stinger78 said:
You fit well within the ACC. The SECheat has worked for decades now to craft The Narrative, that they are inherently better and thus more worthy. It's irritating.
Oh trust us, possibly no one knows better than (former) PAC fans. A quick breakdown of the past decade(ish):
- SEC and PAC were considered the top 2 conferences
- Southern Cal throws a tantrum to block Oklahoma and UT-Austin from joining the conference, UT-Austin's insistence on keeping the Longhorn Network and all it's profits was another sticking point but one that could've been negotiated
- Larry Scott, self-stylized media executive and highest paid commissioner in history, refuses to take Disney/ESPN on as a partner and sell shares of the P12 Network to them. Disney/ESPN instead partner with the SEC as a majority media partner
- The common refrain becomes SEC dominance, when they beat each other in conference play it's a sign of overall strength, when the PAC beats each other it's because they're terrible (also playing a 9-game conference slate because Larry Scott failed to lead meant a guaranteed extra 6 losses per year and extra week of tough conference battles)
- ESPN promotes the hell out of the SEC, claims they're the best, and uses that as further reason to promote them and provide the best time slots and most exposure. That, in turn, leads to more recruits looking to them because they cover exposure, which leads to them improving and poaching West Coast recruits, which leads to more exposure and the cycle continues
- All the while their is a similar money cycle whereby money is funneled into the SEC which improves them which creates profits for Disney who then funnels more money into the SEC
- Average football fans around the country who watch their own team and then the best ranked matchups then are always seeing SEC games, this drives up their viewership and perception because of familiarity. The same fans who parrot the narrative that the PAC is trash despite never watching them play or following how much player and coaching talent they put into the NFL (see: Tagavailoa considered a better QB prospect than Justin Herbert because of SEC bias)
- Larry Scott's attempt to prop up his floundering "media empire" results in PAC relegation to late windows where the majority of the country doesn't watch them. This is done in order to avoid competition and to be the premier events in those windows to drum up value by being exclusive. It backfires and viewership plummets which then costs money and attention which perpetuates the cycles delineated previously
- Oklahoma and UT-Austin, now explained the benefits of forfeiting their exclusive network by a commissioner who knows how to lead even when unpopular, join the SEC
- The PAC blows up because Southern Cal, the very school that blocked potential conference saving expansion, negotiates in private to join the B10 while undermining the rest of the conference. They take UC Los Angeles (the rest of the LA market) with them despite the fact that the negotiated PAC deal would have been roughly on par with the B10 deal without the LA markets
A lot of these wounds were self-inflicted by poor management but one could argue that the SEC bull**** played a major, if not leading, role in the collapse of a 100 year conference history and regional football on the West Coast. We're happy as an ACC team and have no complaints, but idk if the grudge against the SEC will ever go away; and that, as much as anything else, is what makes us a perfect fit for the conference
