Wait a second. Wasn’t the ACC was dead and buried? Roadkill on the side of the BCS highway?

It wasn’t so long ago that, for some reason, the mere idea of an additional bowl game between the SEC and Big 12 meant the end of the ACC as we knew it and guaranteed the preeminence of the SEC, Big 12, Big Ten and Pac-12 forever and ever amen. Florida State and Clemson had their bags packed and were ready to flee. The ACC was on the verge of irrelevance, if not total disintegration.

With the addition of Notre Dame on Wednesday, the ACC is clearly very much alive, very much relevant and very much a factor in the big-money world of college sports going forward.

Now that Notre Dame’s in the fold, a coup of staggering proportions for the ACC and comissioner John Swofford, assuring the relevance of the conference long into the future, if it was ever really in doubt, the only question left is who’s No. 16?

With 14 teams for football and 15 overall once Notre Dame joins -- and NBC’s football megadeal with the Fighting Irish expires in 2015, so mark that date on the calendar -- the ACC is going to need one more team to balance out the conference at some point down the road.

Connecticut was mentioned back when Syracuse and Pittsburgh were invited aboard, but there are two schools that fit the ACC far better, both athletically and academically. One would be easy: Rutgers. Another would require some behind-the-scenes maneuvering on the par of the Notre Dame move: Vanderbilt.

A playoff for college football will be one step closer to a reality after Wednesday.

ACC commissioner John Swofford will be in Chicago to determine a proposal for the future of college football's postseason. Swofford, the 10 other Football Bowl Subdivision commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick are scheduled to work out the details for a four-team playoff which would take effect for the 2014 season.

Any model, including such details about the selection process, and its criteria, will have to be approved by the 12-member BCS Presidential Oversight Committee, which will meet next Tuesday in Washington, D.C.

The ACC publicly reprimanded basketball referee Karl Hess on Monday night for failing to follow protocol in ejecting two N.C. State basketball greats from Saturday's game at the RBC Center.

Hess had Chris Corchiani and Tom Gugliotta removed from their seats behind the scorers' table with 6 minutes and 40 seconds left in the Wolfpack's loss to Florida State on Saturday because of "excessive demonstration on several calls," according to an email N.C. State received from Hess on Monday night.

The ACC announced on Friday new scheduling formats that will take effect when Pittsburgh and Syracuse begin league play, officially making the ACC a 14-team conference. Among the changes:

-A nine-game conference schedule in football.
-And an 18-game conference schedule in basketball, in which each of the 14 teams will play twice a year against one permanent partner. Games between permanent partners are only ones that will be guaranteed to happen twice per season. Given that North Carolina’s permanent partner is Duke, that means that in two out of every three seasons North Carolina and N.C. State will play just once during the regular season.

John Swofford, ACC Commissioner, spoke on Friday with The News & Observer about several issues related to the announcement of the new scheduling formats. Here’s the Q-and-A:

PINEHURST — ACC commissioner John Swofford said he was disappointed in the NCAA troubles facing North Carolina's football program on Sunday at the ACC Kickoff.

UNC, which had gone 50 years without a major NCAA violation, faces nine major violations in a hearing with the NCAA's Committee of Infractions in October.

Swofford, who played football at UNC and was the school's athletic director for 17 years, didn't specifically mention the school in his two-minute answer but said:

Add ACC commissioner John Swofford to the list of those who were disappointed that Virginia Tech was not selected to the NCAA tournament field.

"I'm surprised that Virginia Tech was excluded from the NCAA Tournament," Swofford said in a statement he released this afternoon. "I believe they are a quality team that earned and deserved to be in the field of 68."

In decisions that have prompted much controversy and criticism nationally, the Division I men's basketball committee awarded at-large NCAA tournament bids to Alabama-Birmingham and Virginia Commonwealth while leaving Virginia Tech and Colorado out of the tournament.

updated: 6:14 p.m.

RALEIGH – ACC commissioner John Swofford on Wednesday called last season’s ACC football championship game a “huge success,” and added, “I think we’ve probably found a home in Charlotte.”

“It’s hard to say that after one year because we want to see a progression of successes before you call a place a home,’’ Swofford said while speaking to the Raleigh Sports Club. “But the fact that Charlotte is within 300 miles of eight of our schools is a real plus, because it enhances the fact that you’re going to have at least one fan base that can drive in and out to the game. And Charlotte sold a little over 30,000 tickets before we knew which teams were going to be in the game. That’s not quite where we want or need for it to be, but it’s a great start.”

CARY – ACC commissioner John Swofford announced on Friday harsh sanctions for Florida State following coach Mark Krikorian’s decision to leave the team’s starters behind for this week’s ACC conference championship.

Krikorian will be suspended for Florida State’s next game, while the school will be forced to forfeit the women’s soccer championship expense reimbursement of approximately $15, 000. In addition, the Seminoles will be fined $25,000, which will be applied directly to the ACC Post Graduate Scholarship Fund. 

ACC commissioner John Swofford is not attending today's ACC basketball media day because of hip-replacement surgery in Greensboro, the league announced.

The league said it would have an update on Swofford's surgery on Thursday.