Adam Gold: What's Not To Blame.

The football-watching world is not stupid. We know what's good and we know what's not. Right now, the ACC isn't good and we want to know why. You can blame it on recruiting, you can blame it on coaching, you can blame it on the football not being round, you can blame it on the revolution of the earth speeding up, you can blame it on Clay Aiken.

All of those factors, to varying degrees, could be factors in the demise of your favorite school. Personally, I like blaming Clay Aiken and the legion of loser fans he's spawned.

What you can't blame, is ACC Expansion. You just can't because there is zero connection between the addition of Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College and their football programs and the downturn in the quality of football.

If that were the case, you might as well blame Expansion of the league for the break up of Brad and Jennifer; the crisis in the Middle East; high prices at the pump; ESPN Mobile; Bert Reynolds’ face lift; global warming; and John Mark Carr.

Enough!

Life isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon. I know there’s another saying that goes, “Life is short”, but that’s only in relation to fact that the earth has been orbiting the Sun for billions of years. But, it probably speaks to the relative impatience that our society breeds. We want what we want yesterday, and if we have to wait until tomorrow or – gasp – next week, then “screw it I’m moving on!”

Louisville thumped Miami, Rutgers beat up on North Carolina, West Virginia ran over Maryland and Pittsburgh handled Virginia comfortably, thus the Big East is better than the ACC. That’s the conclusion. If we were just taking a snapshot of one year, I’d agree with you. But, somehow this debate has raged and bled over into an indictment of ACC Expansion, and those that are pointing their arrows at John Swofford and saying, “see, I told you it was a bad idea” should be smart enough to know better.

Just because Miami isn’t the Miami of 5 years ago, and Florida State is struggling on offense and the Terrapins have fallen off the cliff after 31 wins in Ralph Friedgen’s first three seasons doesn’t mean that expanding this league was the wrong idea.

It doesn’t mean we’ve invited the wrong schools, it doesn’t mean that expansion was evil, it doesn’t mean that the critics were right all along. It only means that the football teams in this league this year just aren’t as good as they could – and maybe should – be. And, it doesn’t mean that this is forever, either.

From the very beginning this was a long range plan. To position the ACC alongside the Big Ten and SEC as premiere football AND basketball conferences, and be able to better compete for television viewers as well as championships and – in turn – raise the financial bar for the league. By any measure you choose, this has been an overwhelming success, so far.

No one is denying that ACC football is off to a dreadful start. There isn’t one team that has looked really good in all phases of the game through 3 weeks and we have exactly zero teams that have a shot at winning a title. But, I just don’t get the idea that expansion is the culprit as much as a simple downturn in the football cycle.

Do you think for a minute that West Virginia or Syracuse or Connecticut wouldn’t give their left diploma to switch places with Boston College? You’ve got to be on more medication than Courtney Love if you believe they’d stay in the Big East if offered my (admittedly) very far-fetched scenario.

The point is that the expansion story was never going to be written in a “blue” book. This is an epic story, told over decades of success, future expansion (no, not to this league), and whatever dramatic alterations there would be to follow in the two major revenue-generating sports, football and men’s basketball.

The plan was not to destroy the Big East, any more than Mike Tranghese’s was when he snatched up Louisville, Cincinnati, South Florida, Marquette and DePaul from Conference USA. The rules are very clear; schools are allowed to align themselves with any conference they choose. There is no governing jurisdiction over such matters. Did the Big 8 destroy the Southwest Conference when they brought the Texas schools up and became the Big 12? Did the SEC start that avalanche by stealing away Arkansas?

What we’ve seen is the evolution of sports and the impact of professional sports on the college game. There used to be a time when the national championship was mythical. Teams were only concerned with winning their conferences, going to their bowl game, and if they so happened to be ranked number 1 on the morning of January 2nd then let’s have a party!

Now, with the only focus from fans being the evil BCS and the National Championship, the goals have – at least on the surface – changed. That mind-set is wrong. Nothing should have changed, as the only thing the BCS is supposed to do is give us the best #1 vs. #2 that it can. There will no doubt be seasons in which that is not possible and we’ve already dealt with that, and the sport is not going to abandon their bowl partners in the interest of a big money tournament.

The BCS games have now expanded to five, the four we’ve always known plus the National Championship Game played at the site of the Fiesta Bowl this year. We now have 32 bowl games to watch – or not watch, the prerogative is yours – as the bar has been lowered even more to qualify for a "successful" season. But, none of this is the fault of expansion. It’s natural in our sports culture to grow bigger, better, faster and stronger.

And, it’s also natural to not want to wait for the tree of expansion to bear fruit today. We’re all hungry for a big win. It’s not going to happen this year but, that doesn’t mean that it won’t happen.

Remember, it's a marathon.