CONFERENCE REALIGNMENT STRIKES AGAIN - sort of

They're off. Normal bugles today. Exactly.

Normal, normal, normal horns. And we're gonna say it's normal because the ACC is still intact. Yes. It's still what it was yesterday. It's still what it was two days before that and last week and two years ago. It's all still the same. Nothing's changed. Yet.

Unfortunately. There is yet. So reports are coming out yesterday. I know a lot of people may have heard it, but if you haven't, the ACC has been in conversations to add both Stanford and Cal. Meetings haven't taken place this morning, not only amongst presidents and ADs of the American Athletic Conference, excuse me, of the Atlantic Coast Conference. We're going to get into the AAC in a little bit, but in the Atlantic Coast Conference, meetings have taken place. Conversations have taken place. Even the Cal Berkeley Board of Regents had a meeting today as well. A lot of meetings happening, but nothing formally has taken place. So the latest from Pete Thamel of ESPN, who's been covering this thing, which by the way, I know a lot of people out there just like refreshing his feed, just like, is there anything, anything new, anything new, anything new? So according to sources this morning, ACC presidents met this morning for an exploratory call on both Cal and Stanford. As expected, there is no vote taken. The league is, quote, still evaluating, air quotes, still evaluating this potential decision.

That's according to Pete Thamel of ESPN. Now, Stanford and California, look, I'm going to get into why I don't like it a little bit. I was very vocal about it yesterday. I'm going to get into a little bit more why I don't like this later on. Stanford and Cal on a national scale, when it comes to football, they don't move the needle. They just don't. Call with it. This is a hundred percent of football money revenue decisions, 100 percent what this is.

So call it what it is. Cal hasn't really had a star player, a really, truly relevant star player since the days of Aaron Rodgers, then Marshawn Lynch. There's a few other guys here and there, but otherwise those have been the two biggest stars who have come out of that school. Now, Stanford in recent years have had guys like Andrew Luck have come out of Stanford, but for the most part, haven't really had a whole lot come out of Stanford in terms of star power at the collegiate level. But also one of the young top players they've had recently, Bryce Love, who's actually from the state of North Carolina, went to Wake Forest High School, was a Heisman runner-up, was in the Heisman running out there at Stanford.

So yeah, he had a, obviously Christian McCaffrey. There's another name that comes out of there as well. So they've had some good players come out, but again, on a national scale over the last six years, nothing really been. Now, students of universities, when it comes to realignment, they do look at academic profiles of the other universities that they're discussing.

Trust me, they do. Happens all the way from Division I all the way down through Division III. Believe it or not, realignment happens at those levels too. They take the academic profile of the universities, in which this case, Stanford and Cal, perfect fits for the ACC in terms of university profile. You're one of the top academic public universities in the entire country in Cal Berkeley, and you get one of the top private universities in the entire country in Stanford. Yeah, the academic profiles and the way the schools are, the way they're run, they're operating, and this is their status, they fit the ACC perfectly in that regard. Now, that doesn't guarantee that they're going to get in to the Atlantic Coast Conference. Pete Thamm will discuss on SportsCenter on a pushback, possibly, of adding Cal and Stanford. I will caution, Dallin, that headwinds exist here for these schools. The term additive comes up pretty quickly when you talk about adding programs like Cal and Stanford. They would not be additive to the bottom line, as you know from the headlines from Tallahassee last week.

There was a clamor from the Seminoles and from other schools in the ACC for additive money, and this would not be the case here, at least significantly, with Cal and Stanford. So the discussions will begin. We'll see where they end.

Okay, so the discussions have begun. We don't know where it ends yet. Hopefully, we'll find that out. Heck, even possibly today. Wouldn't surprise me. Nothing happens today, but at some point this week, we should hear something, and if you're going to make a decision, act fast. Yeah. Act fast, because there's no guarantee that there's another conference that might be trying to absorb the Pac-12.

