Just for speculation, Pitt and Louisville would make some nice regional rivalries with West Virginia and Cincinatti. But it's all about business.
Realignment Megathread (All The Moves)
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Just for speculation, Pitt and Louisville would make some nice regional rivalries with West Virginia and Cincinatti. But it's all about business.
This is a plant by the FSU and Clemson to stir up controversy in the conference. Just like how the Big10 wanted everyone to believe that the Big12 killed the PAC, they want people to believe that these schools are killing the ACC.
It’s been all about the ACC for awhile now. I don’t think FSU getting left out really changes that because it was already 100% urgently the case. Cal/Stanford/SMU joining does nothing to help them and there’s a chance it just cements a messier dissolve. The only debate is if it’s 1-2 years or all the way to the end of the GOR.
The way I see it there’s an INCREDIBLY likely chance that FSU and Clemson join SEC. They probably aren’t thrilled about doubling up in South Carolina but it just happens Clemson is the bigger brand and they already have the Cocks. I’m guessing they collectively want FSU as a second team in FLA regardless of what Florida wants but I‘m not sold they NEED or want Miami for three Florida teams. They sit at 2 less programs than the new Big Ten so adding those two just has them sitting at the same number, no idea if they care about matching Big Ten number, I wouldn’t if I was in charge of it.
On Big Ten side everyone knows they’ve always liked UNC and UVA. After that it gets interesting. It’s hard for me to imagine the Big Ten would leave a football brand like Miami just sitting there. They were ready to add USC/UCLA as an island without Ore/Wa, there are some parallels with USC and Miami, it’s kind of a poor man’s USC in terms of what it brings them and there’s no required tag along. For some reason almost everyone here tells me the Big Ten would never want Miami so maybe I’m wrong. They’d probably like the Duke/UNC rivalry, Duke has shown football life and is a massive brand. Basketball isn’t everything but UNC, Duke, UVA, Miami definitely gets them drastically better than they’ve been in decades and actually realistic top basketball conference (not just the media pretending they are good every year).
So 4 of them are basically off the table…Notre Dame is going to guarantee it is involoved in some way. With those 4/5 gone (even if Miami/Duke don’t get picked up) the rest of the ACC will run and beg toward the Big 12 faster than PAC did.
Tier 1:
Miami, Duke, Va Tech, Pitt, (first two are long shots, real chance SEC takes VaTech if they want to grow larger, Pitt is almost guaranteed future Big 12 school. Not saying Pitt = Miami or Duke but they fit Big 12 perfectly as it’s growing)
Tier 2:
NC State, Louisville, GTech (probably good Big 12 adds, I think UConn is in this tier too. GTech maybe a notch below the others)
Tier 3:
Cal, Stanford, BC, Syracuse, SMU (mixed bag of geographic reaches, maybe don’t even want to be in a major conference, do we need a fifth Texas school and fan bases that can’t hang with current Big 12 fan base involvement)
Tier 4:
Wake (sadly it seems they could be the next Ore St/WSU, others from Tier 3 could also be although SMU would just be back where they already are)
The way I see it there’s an INCREDIBLY likely chance that FSU and Clemson join SEC. They probably aren’t thrilled about doubling up in South Carolina but it just happens Clemson is the bigger brand and they already have the Cocks. I’m guessing they collectively want FSU as a second team in FLA regardless of what Florida wants but I‘m not sold they NEED or want Miami for three Florida teams. They sit at 2 less programs than the new Big Ten so adding those two just has them sitting at the same number, no idea if they care about matching Big Ten number, I wouldn’t if I was in charge of it.
On Big Ten side everyone knows they’ve always liked UNC and UVA. After that it gets interesting. It’s hard for me to imagine the Big Ten would leave a football brand like Miami just sitting there. They were ready to add USC/UCLA as an island without Ore/Wa, there are some parallels with USC and Miami, it’s kind of a poor man’s USC in terms of what it brings them and there’s no required tag along. For some reason almost everyone here tells me the Big Ten would never want Miami so maybe I’m wrong. They’d probably like the Duke/UNC rivalry, Duke has shown football life and is a massive brand. Basketball isn’t everything but UNC, Duke, UVA, Miami definitely gets them drastically better than they’ve been in decades and actually realistic top basketball conference (not just the media pretending they are good every year).
So 4 of them are basically off the table…Notre Dame is going to guarantee it is involoved in some way. With those 4/5 gone (even if Miami/Duke don’t get picked up) the rest of the ACC will run and beg toward the Big 12 faster than PAC did.
