Most of the fans on this board were pulling their hair out and panicking each and every time a member of the BE left from Pitt/Cuse to WVU to ND and the crescendo just got louder with each one. Many facetious comments about "markets mattering" and "TP said we'll be okay" etc.. Even some more connected members of this board and I think one of the mods too thought the window was closing and that our admin/TP included were surprised when the opportunity came on suddenly even though talks had always been going on for a long time.
During all that I always said the our market will pull us out of the BE with the B10 being the most likely destination but out of the BE regardless of where. No inside info, no nothing just seeing the lay of the land. I gave the example of how Larry Scott had to get approval from USC/UCLA, the 2 schools in the PAC12's largest market, to get full equal revenue sharing going in the PAC12. They gave him a threshold to meet, he blew that number out of the water and the PAC12 got full revenue sharing. Also gave the example of the NFL, the most profitable and successful sports organization in the country, and how they despite all their success still desire to have a team in LA even though they've flourished without it. The logistics however of getting that done aren't always easy as opposed to just plucking us out of the BE. So as long as we didn't have a buffoon in the AD's chair, I've always thought we were getting out of the BE when this conference realignment thing got going and mainly due to our market. That certainly wasn't the feeling of the majority of this board at the time.
Del Conte did a nice job and I give him credit but it's Gary Patterson who got them to where they are. Without his very successful football team, they wouldn't have had a chance. So may finishes in the rankings including multiple top tens and BCS bowls that's what got them despite being in a heavily Texas conference. Without that, all his powers of persuasion and politicking wouldn't have been worth a darn. He wasn't the one who promoted Patterson to HC. It's still not easiest thing getting TCU into a heavily Texas centric conference though, so I give him credit I'd tick it down a notch.
The one AD and pretty much the only AD I give a ton of credit to in getting his school to a much better location is Tom Jurich. It's not really his politicking or powers of persuasion I credit either, it's really something that he built at Louisville over his entire 17-18 year tenure there. Here was a school threatened to being thrown of CUSA when he took over, the 2nd school in the state and nothing particularly special academically and he built it into one of the best athletic departments in the country. Built up football to a BCS bowl team and ranked team, built on top of what they were in basketball and raised the level of their Olympic sports and greatly improved Louisville's athletic infrastructure. So over the course of his career there he made a school you wouldn't think much about in this whole realignment saga into a fairly attractive and irresistible candidate considering its other deficiencies like market or academic status. So like I said it's not anything he did just at the end journey when they finally got into the ACC I give credit for, it's all the work he did to get them ready for that point. So I give him major kudos for his career achievement there that made them very attractive to be chosen.
