The only schools above us in the ACC pecking order is FSU, UNC, and Clemson. That’s it. UVA and VT add nothing beyond a geographic footprint (smaller than South Florida market wise) and two flagship university’s. They both have absolutely abysmal TV numbers, terrible to little NIL, nowhere near the amount we invested recently, and smaller fanbases. Also, we’re an AAU (like Duke and Stanford). If we’re not an elite private school, then I don’t know what school is. We’ve also become a big research university too, and have a good reputation with a lot of Big Ten schools.
Oregon and Washington were no brainers. For one, the Big got them for pennies on the dollar. Both schools are also the entire market for their respective states. Also, if they were takes over Miami, by the same logic, it also means they were takes over everyone else in the ACC too.
This isn’t to say we have a spot in the Big or anything like that. Just that there’s a good argument why they’d want us in the conference.