View From Bennett Avenue

I am a bit confused about the level of attention being awarded the ACC for the moves they made this week in poaching Pitt and Syracuse from the Big East and potentially claiming UConn and Rutgers as well. If these moves were being made because they realized that the fight for basketball supremacy has long been usurped by their rival league, then sure I understand. If you cannot beat the Big East on the court, then steal some of its better programs. But everyone is stating that football is driving the ACC's expansion--as it is elsewhere--and if that is the case then I do not see what all the fuss is about.
Take Pittsburgh. The Panthers have been under-achieving for years. They do not sell out every game in a pro town and do not have a hot coach. I doubt many ACC fans could even name their coach. Yes Pittsburgh is a decent-size market, but it is again a pro town and the chances of a Pitt-North Carolina State game stirring the hometown is slim.
Syracuse is, of course, even smaller. And except for a few seasons in the 1980s and then again in the 1990s, the Orange have not had much to cheer about for close to 50 years. If this is all about football, I have a hard time understanding why Syracuse is so attractive.
It really is a matter of perception. If the Big East accepted East Carolina and Temple tomorrow to replace Pitt and Syracuse, the quality of the league on the football field would remain the same. But the country would perceive of the conference as nothing more than Conference USA with an automatic BCS berth. ECU is arguably the best program in the Tar Heel State at the moment and yet there is no cache in adding them. Temple is an up-and-coming football program with a rich basketball tradition but they were booted by the conference before. Expand even more by grabbing, say, Houston and Central Florida, and the Big East in football would be even stronger than before yet the perception would be that the ACC won the war. Odd.