Ever since the ACC signed their shiny new deal with the Orange Bowl, there's been plenty of talk about the conference's opponent for the game. A while back, I joined in and took a look at this myself, giving some options.
Nothing's guaranteed, but that opponent isn't sounding like it will be the Big East.
ACC commissioner John Swofford hasn't discussed this too much yet, but when asked about the Big East, you can almost hear the lack of interest in his voice through this quote in response to a question by ESPN Big East Blogger, Andrea Adelson:So I took your question to ACC commissioner John Swofford during ACC media day on Sunday, specifically asking whether there have been discussions with the Big East about forming an Orange Bowl partnership.
"Not specifically the Big East, no," he said Sunday. "We’ve had some discussions that could bring in a very broad group as a possibility."
Swofford clearly doesn't rule the Big East out, but he doesn't really mention them as a viable option, either. He could just have his poker face on, but more likely, the conference really isn't all that interested.
And how can you blame them?
Picking a strong Big East team some years would be one thing, but having them as an automatic tie-in can't possibly be at the top of the ACC's wish list. As I've mentioned before, the Big East is more than capable of rolling out a very strong conference champion. For that reason, a selection of the best available team might be the way to go. But, as we've seen, the Big East is also capable of producing a four-loss team as their champion and that's something the ACC wants to avoid
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