Here is an interesting piece from CBSSportsline’s Dennis Dodd titled “Expect ACC to play an influential role as playoff era begins” that was written a couple of days ago. Dodds looks at where the ACC was 2 years ago and then at the conference’s promising future. It is fascinating to remember realignment-palooza of 2012. There were some that felt that ACC was in real danger of falling apart.

I never subscribed to that train of thought as there was too much mis-information running around at that time, that in some cases was just completely wrong. Take a look at my archives from 2012 for some of those articles. Who would ever think Tier 3 rights would be discussed so much?

That said when Maryland departed by surprise, those were some nervous weeks, but it all seems like ancient history. now. Here’s an excerpt from Dodd’s article.

It was about this time a year ago that the ACC announced a grant of rights that effectively stopped conference realignment in its tracks. The musical chairs league-hopping that almost tore the game apart was all but finished when the ACC members agreed to a grant of rights.

“It was a very pivotal point, not just for our conference,” said Swofford, the ACC commissioner. “I think it settled the overall landscape with the major conferences.”

It also put the ACC in a leadership position that continues today.

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