(RALEIGH) -- The face of college sports changed again with the addition of Pittsburgh and Syracuse to the Atlantic Coast Conference. Some longtime ACC fans may miss the days of a 9-league team, but longtime sportswriter Barry Jacobs says it's just a natural evolution.

"We live in a country that's 300 million people. It's becoming more and more crowded, different than what we grew up with. The air is different, politics are different, traffic is different - why should we expect that the sports landscape is not going to be different?" he said.

Syracuse and Pittsburgh won't be able to leave the Big East conference until June 2014, which is when the changes to the ACC will take place.