not need the SEC for football, but the ACC added a lot of non football benefits. I will respond to the “Bobby quote” next 

Bobby was not on the search committee. He thought we would choose the SEC. When he heard about the ACC deal, he intervened in protest because he was afraid that we would lose either the annual UF or Miami game. And he thought that the SEC would provide more money. Goin reached out to the ACC for help. The original deal was for FSU to join full time football in 1995. It was changed to 1992 and the ACC agreed to share the basketball TV revenue equally. There was no such negotiation with the SEC. After it was announced that FSU was joining the ACC, there was massive fan pushback. So Bobby made that joking comment. It was stupid for him to say it, and it has been interpreted as a driving force for choosing the ACC -and it wasn’t. 

It is true that a few years ago that FSU reached out to the SEC, but it is true this time that the SEC was not interested. Michigan refused to allow the Big Ten to consider FSU. The Big 12 had some boosters interested in FSU and Clemson - not sure how strong an opportunity that was - but Barron was ridiculous in insulting that conference in a letter - while he was always pursuing other career options outside of FSU 

northvanole,