ACC's Swofford not shutting door on expansion possibilities

GREENSBORO, NC -- So you thought expansion was dead? At least for a while, right?

ACC commissioner John Swofford barely gave us time to catch our breath Sunday at the ACC media days. Just when you thought things were settling down, the mild-mannered Swofford ratcheted up the expansion angst.

"History would tell you there are going to be periodic shifts," Swofford said during his annual state-of-the-league press conference. "It may mean 10 years. It may mean 20 years. A lot of this has settled at 12 for a period. Up to 12 [teams] it seems to work pretty well."

But, Swofford added, the league has studied 14- and 16-team structures.

"We know what it would look like and what the advantages and disadvantages would be," he said. "It gets a lot more complicated. There's a reason it hasn't happened. But that doesn't mean it won't happen."

College athletics stopped short of ushering in the age of the super conference this summer. When Texas decided to stay in the Big 12, it halted Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott's six-team raid. The only shifts were by Nebraska (to the Big Ten), Boise State (to the Mountain West) and Colorado and Utah (to the Pac-10).

Before those moves, it was the ACC that clumsily raided the Big East five years ago. The results have been mixed with the league losing traction as the nation's top basketball conference. A case can be made for expansion making ACC football worse. Florida State and Miami have struggled to remain on the national scene while the ACC has moved to 2-10 in BCS bowls all time.

The slippage since expansion didn't hurt the conference's negotiating power. It recently agreed to a $1.86 billion, 12-year bundled deal with ESPN. For the first time, the ACC football and basketball contracts rest in one place. An ESPN official said that any change in conference membership would cause the contract to be adjusted immediately.

The Big 12 lost two members over the summer but the network said it would honor the terms of the original contract which runs for five more years.

"Before we went to 12 we were not positioned to be at the highest level," Swofford said. "It [expansion] strengthened us overall. Beyond that, I don't know. There may be a diminishing return [beyond 12]."

Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany has said the league will "pause" after inviting Nebraska in June. However, there has been speculation about the Big Ten's interest in Maryland and/or Georgia Tech. Both schools would bring a market (Atlanta and Washington-Baltimore) for the Big Ten Network. Also, it would open up lucrative recruiting territories to the Big Ten. It also fits with Delany's claim that population drain from the Rust Belt is reason enough to expand.