The conference experienced a major reconstruction when Miami and Virginia Tech left for the Atlantic Coast Conference in 2004, followed by Boston College in 2005. Initially, Syracuse University was in place to make the jump instead of Virginia Tech, but in 2003, the governor of Virginia Mark Warner put pressure on the ACC (via the vote of the University of Virginia) to ensure that Virginia Tech was not left out of the conference expansion. Syracuse, then, was not invited to the ACC and was left to remain in the Big East.