NEWTON, Mass. - A delegation from the Atlantic Coast Conference took an up-close look at Boston College on Monday, touring athletic and academic facilities as the league prepares to entice three Big East schools to defect.

"If indeed this works out ... this is a good marriage," ACC commissioner John Swofford said at a news conference. "Boston College would be an excellent fit for the ACC in every regard."

The nine ACC members have voted to discuss expansion with Miami, Boston College and Syracuse to create a 12-school superconference that would break into two divisions and play a lucrative championship game in football.

The conference bylaws require a campus visit before an actual invitation, but it is considered a formality. Swofford said he couldn't think of an instance in which the ACC has gotten to the point of visiting prospective members and not closed the deal.

"If you reach the point of site visits there's a certain level of mutual interest ... or we wouldn't be here. That's obvious," he said. "But it's not the completion of the process yet."

Boston College is a charter member of the Big East, which would be decimated by the defection of three prestigious members. BC would increase its national exposure and likely reap more money from a move, but it would lose traditional regional rivalries against Providence College and Connecticut.

But athletic director Gene DeFilippo said he feared that if Miami left, the Big East would be devastated anyway and BC would be left out.

"In most anything we do, there are going to be some good things and some bad things. This secures our future, and that is very important," DeFilippo said. "This has been very hard. There are some great people in the Big East. We have some great rivalries. ... That weighs on me."

Another issue for Boston College is the longer travel time to conference games that will be mostly outside the Northeast, and how that will affect the school's budget and the players' schoolwork. DeFilippo said he will have to examine to whole department and decide whether it's worth making all those trips in some nonrevenue sports.

But he dismissed talk that travel was a major problem.

"Notre Dame isn't the easiest school to get to. Nor is Virginia Tech," DeFilippo said. "So it's not like everything has been a bus trip for us."

ACC representatives visited Miami last week. They're scheduled to leave BC Tuesday morning for Syracuse to visit that campus before voting on a formal invitation.

Although no timetable has been set, Swofford said everything could be wrapped up within the next month. The schools would probably begin ACC play in the 2005-06 season.

The ACC delegation arrived in Chestnut Hill on Sunday and had dinner with BC officials in the Bapst Art Library, one of the oldest buildings on campus. On Monday, the group took a tour of the school's main campus and one a few miles away where the law school, soccer fields and freshman dorms are located; after the news conference, some of the visitors received directions to Fenway Park.

In addition to Swofford and three members of his staff, the contingent included two professors, two athletic directors and a senior women's administrator from current ACC schools. They met with a variety of BC's academic and athletic officials all the way up to the Rev. William P. Leahy, the school's president.

Although Swofford had been to Boston College before, some visitors were here for the first time. Jeff Elliott, an associate commissioner, had been to Boston but never to Chestnut Hill, the affluent suburban area where BC is located.

"It's a beautiful campus," Elliott said.