FSU football has been vocal about the need to leave the ACC if things don’t change(and they won’t). The ACC talked about adding the scraps leftover from the Pac-12 conference, Stanford and California recently.
Also, SMU in Texas was a team threw in the potential expansion bundle. As of Wednesday night, it appears those talks have cooled off due to roadblocks, according to folks at ESPN.
I’d imagine those roadblocks would be schools like FSU, Clemson, and a few more telling other schools that are complacent with where they lie in the college football landscape that ACC expansion does nothing for them.
ACC expansion at this point is all about the survival of the conference, more than trying to compete with the SEC and B1G. Unless the ACC found a way to add Notre Dame, expanding doesn’t change anything, and Notre Dame isn’t going to join the ACC.
Frankly, they were the driving force trying to get the ACC to add Stanford and California. Why the ACC continues to allow Notre Dame to dictate things is beyond me.
The stance should have been we’ll add these three teams if you join the ACC in football. If you don’t, you can take the other sports that compete in the ACC, along with football, and let your head get small in the distance.
The addition of Cal, Stanford to ACC hits 'roadblocks', per ESPN sources. A union appears unlikely at this points, as the obstacles are indicative of a league with varied perspective. W/@aadelsonESPN https://t.co/ScmZf2rTPo
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) August 10, 2023
ND AD Jack Swarbrick told me the reason they advocated for Cal and Stanford was because “The notion that two of the very best academic institutions in the world who also play D1 sports could be abandoned in this latest chapter of realignment is an indictment of college athletics. https://t.co/b3rhc6Bd2A
— Heather Dinich (@CFBHeather) August 10, 2023
If you were FSU, why would you agree to that? Neither program adds value to the conference, meaning you’d ultimately get less money than you do now because the pie would have to be split more ways.
California and Texas are large markets population-wise, but these programs average fewer than 900K viewers per game. I can assure you nobody on the east coast is dying to stay up late to watch any of these programs.
Frankly, the latest idea to expand to include these teams is another reason FSU has to get out of this conference. The leadership is reactive and not proactive, and full of universities that are content with surviving and not competing at the highest level in sports.
Even if the ACC added these three schools, it wouldn’t stop FSU and others from looking to leave the conference because it doesn’t help close the revenue gap. In fact, it would make it larger. If the ACC happened to add these schools, I suppose they could replace schools that will eventually leave(because they are going to at some point).
Then it comes back to what the ACC is all about right now, and that’s surviving, and that’s not what FSU is looking to do.