Sad News: Check out the names of Florida State QB DJ Uiagalelei died in a plane crash today after………..
ACC Football Media Day begins Monday in Charlotte, North Carolina and there will be a ton of topics that will be discussed both on and off the field. One more discussed topic will likely be the future of Florida State and Clemson and their spot in the ACC.
It’s no secret that both schools are looking to get out as soon as possible, but just where they end up if they ever do get it, remains to be seen. It appears that their choices are shrinking by the day with reports that the Big Ten and SEC not looking to add any more schools. Brett McMurphy posted on his X page that a source told him that both conferences don’t want to add Florida State for multiple reasons if the ACC survives.
While that makes a ton of sense, it seems like we have been here before with realignment, and the Big Ten was not interested in expanding, only to backtrack later and do it with the PAC-12.
Big Ten has been down this road before
The SEC is adding Oklahoma and Texas this season and on Monday at the beginning of the SEC Media Week in Dallas, Commissioner Greg Sankey said that he is focused on the current 16 teams in the SEC and he’s not a recruiter but is paying attention to what is going with Florida State, Clemson and the ACC. To me, that sounds like adding in the future is on the table if things go the right way.
However, the one conference to watch is the Big Ten. Just two short years ago, Dennis Dodd of CBS Sports reported that the Big Ten’s interest in the PAC-12 schools had cooled.
“After the anxiety caused last week regarding further Big Ten expansion, industry sources have indicated the Big Ten is no longer as interested in adding California, Oregon, Stanford and Washington. Rightsholders were balking at paying the same amount for those schools as the 16 Big Ten schools going forward ($80 million-$100 million in total revenue).
One year after that was written, guess what, the PAC-12 didn’t survive and Oregon and Washington were accepted into the Big Ten. As you know by now, Stanford and California are joining SMU this season in the ACC, while Washington State and Oregon State are the only two remaining PAC-12 schools without a home.
There are a lot of questions surrounding what the ACC might look like in the future and if FSU and Clemson get out, the end of the conference might be the outcome. What that means for Virginia Tech remains to be seen. Despite the Big Ten saying that they don’t want Florida State, that might be true now, but we’ll see how long that lasts. If there is one thing we’ve learned from the last couple of years regarding realignment, this is far from over. FSU might not make financial sense now, but that could change. Stay tuned.
