Pete Thamel of the New York Times is reporting that both Syracuse and Pittsburgh are engaged in talks to join the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC).
The athletic directors at each school both declined comment when reached earlier, as did Big East commissioner John Marinatto (though with him, we're not even sure he's aware of this yet, if his past performance is to be considered). However, ACC spokeswoman Amy Yakola did give a comment. Hint, there's not much to it.
"We’ve been dealing with the fluidity of the conference landscape on multiple levels for a week," said Amy Yakola, the A.C.C.’s associate commissioner for public relations and marketing, "and at this point we wouldn’t be able to comment on speculation."
If this were to be true, it would be a HUGE loss for the Big East, and one that may signal the end of the conference as we know it. It would almost certainly end Villanova's chances of moving up to the FBS (in my opinion at least), as most of the other Big East football schools would look for a new home either in the Big Ten, SEC or ACC.
The Big East basketball-only schools would almost certainly look to band together and add some of the A-10 schools such as Xavier and Dayton that fit their profile in the hopes of forming a very strong basketball-only league.
Any way you slice it, if this news is true, it's not ideal for Villanova.
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