Boston College will become league's 12th team(to join ACC tomorrow)

Boston College will leave the Big East Conference to become the 12th member of the Atlantic Coast Conference when an official invitation is offered Sunday, an ACC university official told the New York Times for Saturday's editions.

According to that official, Boston College is expected to be overwhelmingly approved when the ACC universities hold a conference call Sunday. Boston College will then immediately accept the invitation, according to the report.

In June, Miami and Virginia Tech announced that they would leave the Big East for the ACC starting in the 2004-05 academic year.

Adding a 12th team became much more critical for the ACC after the NCAA Championship Cabinet and Football Issues committee recently failed to recommend that the NCAA management council allow a championship football game for leagues with fewer than 12 teams. Boston College's addition would put the ACC in position to hold a championship game worth an additional $10 million.

Spokesmen for Boston College and the Big East declined to comment to the Times. ACC officials could not be reached for comment.

ESPN.com's Andy Katz reported Friday that the exit fee from the Big East could range from $1 million to $5 million.

The defection of Boston College, along with Miami and Virginia Tech, weakens the Big East, which is pursuing four colleges from Conference USA.

Louisville and Cincinnati could join Pittsburgh, West Virginia, Syracuse, Connecticut and Rutgers in a Big East football division (Temple has been voted out after 2004). Conference USA's Marquette and DePaul, which do not play football, are being courted to join the Big East's non-football sports.

http://cbs.sportsline.com/general/story/6711423

Wind blowing 7-2 in favor of ACC inviting BC Oct. 10, 2003
By Gregg Doyel
SportsLine.com Senior Writer

While the past four months have shown nothing about ACC expansion is final until commissioner John Swofford makes an announcement, ACC schools are prepared to add Boston College as a 12th member by a 7-2 vote, SportsLine.com has learned.

Multiple sources confirmed that count Friday night, though each source also cautioned that much back-room politicking remains to be done, and that this process has taken unforeseen turns in the past -- including the spurning of Boston College in late June. That happened when the league abruptly abandoned its 18-month plan of inviting BC, Syracuse and Miami to add Miami and Virginia Tech, a previously undiscussed option.

As of Friday, the two ACC schools against the admission of Boston College were North Carolina, which has opposed expansion nearly every step of the way on economic and traditional grounds, and North Carolina State, which is concerned about losing the league's geographic footprint. That said, the ACC's "official" expansion vote still could be 9-0, similar to its early 1990s expansion when the eight-member league barely invited Florida State, then put an 8-0 sheen on what had been a divisive process.

Like this one.

Duke, a longtime expansion opponent, is the swing vote now prepared to vote for a 12th team. Duke's change of heart has come in recent weeks, after the NCAA informally shot down the ACC's bid to stage a lucrative conference football title game with fewer than 12 members. Adding Miami and Virginia Tech, without getting a potential $10 million football title game, increases the ACC's potential for a financial loss in growing from nine to 11 schools.

Seven of nine votes are needed for the ACC to extend an invitation to Boston College. For expansion to be scuttled in the next 72 hours, the two most likely "yes" votes to switch to "no" are Duke, which has waffled several times already, and Wake Forest, which has been privately divided on this issue at the school's highest level.

ACC presidents and chancellors have scheduled a Sunday conference call to vote on Boston College, with the possibility of an invitation being extended that day -- although, again, this story has taken strange turns for months. That includes the ACC's intense courting of Notre Dame in recent weeks, which league presidents and chancellors vetoed on the grounds that the ACC should not accept conditional members.

Notre Dame was Plan A, and Boston College is Plan B. Should this fall through, sources say, Plan C is not another school, but another run at convincing NCAA membership to allow the 11-team ACC to stage a football title game.

If invited, sources say Boston College would say yes -- an answer that would be easier to make now that a Connecticut Superior Court judge has dropped the ACC as a defendant in a lawsuit filed by Big East schools. Miami remains a defendant, charged with conspiring with the ACC to damage the Big East.

If the Eagles are coming to the ACC, they would want to come quickly. Big East presidents are scheduled to meet Nov. 4, when they are expected to more than double the $2 million buyout Boston College currently would face to leave the league in time for the 2004-05 season.

Should Boston College follow Miami and Virginia Tech out of the Big East, that league most likely would take a long look at one of two directional Florida schools, Central Florida or South Florida, to join Cincinnati, Louisville, Marquette and DePaul as potential new members.

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