When ACC expansion/Big East contraction was first being discussed, there was a (to me any way) fairly sane suggestion by a pundit that the ACC be an 8-team conference, and they partner with the Big East football schools (BC, Rutgers, Miami, Cuse, Pitt, VT, UCONN, WV) to cross-schedule 2-3 non-conference games per team each season. The two conferences would ea. declare their champion solely based on regular season record (a real champ, b/c you play each of the other 7 conference teams), and the two conference champs would play a championship game to determine a rep in (at the time) a major bowl game, or in the future a guaranteed spot in any expanded national playoff. So you "expand" your football associations and rivalries to include 16 teams, while maintaining the rivalries and tradition of home-away conference matchups in basketball and most of the other sports, plus avoid the ridiculous costs of sending your cross country team literally across the country. Pipe dream yes, but hard to argue that ACC and Big East basketball plus all the other sports not named football would be better off today. And you could argue that football would be better served by Wake/UNC and Duke/NCSU and others not in the situation of only playing each other every 5 years or so in the conference.