So a lot of things are at play in this. Now, Greg McElroy, who works for ESPN, SEC Network, how does he see the ACC talking with Cal and Stanford going? Yeah, when I think about the Atlantic Coast, Greeny, I mean, who doesn't think about Palo Alto and Berkeley? I mean, their westernmost member right now is Louisville, which is in the great state of Kentucky. It's absurd, and their entire play is to keep Florida State at bay and to keep Clemson happy.

Well, hey, guess what? Clemson, here's what we can do to sweeten the deal for you. You get a home and home in Corvallis, Oregon with Oregon State.

It's absurd. Now, I understand why the Pac-4 would be trying to exercise every possible option, Greeny, but my goodness, there is absolutely nothing in this arrangement that would benefit the ACC. The only way that they survive is by keeping Florida State tied to their grant of rights.

If they can't keep them tied to their grant of rights, they can find an exit. That means North Carolina can, Clemson can, NC State can, Virginia can, and once those dominoes start to fall, then the ACC as we know it will be no more. Okay, so he clearly is going to throw shade at the ACC for having a potentially West Coast schools, but whereas the ACC up until if they do add Sanford and Cowell is the only conference in the entire country where all their schools are in the same time zone. Right. So don't throw shade about potentially adding West Coast schools. I'm like, are you kidding me? You've got Rutgers and now USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington in the Big Ten going forward.

Very hypocritical. Yeah, I'm sorry. What about Missouri's in the Southeast? Sorry, you're like a lower Midwest state. That's what you are.

You're not in the Southeast. So whatever with that. But here's something I will say.

Here's where it does add to the ACC. It's all about TV revenue, right? It's all about the dollars. All about the Benjamins sometimes.

Always. So what does adding West Coast schools do? It opens up another television time slot, which means you can now go to ESPN and say, look, not only can you have noon kickoffs, 3 30 kickoffs, seven slash 8 p.m. kickoffs. If we have a team that's traveling out West, you can have a nine or a 10 p.m. game. You can have that now because now you've opened up that time slot, which now means added revenue, which now means people on the West Coast can sit there and watch their old pack 12 after dark.

Right? Well, guess who now gets those? That would be the ACC. The Atlantic Atlantic Coast Conference would get that. So there therein lies the opportunity for not only another time slot, which would then open up more money when you're in negotiations, when you have a chance to kind of go back to the table with ESPN, with Disney regarding this. So here's the thing. The grant of rights in the media deal runs through 20, 20, 36 for the for the ACC.

But during that, there are different times where you can kind of go back and rediscuss your the payments and all those kinds of things. Right. So there are built in windows to do that. You can go to Disney and ESPN and say, hey, look, we've we have these schools. We open up this other time slot. Yeah. Now, these games might be on the CW or something like that.

That's fine. Those are the third and fourth tier games anyway. Right. That's the NC State versus VMI goes on the CW. We're not talking primetime Florida State Carolina here.

It's not going to go on that network. But for some of these other games, again, you open up a time slot. This could be ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ACC Network.

There's a lot of different ways that you can put these games out there. It's more programming again for ESPN. So you open up that time slot.

So that is another added revenue. But yeah, Stanford and Cal, like I said, do not move the needle in football. Yeah, just not. Now, there have been conversations about.

Well, actually. Maybe it's not the ACC. Maybe we'll have the Mountain West.

Mountain West is sitting there going like, hey, you know, we could possibly just take on the four schools. Right. I know.

I know. Greg McElroy talked about, oh, Oregon State. Like, no, I don't think ACC is going for Oregon State or Washington State. I think it's just Stanford, Cal. I don't think they want to take on all four of those.

They might, but I just don't see it. We hear Stanford and Cal. Now there's the possibility of, all right, what about the Mountain West? Could the Pac-12 try and poach schools from the Mountain West?

Boise State, Fresno State, San Diego State and a host of others. Well, here's the problem with that. The exit fee to leave the Mountain West, it's 35 million bucks. And if you try and add five teams, five schools, or even just four, the Pac-12 is going to have to help subsidize those because those athletic departments aren't big enough to handle that money. They can just shell out that cash on their own. They just can't do it. The Pac-12 can't subsidize that. They can't help foot the bill. Right.

