With so many events slated to air on the ACC Network in the ensuing years, a rabid fanbase may prove to be as important as a big fanbase. The Mountaineers aren’t in a big market, and they aren’t a national brand, but the football program dominates its region and even competes with Pitt and Penn State in western Pennsylvania. Travel for the West Virginia sports teams has been really difficult. Ideologically, West Virginia to the Big 12 seemed to fit, but the Mountaineers are practically 1,000 miles away from any other Big 12 school. Instead, it settled for joining the Big 12. In a perfect world, West Virginia would have entered the ACC when Syracuse, Pitt and Louisville did. Notre Dame changes that immediately should it join the ACC. Florida State and/or Miami should be those programs, but for a plethora of reasons, they aren’t right now. As seen last year, Notre Dame makes the ACC conference more interesting and provides the conference a second national contender. The ACC needs a second powerhouse football program to challenge Clemson. Still, there are so many advantages for the ACC if it somehow convinced Notre Dame to permanently join the conference (as it has for all other sports) that this is a topic that isn’t going away. Those games won’t be scheduled if Notre Dame plays an eight-game conference slate in the ACC. In recent years, the Irish also played Georgia, and Michigan. They must play five ACC opponents every year, but the rest of the Notre Dame slate has traditional rivalry games against USC, Stanford, and Navy. Without a conference, the Fighting Irish have more schedule flexibility. NBC reportedly pays Notre Dame $15 million for television rights every year.īut as Tadd Haislop eloquently argued in a 2020 article, money is only part of why Notre Dame remains independent. With the school’s NBC TV deal, it doesn’t have to. The question with Notre Dame continues to be whether the football program will ever enter a conference. Even so, Notre Dame may still be the most attractive football program for either the ACC, Big Ten or SEC. That will remain the case unless prestigious Pac-12 schools such as USC or UCLA attempt to move. With the Big 12 football blue bloods finding new homes, the best football school without a conference is obviously Notre Dame. Here are three schools that should be the ACC’s top choices should the conference expand: Is there an apple from the Big 12 tree that could catch the eye of the ACC brass? There’s at least one, but the most appealing school for ACC expansion still remains outside any conference. At the very least, the Big 12, now without its two biggest brand-named schools, is severely weakened and is ripe for picking as the Big East was about a decade ago. Time will tell whether Texas and Oklahoma joining the SEC will be the start of another seismic change in the conference landscape. As a result, Nebraska and Colorado left the Big 12, Maryland exited the ACC and Big East football folded. It took just a couple schools changing conferences about 10 years ago to cause a ripple effect across the country. Just a day later, Texas and Oklahoma accepted the invitations to join the SEC starting on July 1, 2025. The 14 SEC presidents and chancellors voted unanimously to extend invitations to the Longhorns and Sooners. Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC is a done deal. I should note, we did add Notre Dame to this list due to their involvement in basketball with the ACC.As college football expansion continues, Dave Holcomb looks at options for the ACC. We ranked every ACC team based on that and where their ideal and eventual landing spot could be. Clemson, North Carolina, Duke, Miami, Florida State, and Notre Dame are all near the top of the list and it would be shocking to not see them move on.Īs the ACC tries to fight off interest from the SEC/Big Ten in their teams, things are going to get really interesting in the coming months especially with the talks potentially heating up.īut which programs fit the conferences the best and which are the most desirable in terms of realignment? The ACC has some intriguing programs in terms of their brand, success, prestige and location for realignment. It feels inevitable that we will see more teams move on from their conference as the Atlantic Coast Conference appears to be next. Conference realignment has been the talk of college athletics for the past few weeks now with USC and UCLA bolting for the Big Ten.
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