Conference Realignment: ACC's deadline for schools to exit the conference for 2024 comes and goes.
For the first half of August, conference realignment has dominated the talk surrounding college football. Colorado, Arizona, Arizona State, and Utah have left what was once the Pac-12 and joined the Big 12 (or in Colorado's case rejoined), and Oregon and Washington made the seismic move to depart for the Big Ten. In the last week, there were rumblings of the ACC looking at the prospect of adding Cal and Stanford, but four schools reportedly opposed the move and for now, it appears that ACC expansion is unlikely, but not completely dead.
For the schools inside the ACC, yesterday was a big date because it was the last day for an ACC school to announce that they were leaving for another conference for the 2024 season. For now, that means that there are at least two more seasons of having the ACC in its current form, but anything beyond that is uncertain.
It has been known that Florida State has been the most vocal school in terms of wanting out of the ACC. The Board of Trustees held a meeting and said as much. Florida State President Richard McCullough made it seem like Florida State is looking for a way out of the ACC:
"FSU helps to drive value and will drive value for any partner, but we have spent a year trying to understand how we might fix the issue. There are no easy fixes to this challenge, but a group of us have spent literally a year. We've explored every possible option that you can imagine. The issue at hand is what can we do to allow ourselves to be competitive in football and get what I think is the revenue we deserve?"
"This continues to be a very difficult issue. There's a lot going on in the world of conference realignment. My current assessment of the situation after very deep analysis is I believe FSU will have to at some point consider very seriously leaving the ACC unless there were a radical change to the revenue distribution."
What is the future of the ACC?
Well if Florida State wanted to leave the ACC ahead of the 2024 season, that time has passed. That does not mean that the Seminoles are going to stay in the ACC long-term, because that does not seem likely, given the revenue discrepancy that will exist between the Big Ten, the SEC, and the ACC. Florida State considers itself among the programs that can win and compete for national championships and the revenue gap between them and the other programs that are at the top or aspire to be at the top is only going to grow if the Seminoles stay in the ACC. You can expect to hear more noise about FSU leaving again next summer.
While the Seminoles might want an invite from the Big Ten or SEC, a report from ESPN's Andrea Adelson had this to say about those prospects:
"But a source with knowledge of the discussions said the Big Ten did not have serious conversations about adding Florida State, and its top priority remains Notre Dame."
It also does not seem that SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey is looking to expand just yet, further complicating Florida State's move. I believe that if the Seminoles had a place to go, they would have already left, which is why yesterday's date was so significant.
College football analyst and radio show host Paul Finebaum spoke about the meeting at Florida State and what he thought about the future of the ACC and he was not optimistic:
"Clearly, the ACC is struggling right now and they are struggling because they have a TV deal that does not end until 2036. Meanwhile, you see the PAC-12 schools scrambling like roaches at night. The Big Ten has shown indications that it could add a few more and look, FSU and the president and the board yesterday in an unprecedented meeting saying basically, somebody come and save us and the most likely prospect is the SEC and and don't forget there are other schools in the ACC who are not happy. FSU is not the only bad kid in the kindergarten class. Clemson does not like it's position, North Carolina does not like its position, and Miami doesn't. That league right now, there is nothing they can do other than hope"
In the midst of all the conversation around Florida State looking to leave, there were discussions around the possibility of expanding, with Cal and Stanford being the main targets, but SMU was also mentioned as well. While Notre Dame led the charge to try and add both schools, that momentum was killed (for now) at the end of last week when a report from SI said that Florida State, Clemson, North Carolina, and NC State were opposed to the addition.
That meant that some schools were in favor of adding both Cal and Stanford, including Georgia Tech and that was also confirmed in Adelson's report:
"What was certain was there were votes in favor of expansion (Notre Dame, Wake Forest, Louisville, Miami, Georgia Tech) and votes opposed (Clemson, Florida State, North Carolina) and swing votes in between. Another administrator thought enough of the 15 voting presidents would swing to yes and get the required 12 to approve expansion."
Expansion could still happen if one or more of those schools changes their tone and switches to approval.
While the August 15th deadline has come and gone for an ACC school to leave for 2024, this issue is far from over. There are schools that are still not content with the revenue sharing and those complaints are not going to stop.
For the next two seasons anyway, the ACC is going to keep these schools together. Beyond that is anyone's guess.
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