CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Let's rewind five years, shall we? Conference realignment destabilized the college football foundation we had come to know. Talk about 16-team superconferences started dominating the discussion, and soon survival of the fittest scenarios began unfolding.
The ACC? Many thought the future looked bleak, especially after Florida State and the Big 12 became publicly tangled in a public relations mess that dominated spring meetings in 2012. A few months later, Maryland decided to join the Big Ten and left the ACC reeling.
What is a commissioner to do? If you are John Swofford, you swat away any doomsday talk and make your league stronger.