ACC and SEC are CFB's New Powerbrokers
They did it.
Right guy, right place, right time.
And in the extended outlook for college football, it was a move which will shift the power base in the sport to the Atlantic Coast Conference and Southeastern Conference.
If ever there was a setup for success and optimism it was epitomized on Monday when the Atlantic Coast Conference announced that Northwestern athletic director Jim Phillips would be the person succeeding outgoing commissioner John Swofford.
It was a surprise choice for only one basic reason.
Phillips, a Big Ten guy, was heir apparent to succeed long time commissioner Jim Delany.
But the Big Ten made a backdoor move when it hired an NFL guy Kevin Warren for a variety of reasons.
To say the least, Warren's first year has been filled with pot holes which still look like craters in many instances.
It will take awhile to repair.
Which left Phillips, a super star locally for what he has done in a few years at Northwestern and a rising star nationally, with many connections, including that in the ACC with Duke athletic director Dr. Kevin White.
More about that later.
Phillips was not looking to leave Northwestern, he was an Illinois guy with a good job in a city he loved. Considering the way Warren began his tenure with the snafu around the COVID-19 issue and when to start or not start the college football season, the O/U line on whether Warren would be a long term commissioner was the Under.
So he could wait and when the ACC did call, he not only listened, but accepted a job which will put him in a power-broker seat in college athletics for the foreseeable future.
When the announcement was made about Phillips on Monday, the loudest cheers may have come from the Southeastern Conference offices in Birmingham.
Here's why.
For the past 30 years at least, college football has been run by the Power 5 commissioners, not the NCAA.
Among that group there was a clear pecking order of power, with long time| Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany and then SEC commissioner Roy Kramer and then Mike Slive and now Greg Sankey were the trend setters, leaders, spokesman (Choose one or all).
During the changes of the past 32 years which have taken the college football postseason from a series of New Year's Day games each seeking dominance to a four-team playoff system and a six bowl setup, the SEC and Big Ten have almost ALWAYS gotten what they wanted.
The ACC, under Swofford was a player but almost never in a lead role, whose vision was narrow in focus, centering around issues involving the ACC.
The Pac-12 has always been a zen-like conference with leadership which induced head scratching, even among its members. Never has that been more evident than this season under Commissioner Larry Scott.
The Big 12 has never had a true identity—created from a merger of the SWC and Big 8–and has almost never been a proactive conference under commissioner Bob Bowlsby, who has had to deal with constant struggle for power between Texas and Oklahoma.
When the college football season threatened to implode this summer because of the COVID-19 issues, leadership was needed and all but invisible other than in the SEC where Sankey, once again, was the point person.
Sankey has told friends he is tired of being the sole leader of the pack.
With Delany retiring last year, Sankey's leadership partner was gone.
Kevin Warren has yet to show he is capable of filling that role.
And no one else was capable of stepping in, for a variety of already mentioned reasons.
The hiring of Phillips will change that.
The ACC has emerged as a competitive equal to anyone—including the SEC in football with Clemson's rise—in college athletics. They are still a monster in college basketball, women's basketball and an assortment of non-revenue sports.
And then there is the Notre Dame card, which Swofford played as much as as he could and Phillips, who used to work at ND for Kevin White, can play, starting in February when he takes over.
Adding Notre Dame as a full-time member will increase the ACC's power, which Sankey will embrace with enthusiasm as well.
It is not hard to look beyond the next few months and see moves such as an 8-team playoff system, compensating players for using their likeness and a form of free agency all become major issues led by the SEC and Sankey and the ACC—and Jim Phillips.