Texas to the ACC?
Here we go again… A few months ago, the Confidential wrote about a future between Texas and the ACC, and just recently wrote about Texas’ questionable decision to promote Greg Robinson from “football analyst” to Defensive Coordinator (a.k.a. – Brown’s next Fall Guy).
The total ineptitude in Texas has many Longhorn bloggers and fans speculating that Deloss Dodds’ future as the Athletic Director will be ending at year’s end, while others at this point are hoping that Mack Brown will man-up and call it quits after the season.
That kind of sea change could have dramatic effects on the future of a Texas program that is watching the Aggies capture the national love-and-attention (OK…maybe just attention) while the Longhorns are entering a slippery-slope of irrelevancy.
Factor in the rumblings that the B1G has performed their due diligence on Oklahoma and Kansas, and we could be in for another round of conference realignment opening the door for Texas to the ACC.
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It is no secret that the other Power Conferences have all coveted adding Texas. Despite the past few years lack of success, they are and will continue to be a “Football King” and can attract viewers nationwide.
What the ACC has that no other conference seemingly wants to offer, is the ability to do a partial membership following the mold of Notre Dame, if not being the catalyst for both schools to go all-in.
As previously written by the Confidential:
With the Longhorn Network, ESPN and Texas can have a smooth transition regarding the Tier 3 rights (i.e. the Texas exception for Tier 3 rights). Perhaps lay the foundation for a Sunshine Network for the Tier 3 rights for Miami and Florida State. Or Texas could end up with a similar “deal” as Notre Dame–partial schedule, retaining Longhorn Network rights to the remaining games.
Consider an ACC with the following:
Atlantic: Florida State, Boston College, Louisville, Clemson, North Carolina State, Syracuse, Wake Forest, Notre Dame (5 or 6 games per year).
Coastal: Miami, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, North Carolina, Virginia, Duke, Pittsburgh, Texas (5 or 6 games per year).
Of course there would be an obligatory annual game between Texas and Notre Dame.
As for the issue of Grant of Rights, the loss of Texas would almost assuredly result in the dissolution of the Big 12, cementing the ACC’s spot among Power 4 Conferences, which would coincide nicely with the B1G’s expansion plans.
Based on the B1G’s previous expansion moves, they tend to only take 1 team per conference, so the odds are they will take only taking Kansas or Oklahoma. My guess: B1G goes basketball taking a blue-blood elite basketball school in Kansas, and then makes a bold move to take UConn for basketball and another eastern seaboard school.
The moves by the ACC and B1G will result in “Conference Realignment End Game” with a free-for-all for Oklahoma, Oklahoma St., Baylor, Texas Tech, Kansas St., WVU, TCU, and Iowa State as they scramble to join the Pac12, SEC, MWC, while the remainders raid the American (Cinci, UConn, Houston, Tulsa, UCF, USF).
ACC fans may have more incentive to root against Texas than ever.
The Confidential 
I like this scenario but it takes alot to dissolve a league. I would assume 8 of the 10 would have to vote for it which means all 8 would have to have a better landing spot lined out. This could happen and would be far easier then dissolving the ACC. The remaining two would probably join the American or MWC instead of raiding the AAC though.
The 8 could be Kansas & UConn to the B1G, Oklahoma & Okl State to the SEC, Texas, WV & Texas Tech to the ACC and the Baylor & TCU to the PAC. You really have to reach to get to 8 though.
god no, keep the hillbillies as far away from the ACC and Pittsburgh please.
Baylor and TCU are too religious to get into the PAC… and too small to justify expansion.
Without Texas, I don’t see Fox/ESPN paying over $20M/yr. for the remaining teams; especially if you have a scenario where Kansas goes to the B1G and possibly have Ok and Ok.St. to the Pac12.
Without dissolving the conference then under the GOR then the Big XII still ownes their TV rightes no matter what conference they are in. The Big 12 wouldnt lose that money until the contract is up. Of course the GOR could be challenged in court. This doesnt make Texas worthless to the ACC though, them playing @ an ACC team increases that value. A question to ask is what is their tv value worth since they have the LHN and ESPN already? On the GOR you are talking their tier 1 & 2 rights for home games, thats what the Big 12 would keep.
ESPN could dish out some $$$ to get Texas into the ACC & to get Texas away from FOX and totaly with them.
ESPN getting Texas to themselves would be a huge get; frankly Fox may reneg on the whole BigXII entirely if enough key teams are out.
The GORs makes any further movement highly unlikely, IMO. Any B12 doomsday scenario requires other conferences “cooperating” to invite enough B12 teams to get the required votes to dissolve the conference. The problem is that no conference will cooperate so another conference can walk away with the most valuable B12 schools (i.e. Texas and OU). The only possible scenario I see is the PAC taking 6 or 8 B12 teams (whichever is required to dissolve the GOR/conference). It’s unlikely that they would be willing to go that far and the LHN torpedoed the last PAC attempt to eat the B12. Intra-state politics always plays a role too – i.e. you can’t leave your other state schools stranded. I would be shocked if the state governments in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas would tolerate any of their schools being relegated to the G5. Similar factors hold the ACC together in NC and VA.