They can't. So now what are your options left? Okay. Do you just then go actually join the Mountain West that way? There's also talk to the American Athletic Conference being interested in adding some of these schools, including Stanford, Cal.

How does that impact us locally? I'm sorry. Last time I checked, ECU is in the American Athletic Conference. They are. Hello ECU versus Stanford.

Dowdy Ficklin, anybody? Never would have thought that could happen, but now it's actually, wait, hold on, wait a second. That might be a real possibility. Now the American Athletic Conference is a large conference that's already in and of itself. It's kind of what Conference USA used to be. Or Conference USA is like, oh, here's what she's like mid-major, you know, schools that are just getting spread out all across the country.

Well, that's what the American has become really. It's elevated itself above Conference USA. So there's a lot of things at play. Again, it's all comes down to money.

All comes down to that. Now also there's the conversation of, well, what is next for those Pac-12 schools? And Pete Thammell, earlier on SportsCenter yesterday, so the conversation again, what's next for these Pac-12 schools? Are they working together? Are they working independently? Are they working independently together, if that makes sense?

Pete Thammell gave us a breakdown. Yeah, the odds are against the Pac-12 right now in any form, but that hasn't stopped everyone from trying, right? There are four schools working together independently, it was described to me today.

And I thought that was a good way to sum up where they are. They have to look out for themselves, as talent Stanford are doing. At the same time, if those four schools could stick together and add a few schools, they could keep NCAA tournament units, they could keep the NCAA tournament bid. There are still some assets remaining in the Pac-12, despite the headwinds here, and despite the fact that there's significant contest debt that would have to get sorted through. But I think the logical answer there would be if those counts everyone's the ACC, the Mountain West would look like the most likely home for Oregon State and Washington State. Alright, so again, we talk about money. Money doesn't necessarily all come from media rights and television.

That's not the only place that schools generate revenue. He mentioned the NCAA tournament, what's known as units. I'm not going to get into the math or any of that kind of stuff, but units in the NCAA tournament, this is when your teams advance or schools in your conference advance in the NCAA tournament. For example, we saw a couple years ago, the ACC had both Duke and Carolina in the Final Four.

Carolina getting into the national championship. When you have schools in your conference that advance further in the tournament and more teams make the NCAA tournament, you get whether, again, these are units, these are payouts from the NCAA for that. So the more schools that you have in the tournament that also go further in the tournament, the more money your conference gets. Now how your conference divvies up that money, that's up to the conference. The conference, in the ACC's case, divvies it all up equally. This is where some of the revenue sharing conversations have taken place, is that, well, if my school advances further in the tournament, we should get more of a cut. Not the, you know, why should I do all the work to get to a national championship?

And then split it equally. Yeah, then like, why does Boston College get the same cut, right? So that's been some of the conversations with the ACC, which I'm okay with that. Yeah. So Pac-12, you want to continue to retain those, right?

You want to keep that money. So that's why the Pac-12 doesn't want to completely dissolve. But I'm sorry, Stanford and Cal Go, you're done.

I mean, let's be real. The moment that Oregon and Washington agreed to go to the Big Ten, which then led to Arizona, Arizona State, Utah, joining Colorado by joining the Big 12, let's be real, it was a wrap. Exactly. You said it was a wrap at that point anyway. So there are a lot of financial things for the Pac-12 to try and keep things together. I'm sorry, it just ain't happening.

All right, my last thing on this, I'm going to get into this a little bit later on. Here's why I hate it. I said this yesterday, I'll say it again. Do not, if you're a college administrator, do not ever tell me again that the health and well-being of your student athletes matters.

It just... Yeah, it's all lies. No, I'm sorry. Like if you're Miami, you're like, yeah, let's vote Stanford and Cal in so you can send your volleyball team all the way out there. I'm a massive lacrosse fan. People who've listened to the, who've never listened to me on the radio probably probably mentioned that sport multiple times, probably more than you probably cared about. But I know that Cal and Stanford both have women's lacrosse teams.

Well, guess what? Boston College, now you're sending your women's lacrosse team for a game out to Cal and Stanford. You probably have to play two on a weekend, play a Friday and a Sunday.

