The undersigned wins one of the three games he was "invested" in, loses only $5 on the day and is still up $25 on the season.
But enough about such mean subtexts. The ACC is transformed. The boring Old Firm has onboarded some dynamic new partners, principally Cal, but also SMU. And Stanford too. The conference now extends from Massachusetts Bay to San Francisco Bay, from Boston Harbor to Biscayne Bay, down to Dallas and into the Midwest. It is now the Atlantic-Pacific, or Airplane, or All-Academic Conference, and the concept in tackle football has been proved. Game Day was in Berkeley for the first time ever Saturday and a sell-out 52,000 watched their alma mater play a team representing a school that they recognize as institutionally similar, scholastically substantial, coastal and glamorous. And Miami has injected some tackle football fever into their Left Coast partners. This was a game of SEC-excitement with PhDs. When I finally went to bed Cal led 35-10 with 8 minutes left in the 3Q. The hurricane came late but it was a monster. By 21-3 the storm roared through the 4th quarter with the winning touchdown scored with merely 26 seconds left.
In brainiac Boston too their has been a football IQ jump with the addition of Nobel professors of pigskin. In Pittsburgh there has been a transfusion of new blood that has transformed the football team playing in the shadow of the inspirational Cathedral of Learning. And next Saturday, the California team of the subject plays beneath the Cathedral "in a lonely field beyond Fort Pitt." The "Golden Panthers" welcome the "Golden Bears".
No, this is not your grandfather's, nor your father's, ACC. This is what a conference of sports-playing true universities looks like. And it works.
