ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips Details Conference's Future at ACC Kickoff

ACC commissioner Jim Phillips addressed the ACC's future, new tiebreakers, revenue growth, eligibility changes and the conference's national expansion.

Atlantic Coast Conference

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — When ACC commissioner Jim Phillips stepped up to the podium Wednesday afternoon at the Hilton Charlotte Uptown in downtown Charlotte to address reporters and ruminate on the future of the Atlantic Coast Conference at-large, the mood felt curious.

The league may not exist in its current form 10 years from now. That comes in not just in the form of which teams that will be in it, but the consistent pervasion of the idea that a two-conference super league — centered around the SEC and the Big 10 — is the meta. That may be the future, depending on how the next few years go for the conference and for the world of college football at large. Either way, Phillips is confident that his conference enters this season in a lofty position.

"Today, I can confidently say the Atlantic Coast Conference enters the 2026-27 academic year from a position of tremendous strength," Philips said. "Our conference is thriving athletically, we're thriving academically, we're thriving financially and we are leading nationally during one of the most consequential periods in the history of college sports."

How Virginia Tech fits into that meta is yet to be determined; a good bit of how they'd fit in, if that scenario ever comes to true fruition, comes down to whether the program can experience a renaissance under new head coach James Franklin. In 11-plus years at Penn State, Franklin boasted a 104-45 record. In 188 career games as a collegiate head coach, he's won 120.

Back to the ACC at large: The league now holds 17 teams for football, including three from nationally populated areas in the California (California, Stanford) and Texas (SMU). That total increases to 18 when including Notre Dame, which is a full ACC school apart from football, where it plays as an independent program.

Fourteen different ACC squads won conference championships in the 2025-26 academic year, while ACC teams won seven national championships and combined for 15 top-two finishes, including Miami's runner-up finish in college football.

But the travel is not pretty when traveling to play those cross-coast teams plus SMU — Virginia Tech will travel to Berkeley, Calif. to play California on Oct. 10, and it will venture to Dallas to contest SMU on Nov. 6 — though the draw in and of itself is money. One can argue that the travel impacts California and Stanford the most since they must travel at least as far as Dallas any time that they must play on the road, and they'll often travel much further.

By maintaining its cable partnerships, the ACC receives a share of the revenue generated from carriage fees. Even if relatively few viewers in California actually watch ACC programming, the conference still benefits financially simply because the network is included in far more cable packages.

Also, the member schools of the ACC receive $30 million per year, with a small drawback — the ACC is locked in with ESPN through the 2035-36 season, meaning that it won't experience as much of a financial boom on the TV front as its rivals the SEC and Big Ten experienced. Still, the ACC is set to generate more than $900 million in gross revenue, which marks the seventh straight record year for the conference despite it not having inked a new television deal.

For all intents and purposes, the Atlantic Coast Conference is essentially now the All Coast Conference. In the press release in July 2024, the ACC stated that the addition "[creates] a true national conference that spans coast to coast."

The new eligibility rules add an immediate wrinkle into the spin of things, while the ACC's place in the new college football landscape is a dilemma that will take multiple years to truly unfold. In the immediacy, the NCAA's passing of the five-in-five strips away much of the questioning of what is considered a redshirt (either typical or medical) by largely doing away with the system.

However, in doing so, that impacts some of Virginia Tech's athletes who missed time due to season-ending injury. For example, cornerback Joshua Clarke missed the entirety of the 2025 season with a torn ACL. Under the eligibility clock, he would play only three full years of collegiate football since he redshirted his freshman year (played two games) and missed the 2025 campaign.

There are drawbacks and benefits to the new five-in-five eligibility situation, both of which Philips acknowledged Wednesday. The situation is made simpler — it's based on age rather than how many seasons you've played — but that complicates the wateres for the players who have engaged in the majority of their collegiate career under the former rules.

The biggest work thrown into the spanner Wednesday, however, was the introduction of a revamped tiebreaker for the ACC football title game — one that leaves the door ajar more to resume evaluation than to mathematical principle. Head-to-head results are the defining factor after winning percentage, but then, the tied team with the better ranking in the Team Success Ranking provided by SportSource Analytics is the one that will emerge out with a bid.

Philips points to SportSource Analytics as a team success ranking that will factor in as the third element of the tiebreaker system. Note: A CFB AQ is now awarded to each of the Power Four conferences. Came after Duke won the ACC title with five losses in '25. #ACC

— Thomas Hughes (@thomashughes_05) July 15, 2026

If that doesn't do it, it'll be chosen by body of work. Virginia Tech itself may not play into that battle — it hasn't made the ACC title game since 2016, and it hasn't won it since 2010 — but it's still a point of emphasis should the Hokies suddenly vault themselves into conference title contention.

The new tiebreaker directly serves to supply the ACC with its strongest possible two challengers in the title game, given that the conference, like the other three Power Four conferences, receives one automatic qualifying bid to the 12-team College Football Playoff.

"We strongly support a model that provides greater access and ensures [that] every program willing to invest, compete and earn its way into the [College Football] Playoff has a legitimate path to play for a national championship," Phillips said.

The ACC's season slate starts off on Aug. 29 when UNC plays TCU at noon in Dublin, Ireland, and Virginia hosts NC State at Scott Stadium (Charlottesville, Va.). Virginia Tech's 2026 campaign begins a week later when it hosts VMI on Saturday, Sept. 5 at 7:30 p.m. ET (TV: ACCN), marking the first meeting between the two schools since the 1984 season.