That's likely what you have to do, but that's what it's going to be. Virginia Tech, UNC, Pitt, all those programs that have women's lacrosse, Louisville, they got to send everyone out there. And guess what? Stanford and Cal got to make all these trips and come out East too. I'm sorry. Last time I checked, you like to throw out student athlete at us, right? You disregard the student part. Yeah. I mean, there's still exams. You got to study, there's papers.

You have to sleep eventually, but then you have practice. It's not an easy thing to do. And it's a, you do a disservice to a lot of athletes. Now we'll say this, Stanford top to bottom, you can argue, well, there is the best athletic department in the entire country. Now again, football, not great.

Men's basketball hasn't been there in a while, but overall top to bottom, one of the best athletic departments in the entire country. And again, they're just kind of floating out there on their own. Again, that's one of the reasons I do not like it. It's going to happen though. It's going to happen.

All right, let's move on to something else real fast. By the way, in 10 minutes, Kelsey Riggs, ACC network is going to join us. The college football coaches poll came out. Everyone loves a good pre-season poll.

So congratulations to all of us to enjoy that. ACC had three schools in the top 25 UNC at 20 Clemson at nine Florida state at eight. Oh, that one caught me off guard.

I was like, Oh really tell more. So a lot of people are really high on Florida state right now. Don't worry. I'm going to get into the others receiving votes because the ACC had four other schools receive votes. So three of the top 25, again, Florida state, eight Clemson, nine UNC 20 Florida state at eight does intrigue me because again, a lot of people are very high on the Seminoles. A lot of people are very high on what Mike Norvell is doing out there. I think he's done a really good job of turning things around after Jimbo left and there's Willie tagger and that whole terrible situation. So turning things around out in Florida state, could you pick the book Clemson?

That's something I do not get. Cause last time I checked Florida state, have they been an AC championship game in a while? No, wait, they haven't. No, wait, they haven't.

Yeah. No wait, you haven't. I'm sorry. You've lost to Wake Forest three straight seasons. Wake Forest got votes. They also received votes.

So a lot of people really high. Now I get it. Jordan Travis is coming back. Whereas you have the big question mark in terms of Kay Klubnick at quarterback for Clemson.

Totally understandable. But last time I checked when Kay Klubnick came in and in that ACC championship game against North Carolina, that's amazing how Clemson's offense started moving the football. Go figure. So again, there's still a question mark where Jordan Travis, a lot of people were throwing him in his name into the Heisman trophy race. So a lot of people are high on the Seminoles in the preseason. But again, what a preseason rankings mean? Nothing.

Absolutely nothing. It's just good talking point for us. I will say this though. You can tell a lot about how people perceive a program by who isn't voted into the top 25. It's very telling. The Duke disrespect is real.

Absolutely real right now. This is a team that went nine and four last season, returning like 19 starters 20. They didn't have a bunch of guys leave for the portal or anything like that. That wasn't the case.

Mike Elko in his second season. I understand that their schedule is tougher this upcoming year, but they got two votes. Yeah. Two votes seems a little weird. Then again, the also receiving votes category, just two votes for the top 25.

That's it. I'm sorry. Duke disrespect is real right now. Pitt received 52 votes. If you actually go down the others receiving votes category, that she puts them at like 30th. Okay.

Phil Drakova coming back or coming in, transferring him from Boston college and you have patent or doozy and all that. But last time I checked, I know Pitt beat Duke last season in Pittsburgh in a tight game, but I'm sorry, just two votes for Duke. I don't see a lot of disrespect towards that. NC state also received votes. They received 19 votes. Wake forest received six.

What's the thing is a Testament. Actually, you can say that people are like, Oh yeah, wake forest. I'm going to vote them in my top 25. It's easy to not vote for them for the simple fact that your stalwart at quarterback, one of the best in terms of numbers, stat wise in the ACC ever statistically Sam Hartman, he's gone to Notre Dame, Notre Dame, by the way, picked 13th in the preseason coaches poll, but wake forest got six votes and Duke got to my, there's a lot more returning players and star players and Riley Leonard coming back at quarterback for Duke. I don't know that disrespect for Duke is definitely real.