Report: Big Ten Expected ACC to Follow Decision to Postpone Football

Time to get back to that dead horse.

In a report from Sports Illustrated’s Wolverine Digest, the powers that be in the Big Ten expected the Pac-12 and the ACC to postpone fall sports after the Big Ten made the final decision.

From the article:

While there wasn’t a uniformed agreement between Power 5 power-brokers, our sources both in Chicago and Ann Arbor said the expectation was that once the Big Ten made its announcement, the Pac 12 would immediately follow (as it did) and then the ACC would follow suit too, putting tremendous pressure on the SEC and Big 12. The Big 12 would go next, and then the SEC, with nothing left to play for, would reluctantly give in.

So why the ACC third? Because many of the universities within the conference are esteemed educational schools, led by the same academic minds that populate the Big Ten. Particularly Duke, North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia Tech and even Florida State (surprisingly, the No. 18 public university nationally) were supposed to be in lockstep with the Big Ten and wield enough power to force the entire ACC into following the Big Ten’s lead.

The Pac-12 followed suit and the ACC almost did but it changed it’s mind. Why? Sounds like Notre Dame and Clemson were extremely persuasive.

The Big Ten Presidents thought they would be considered heroes for making the decision. That obviously has not happened. It is my opinion a lot of the angst is a result of the lack of transparency and communication from the Presidents and Commissioner Kevin Warren.

There are a lot of interesting things in the article so check it out.

I’ll leave you with this tidbit though:

Interestingly, sources in Ann Arbor, in Columbus, Lincoln, Madison, East Lansing and State College all believe that if the Big Ten vote was held today instead of 14 days ago, the conference would not have voted to postpone the season outright. The league might have announced it was moving the season back to late September but the din from players, coaches, fans, the media and (most importantly) big-money donors has created cracks.

“We’ve already seen a university like Nebraska, which from top-down took issue with postponing the season but eventually gave in, and now there are five, six, seven universities on any given day that would have voted differently if the vote was being held two weeks later.