Pitt Officially Heading to ACC for 2013 Season
By Matt Shetler
Great news came for the University of Pittsburgh on Wednesday, although it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone.
Pitt and the conference announced Wednesday that the school will pay $7.5 million to join Syracuse in leaving the Big East for the Atlantic Coast Conference on July 1, 2013. The Big East reached a similar deal with Syracuse earlier this week.
"“We are anxious to compete in our final season in the Big East and look forward to an exciting future in the Atlantic Coast Conference,” Pitt athletic director Steve Pederson said in a statement (via the Associated Press)."
The agreement between Pitt and the Big East includes the $5 million Pitt already paid to the conference and officially confirms the split between the Big East and one of its longest tenured members (joined in 1982).
Pitt, along with Syracuse will become official members of the ACC on July 1, 2013.
The ACC will play a nine-game conference schedule in football when Pitt and Syracuse join and every school will play in both the men’s and women’s conference basketball tournaments.
The Panthers have one last chance in 2012 to do something they’ve never done on the football field- win an outright Big East Championship.
After that it is onto better things as the ACC will be good for Pitt in both football and basketball. There could initially be some growing pains for the Panthers, but the move to the ACC was a no-brainer for the Pitt program and now that all of the I’s are dotted and the T’s are crossed, Pitt can finally look forward to the future.