Eleven is enough for the ACC. (College Basketball).(Atlantic Coast Conference)

It started as a case of building strength through expansion. It became one of ensuring survival through imminent change. After weeks of hand-wringing and public wrangling, the ACC decided last week to add Miami and Virginia Tech.

Congratulations, fellas. Now, where does it go from here?

The fundamental goal of the expansion process was to grow the league into a major football power. Adding Miami and Virginia Tech, two of the nation's most prominent teams in the last decade, does that. Landing Miami also allows the ACC to keep Florida State, the league's marquee program. The Seminoles would've looked elsewhere in the changing landscape had the conference not been able to pull it off.

Now, the ACC must determine how to schedule an 11-team conference. A 12-team league would've afforded the league two six-team divisions and a better chance at salvaging rivalries. But the school presidents got nervous about reaching the ambitious goal of a guaranteed $9.7 million annual revenue payout per team crunched by commissioner John Swofford for 12 or 13 teams. Plus, Duke and North Carolina were against expansion, and the league needed seven votes to get it done. And Virginia, feeling pressure from the state legislature and Gov. Mark Warner, wouldn't vote for expansion unless Virginia Tech was included. The ACC had little choice: Without Virginia Tech, there was no expansion, and without expansion, Florida State would begin to consider conference affiliation elsewhere, likely with the Big East. It was eat or be eaten.

"We had to look at the real possibility that (the Big East) could do the same thing to us," says one ACC official.

The ACC wanted to grow enough to generate revenue from a conference championship game, which are prohibited by NCAA bylaws for leagues with fewer than 12 teams. But Swofford already had spoken to NCAA officials about waiving the rule days before Miami and Virginia Tech were selected, and he had received a favorable response.

There are two ways the 11-team format could play out. The ACC could split into five- and six-team divisions, the champions of which would play in the title game. Or the league could play without divisions, with the top two teams at the end of the season playing in the title game.