Stanford's Football Coach Says Joining The ACC Would Be Fine Because People Used To Travel Across The U.S. In Covered Wagons
Stanford and Cal to the ACC? Sure, why the hell not at this point. Nothing matters anymore.
I understand where Troy Taylor is coming from here and he's not entirely wrong, but when your justification for doing anything is that people used to have to travel across the United States in covered wagons, it's not likely that you have an incredibly strong argument. Those same people used to die of dysentery, too, but that doesn't mean you should eat chili cheese dogs every day.
Would Stanford playing four east coast road games on Saturdays over the course of a three-month football season be a huge deal? Probably not. For sports like basketball, however, teams are playing those games on Tuesday nights every week and then getting home in the middle of the night and going to class the next morning — not to even mention non-revenue sports which very rarely use air travel and when they do, it's commercial. I would imagine Stanford's basketball players would have a slightly different take than Taylor about those six-hour flights as they're boarding a plane in Atlanta at 11 p.m. on a weeknight.
But we've already added USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington to the Big Ten, though, so all bets are off now. Having Stanford in the ACC is no more ridiculous than any of those schools from a geographic standpoint, so have at it, I guess. The difference is those schools add value to media rights deals and Stanford does not, which is why it's been left to fend for itself in the Pac-4.
Best of luck with the wagons.