Tier 1:
Miami, Duke, Va Tech, Pitt, (first two are long shots, real chance SEC takes VaTech if they want to grow larger, Pitt is almost guaranteed future Big 12 school. Not saying Pitt = Miami or Duke but they fit Big 12 perfectly as it’s growing)
Tier 2:
NC State, Louisville, GTech (probably good Big 12 adds, I think UConn is in this tier too. GTech maybe a notch below the others)
Tier 3:
Cal, Stanford, BC, Syracuse, SMU (mixed bag of geographic reaches, maybe don’t even want to be in a major conference, do we need a fifth Texas school and fan bases that can’t hang with current Big 12 fan base involvement)
Tier 4:
Wake (sadly it seems they could be the next Ore St/WSU, others from Tier 3 could also be although SMU would just be back where they already are)
That content creator had something out this morning that said Iowa State was going to get dropped out of the Big 12.
You know what saves the ACC?
ESPN/Fox/Big Ten/SEC say that 16-18 team conferences are already difficult to manage at that size and we want to stay where we are.
That’s literally the only chance. One domino sends others bolting to the Big 12 begging not wanting to risk being the next Oregon State. If they stay together with the ND agreement I don’t think teams are going to bolt to Big 12, any crack and it all crumbles.
It’s totally normal for a 16 team conference to kick out the team that regularly sells out the second largest stadium in the conference.
That’s the point though. FSU and Clemson don’t want to save the ACC. That’s why they really want these other schools to think they need to bolt. They can’t kill the ACC on their own
Yeah, Fox/ESPN/Big10/SEC have to say “no we’re good, conferences getting too big”.
That’s the only way ACC doesn’t go through same thing PAC did.
I think Yormark has done a great job but in some ways we just benefitted by being the first conference to get rummaged through and we had the strength to not completely dissolve several times.
You should probably have said that Tommy Frazier isn't fitting through that door.
Bob Bowlsby gets nowhere near the credit he deserves for keeping the league viable. If he doesn't take the 4 that he did, it's the Big 12 that meets the PAC fate and Iowa State and K-State are the ones scrambling for a Mountain West scheduling pact while West Virginia is stuck begging the ACC to take them.
Heck. Why not spin something here. We all know Yormark is trying to separate the BB and FB contracts, to which I think he'll succeed. Given the 'expense' of football, despite its revenues, BB seems to be a better chance of improving the profit margins. Also, I believe the cost of FB is going to escalate as liabilities increase. To me, this suggests the ACC to B12 mass exodus might have more validity due to the B12 being the premiere basketball league. Just my outside the box humble opinion.
If the Big Ten passes on Duke and only adds UNC/UVA I genuinely think they may be better off in Big 12 than SEC for a number of reasons. I have no idea why going beyond 20 would freak them out though, it's not like 18 is easily manageable already.
It was a combination of factors that saved the B12, IMO, but by far the biggest two was a lack of buyers and good enough opportunities to expand with G5 teams.
The B10 and SEC took who they wanted. The ACC never really seemed interested in expanding with B12 teams. The PAC had a couple of chances to kill the B12, and probably could've at minimum absorbed them when OUT happened if they had an ounce of self awareness (or saw USC for who they were). Hell, Utah and ASU basically had to be dragged into the lifeboat at the end.
Before that, TCU, WV, Cincinnati, Houston, UCF and BYU were just enough to keep the lights on while the PAC did absolutely nothing to preserve themselves.
I think the ACC learned a lesson by what happened to the PAC. Adding Stanford, Cal and SMU seems to show some awareness that they need to maintain some level of membership if they want to have any chance to survive if/when they get raided. At the same time, I'd think member schools would realize they don't want to be in Washington St/Oregon St's shoes of lifeboat spots start to open up.
Yea, having 20+ team conferences is only scary if Presidents and Athletic Directors feel it is important to play every school over a 4 year window. If travel and regional rivalries are the value drivers, then a 24+ team conference is practical. Plus with the 12 team playoff, more schools means more money. Especially, if we move to a 16 team playoff in 8 years.
If the top schools in the ACC bolt, no way does ND stick around. Plus ND's recent extension with NBC ends around when the Big10 is negotiating its next deal.
In the end, feel like the Big10 will get to 24 schools: UVA, UNC, ND and (FSU or Miami) seem like the natural adds from a football tradition and academic standpoint. But also think the Big10 will try to get to 6 west coast schools.
You can go back and trace the moments where the Big 12 and Pac majority would have been better served just completely merging. There are quite a few of them. 12 of them ended up together long term anyway, it could have been 16 of them.
Ironically it was the teams that bolted who would have or did oppose merging consistently. Cal/Stan may have screwed themselves too because I've heard they were in a camp to not want large merger with B12.
Pac not even kicking the tires on bringing in Gonzaga for basketball is a little thing but it matters. The big reason AZ was the most excited to leave school is they have grown tired of being in an afterthought basketball conference.
Would be great if that happens if some handshake deals send all the other sports back to their logical schedules/rivalries.
Maybe. It really depends on how the TV is setup. I think there’s a good chance that we’d actually see it revert back to the old ways of one TV deal for all in that division.
So conferences would still exist for all other sports with their own TV deals for them. But, does that mean the current conferences or do we start all over like all fans want?
