Who knew, really, this sentence would ever get written:

The future of UConn athletics rests at the mercy of the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Oh, the humanity.

Oh, the irony.

And oh, the reality.

It's a reality that should have anyone who cares about UConn plenty concerned. Because the folks in the ACC aren't in a rush to break into choruses of "Be Our Guest" to a university tightly linked to a lawsuit against Boston College, its athletic director and four Atlantic Coast Conference officials in 2003.

"If anybody thinks that's been forgotten about," one ACC official said Tuesday, "they've got another think coming."

True enough, more than one Big East school (including new ACC member Pittsburgh) was tied to the lawsuit alleging that the ACC and BC "conspired to weaken the Big East," after BC left the Big East to follow Miami and Virginia Tech. The suit named BC athletic director Gene DeFilippo, ACC Commissioner John Swofford and other ACC officials.

The perception, fair or not, is that the lawsuit was a UConn production. It was filed in Vernon Superior Court by former state attorney general Richard Blumenthal. It was Blumenthal, too, who coined the immortal line, "It's first and goal for the Big East."

It's fourth and goal now. And the ball is at midfield. If that.

Based on conversations with UConn people and ACC sources, nothing is imminent. Hence, all we really know is that we don't really know what will happen. But here's a guess:

The ACC will take UConn - at some point - because it won't get Notre Dame or Texas. And it will take UConn more because of league officials' trust and respect for new president Susan Herbst than anything UConn has accomplished on or off the field.

Herbst got the job at UConn for many reasons. Start with the concepts of smart, tough and decisive. But her ties to the ACC are far more significant in healing old wounds. She is a Duke graduate and former professor of public policy at Georgia Tech.

"I know it's a cliché," the ACC source said. "But if you look in the dictionary at the term 'educator,' you see Susan Herbst."

Herbst's presence best illustrates the change that's the best buffer against UConn's albatross: its haughty perception. The name "UConn" inspires eyerolls in an alarming number of places, including many ACC outposts. Fair or not, UConn is perceived as provincial and self-entitled with big coaching personalities and loud media followings. Even worse for the infidels, the Huskies win a lot.

That said, ACC officials shouldn't be petty. The ACC trumpets itself as "an academic conference," as one official said in a recent published report. And while Clemson and Yale aren't often mistaken for one other, the ACC has its share of places where the athletes actually pick up a book now and then. And UConn is among the top 20 state schools in the country. It would make the league more attractive.

It's just that ACC officials, subtly or otherwise, will convey the message that UConn needs the ACC more than the other way around.

UConn loyalists probably want to vomit.

There is no sense bemoaning what has become of college athletics, a Darwinian cesspool. But if we all agree that it is what it is, the Huskies' best option is the new league that all of its fans have spent years despising.

UConn has no choice but to make nice with ACC officials, distance itself from its erstwhile moral outrage and await word from a league that holds ace, king, queen and jack.

Good thing Susan Herbst is here.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro.