The meeting ACC presidents set for Tuesday morning to the decision to expand the number of member schools in the conference, they chose to cancel, according to Brian Murphy of WRAL.
Murphy also said in the tweet that this isn’t an uncommon occurrence for ACC presidents to cancel a meeting, so it is likely that conference realignment will continue to serve as a crucial talking point in the future for the conference.
Conference realignment has been a large part of the college football landscape this summer, as teams have left and moved around the major conferences.
The collapse of the Pac-12 started with both USC and UCLA announcing their decision to leave for the Big Ten in July 2022. Colorado started the leave this summer by announcing their decision to return to the Big 12, with Arizona, Arizona State and Utah choosing to join them shortly after. Oregon and Washington also decided to join the Big Ten with USC and UCLA, albeit, with a worse deal than than them.
Washington State, Oregon State, Cal and Stanford are the only four teams remaining in the Pac-12. This 2023-24 academic year is the last that the conference will have 12 members.
The ACC is the only Power 5 conference to not add or lose any teams, as the SEC will add Texas and Oklahoma from the Big 12 in 2024. There has been discussions of expansion with Cal and Stanford both heavily a part of them. SMU is also willing to put up a lot of money to join the ACC from the American conference.
Former U.S. President George Bush and former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice have both been instrumental in conference realignment. Bush has pushed SMU and Rice has pushed Stanford to try and join the ACC.
The conference did not have enough votes to add Cal and Stanford, as four schools opposed the expansion. Those schools are Clemson, Florida State, North Carolina and North Carolina State.
The ACC needs 12 of its 15 members to vote yes on bringing teams on. Without the 12 schools needed for support of the move, it is unlikely that there will be a formal vote on whether or not to expand the conference.
Pitt is reportedly in favor of bringing in both Cal and Stanford into the conference, with athletic director Heather Lyke largely in favor.
Stanford and Cal have both been part of these conversations in joining the ACC. Stanford also, reportedly, would agree to receive low or no media rights payouts in order to join the conference.
Only thing that makes sense is telling Stanford, since ND is lobbying to add you, lobby them to come into the ACC for football. ONLY Stanford & ND (and not the other 2, Cal & SMU) will produce higher revenues for the entire conference. And this is what Phelps should be doing. If he was a true ACC guy he would be !!!
Lyke won’t be around to suffer the consequences of Pitt non-revenue teams having to make a 5000 mile round trip to Berkeley and Palo Alto. All these AD’s split at some point. If Ohio State offers her, she’ll be gone in a flash.
then she will be dealing with and supporting the short trip of Columbus to LA.