ACC staying at 15 teams, for now
By: rmacrae@bellsouth.net November 28, 2012

By Will Vandervort.

By Will Vandervort

CLEMSON — With the addition of Louisville to the Atlantic Coast Conference Wednesday, Commissioner John Swofford said the conference is content with the 14 full-time members it now has back in place for football, and then 15 with Notre Dame in all other sports.

“Where we continue to come out is that we are very comfortable with 14,” Swofford said. “That’s where we came out again in our deliberations of the past few days.”

The ACC Council of Presidents unanimously voted to accept the University of Louisville as its newest member Wednesday; nine days after the University of Maryland decided it was leaving the ACC for the Big 10.

“Obviously, we felt bases on where we ended up that Louisville was the right fit of the Atlantic Coast Conference and would enhance our league going forward,” Swofford said. “We are just glad a program and a university of this caliber was there and very interested in being a part of the ACC.

“This things need to be a two-way street and certainly I see this and the league sees this as a win-win.”

Louisville, who played in the 2007 Orange Bowl in Football and played in the Final Four in men’s basketball last year, brings the ACC a solid athletic program that has played at the elite level in all three major sports. The Cardinals’ baseball program played in the College World Series in 2007, and is a frequent visitor to the NCAA Tournament.

The ACC chose Louisville over Connecticut and Cincinnati.

“What the ACC needed was to add the most exciting sports program we could,” said North Carolina Chancellor Holden Thorp. “That is the way to assure that the success of the ACC in sports was successful enough to allow us to keep our group together. We talked about that extensively.

“Louisville, and Jim Ramsey, is an excellent leader in higher education. He is doing an excellent job with their university and it is on an upward scale so I think we feel real good about Louisville in every respect. But, out logic was, we wanted to make the ACC an exciting sports conference as we could and we felt that Louisville did that for us the best.”

Louisville will compete on the ACC athletic fields in 2014-’15 and will be in the ACC’s Atlantic Division for football and baseball. Its Coastal Divisional rival will be Virginia.