It was a poignant scene at midfield of Lane Stadium last Saturday afternoon. Following Tech’s easy 51-7 pounding of Syracuse, Frank Beamer and Paul Pasqualoni met and embraced. These two adversaries whose battles, sometimes epic and with each winning six of the last twelve games in what was the Big East’s best and most competitive rivalry, spoke at length after what was likely to be the final matching of wits between the two. They then strode away to what will be markedly different futures for their respective programs. You have to admire the dignity displayed by Pasqualoni, as I imagine his natural impulse was to drop to the turf, grab hold of Frank’s pants leg and beg, "Please, please, take me with you."

Only about seventeen hours after Tech had dispatched the Orangepersons and around the time the SU coaches were meeting Sunday morning to burn the tape of Tech’s total domination of their squad, the ACC presidents held another (and what should be the last for a while) of their now-famous conference calls and voted to add Fredo as the twelfth member of the ACC. Faster than the Hoos can drop out of the national rankings, the ACC had completed its schedule for this Conference Realignment Season, and Syracuse found itself on the outside looking in. There is no bigger loser in realignment than Syracuse.

As far back as 1999, when Syracuse was tabbed along with Miami and Virginia Tech for what turned out to be a failed ACC expansion, and as recently as last May, the Orangepersons had good reason to believe that they would escape the Big East and land on their feet among the lucky survivors of the ACC raid. Now they find themselves stuck in a L’il E that keeps getting littler and littler. I find it very difficult to generate much sympathy for Syracuse.

I also find more than a touch of disingenuousness in the remarks of Syracuse AD Jake Crouthamel during his Monday whining about the conclusion of ACC expansion. Crouthamel stated that he was "offended" that the ACC would snatch Fredo. It would seem ACC expansion did not cause nearly the affront to Jake’s tender sensibilities when he thought his school would be one of those heading out the door.

Perhaps his feelings would not be quite so hurt had he not declined the offer by Jim Weaver at the May BE meetings that would have drastically altered the course and result of ACC expansion. Crouthamel’s self-righteous cries would also ring a bit truer had he not spent most of the latter part of last week in a desperate and futile attempt to have Syracuse substituted for Fredo in the ACC expansion. Crouthamel speaks of conference loyalty now, but seemed to feel a bit differently when given the opportunity to express it last spring. He caused the free-for-all that ensued and in the every-man-for-himself melee his school got badly burnt.

There were comic elements found in Crouthamel’s denunciation of Fredo’s continued treachery: "I guess handshakes don’t mean much anymore." They certainly did not in 1994, when Dave Braine received one from Crouthamel concerning our basketball future. Jake followed that affirmation of loyalty to a fellow member of the BEFC by immediately drafting the plan that consigned Virginia Tech to A-10 basketball oblivion. Had Crouthamel stuck to his original deal, chances are good that the football future of Syracuse would be considerably brighter these days. Try shaking hands with yourself in a mirror, Jake.

Also amusing were some of the other comments attributed to other L’il E principals. Mike Tranghese, Commissioner of the Incredible Shrinking Conference, blithely announced, "We’re just going about our business." What’s losing yet another member, when basketball practice is about to begin? Tranghese, who is to conference management what Nero was to the administration of ancient Rome, was too busy eagerly awaiting the arrival of DePaul and Marquette to notice yet another football school had flown the coop.

Than there was Rutgers Athletic Director Bob Mulchachy blasting the integrity of a Fredo who was pledging fealty to the L’il E while simultaneously continuing to negotiate with the ACC for admission. And you believed Fredo this time, Bob? Geez, you are gullible.

Here at Virginia Tech we find ourselves still, in spite of our best efforts, in a conference with Fredo. No matter how hard we try, we can’t shake him. Maybe Michael had the right idea, and sending Fredo on a fishing trip with UConn would be in order. At least Tech isn’t the school where the volleyball team will spend more time in Logan Airport than in a class other than coach. The question does arise: why Fredo? The short answer was and is: the ACC had to have twelve, and Notre Dame and nobody from the SEC would jump.

Other solutions to the Fredo puzzle could involve the out-of hand dismissal of West Virginia, Louisville and East Carolina, the refusal to consider Connecticut from a state where the Attorney General seems prepared to sue even the ACC janitor, the odd reluctance of Pitt to campaign for ACC membership, and perhaps that ACC presidents desired to spare themselves the constant nagging about adding Fredo that would come once Donna Shalala was in their midst.

The best answer might be that adding Fredo does the most damage to what is left of the L’il E. This strikes right into the heart of that conference, pulling away a major media market, regardless of whether anyone there watches, and rendering foolish any remaining claim by the L’il E that they are the league that represents the northeast. Fredo and Penn State would indicate otherwise.

Those, including the easily-offended Jake Crouthamel, who claim that the purpose of the ACC raid was to destroy the Big East as a viable I-A football conference are absolutely correct. The ACC, alone among major conferences, was fighting a two-front war for attention with both the BE and SEC. As sound military theory demands, the weaker opponent has been defeated first. And make no mistake, the L’il E is done. A conference that is losing three-eighths of its membership, including two-thirds of the current Top Three in football polls, is not long for the BCS. Adding Louisville, Cincinnati and every directional Florida there is cannot begin to make up for what is lost.

That conference is now reduced to Pitt and Syracuse fighting for a chance to be lost in the giant budgets of a Big 11 that still seems inclined to wait out Notre Dame for its twelfth member and WVU hoping that Vanderbilt decides to give up the ghost sooner rather than later. Once again we can thank our lucky stars and John Casteen that Tech escaped, and realize that whatever steps taken by Dr. Steger were justified in order to get away from that mess.

We returned to our tailgates after the Syracuse game safe in the knowledge that the athletic future of Virginia Tech was secure. Syracuse got on a bus to the Roanoke Airport then boarded a plane bound for the unknown. Better them than us.

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