Tidbits from Day 1, where Swofford led off with his “State of the ACC” address.
John Swofford: @theACC became the second conference to win the nat'l champ and a second BCS bowl last year. The SEC did it four times 98-13.
— Aaron Brenner (@Aaron_Brenner) July 20, 2014
Swofford: "We as a conference are strongly in favor of an early signing period (for football)."
— Pat Forde (@YahooForde) July 20, 2014
Swofford: "Anytime a university is having an NCAA issue, you like to have it clarified and put to rest and move forward." Re: UNC.
— Pat Forde (@YahooForde) July 20, 2014
Swofford: "I can remember for years Mike Slive and I being the lone voices in the BCS meeting room pushing for a playoff."
— Pat Forde (@YahooForde) July 20, 2014
With a straight face? RT @JonSolomonCBS: Swofford makes his pitch that ACC has played the toughest nonconference schedule in recent years.
— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) July 20, 2014
Swofford says ACC traditionally has "arguably" played Marion's toughest non-conference schedule. Think that's worth arguing.
— Pat Forde (@YahooForde) July 20, 2014
The ACC's non-conference schedule was so "strong" last year that I don't recognize many of the logos on this grid. http://t.co/UVERmSfkuI
— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) July 20, 2014
ESPN:
ACC commissioner John Swofford is confident a proposal granting the Power Five conferences more autonomy will pass when it comes up for a vote next month.
…
Speaking at the start of ACC media days Sunday, Swofford admitted the proposal is not perfect, but it does more than enough to get much-needed changes implemented.
“I would guess there is nobody who will get everything they want at the end of the day … but the primary things I think are moving along very, very, very well, and I’ll be surprised if it doesn’t pass,” Swofford said. “There’s always compromise in these kinds of discussions, and the autonomy was the most important aspect of it. Autonomy just opens up a lot of opportunities for the five conferences to do some things that we feel are important, and most of those things are initially related to the student-athletes’ situation.”
Indeed, Swofford said first on the agenda would be the full cost of attendance, echoing comments SEC commissioner Mike Slive made last week. Swofford admitted there are various ways to enhance the cost of a scholarship, and more work needs to be done to come up with a consensus everyone can agree upon.
Swofford also said the ACC would be in favor of granting four-year scholarships, and believes the other Power Five conferences would be on board with that as well.
“The autonomy gives us the opportunity to come up with something that enough of us can agree upon that it’ll move forward for the five conferences, but there will be some interesting discussions,” Swofford said. “We’ll need to immediately begin developing a process for the five conferences and how we operate together in bringing about legislation that would be permissive for the five as well as permissive beyond the five for those who would want to take part in it.
“There’s going to be a lot of work to be done if this passes, in order to start the ball rolling and determine how we are going to function.”