Just my over-simplified take.
I think that conferences would definitely cooperate; hell the Big East was looking at adding Kansas, Kansas St. and the Oklahomas were seriously looking at the Pac12 before the BigXII got a bailout from Fox and ESPN capitulated to Texas.
Factor in that the B1G has evaluated Kansas and Oklahoma, and I think you could legitimately see 30% of the BigXII go elsewhere. At which point, it becomes a free-for-all for the Pac12, MWC, and maybe even SEC.
Texas to the ACC has about a 10% chance at best. It would take the blow-up of the B12 (by design at about the same time), with the majority of B12 teams agreeing to move to other conferences in order to circumvent the GOR. The only way for this to work would be for Texas to sincerely threaten to leave, then the ‘rats start jumping ship’ (schools start negotiating behind the scences). Again not a likely scenario, but it is very true that Texas is the corner-stone… start to move it, and the whole wall gets shakey!
Again, I think Texas to the ACC is only part of the equation; watch what the B1G does, too. They can have as much or more of an impact on the BigXII as Texas.
When does the B12’s GOR expire? It’s at this time that B12 fans need to sweat it. If all conference teams don’t agree to continue a GOR, this is of course very telling on what could be happening behind doors (i.e., talks with BIG, SEC, or ACC).
This is conjecture in the worst way. And most of this information is old & outdated at best. The B1G looked at KU and OK the same time they looked at NU and Mizzu. And I see no possible value those schools could ADD (key word) to the B1G with their GOR to the B 12.
Check out Frank the Tank… the Big 10 centric blog that does more on expansion than any other site, anywhere. They are talking about KU and OK all the time, as Big 10 adds. So I have to disagree with you there.
As for whether Matt built off my earlier article… perhaps… ha ha ha.
Yeah, he did. I would love to see Texas in the ACC but they currently dont have a reason to move. They are making more $$$ there then what they would make here, such as tv, bowl payout, third tier rights. If the Big XII dissolved the ACC would get the scraps right now. Wait about a decade when the GORs are about to expire the ACC has more leverage and power. Also, with the looming changing of the guard at Texas who knows what direction their new leadership will want to go in.
The changing of the guard at Texas will be huge. If they look-around and see that the LHN and the BigXII aren’t giving them the national exposure that they need, then a move to ACC is very plausible. Especially given Notre Dame’s special arrangement.
There is no question that I was building off the previous articles written on the topic which were linked to the article.
As for the Frank the Tank commentariat, having read through most of it, they are very optimistic that the B1G will take a team from the Big XII. Of course, they were also optimistic that UVA and/or UNC were going to the B1G as well, so who knows…
Big XII sites are saying Ohio St is looking to leave & join them because of SOS. Another rumor had Penn St looking to leave & thats why Maryland & Rutgers were added. Lets see whats happens in five to ten years. We could be talking about adding Penn St & Michigan then.
Lenvillecards: You’re kidding me, right?? lolol OSU leave the B1G?? LOLOLOL
Ohio State leave the B10 for the B12? SOS issue? Makes no sense. That’s about a thousand to one chance!
Dacuseman: I laughed to when I saw what was written about OSU. Kinda proves the point, the rumors hasnt stoped but at least they are now mostly poaitive for the ACC. I do believe that the B1G is starting to lose its football cred though, as of now I would rank them as 5th this season. If they continue to slide who knows what will happen in 10-20 years.
I think with the Texas add we’d want to do pods. Texas would want to see more Clemson, FSU and Louisville than they would under the current Atlantic/Coastal set-up. At that point you could see something like this-
FSU-Miami-GT-Clemson
UNC-NCSU-Wake-Duke
BC-Syracuse-Notre Dame-Pitt
VT-Virginia-Louisville-Texas
OR
Is the following situation more plausible? If the conferences are working together, does this help things move along? Cuse/Pitt/BC/Notre Dame fans, would you be happier with this if the Big Ten also added Connecticut and one more school to get to 20?
1) Syracuse, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh, Boston College to the Big Ten
2) Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma St, West Virginia to the ACC
FSU-Miami-GT-Clemson
UNC-NCSU-Wake-Duke
VT-UVA-Louisville-WVU
Texas-Texas Tech-Oklahoma-Oklahoma St
Why cant the ACC add those five teams & goto twenty? Maybe switch WV with Baylor or something?
totally agree. leave WV out of the ACC – most degenerate, knuckle-dragging, primate fans in college football, one of the poorest and least populous states, no new TV markets, horrible academics…we could go on for hours.
BC, Syracuse, Pitt, Louisville, ND
UVa, VT, UNC, NCSU, Duke
Miami, FSU, Clemson, GT, WF
Texas, Texas Tech, Baylor, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State
I agree, I like. The way you diveded them up works for pods except I would switch Miami & NC State to keep competitive balance.
can’t swap miami for NCSU because Miami and FSU have to play every year. 20 teams would force 10 team divisions (which would change every year swapping out pods) and a 9 game schedule consisting solely of division games. since there would be no cross division games, the only protected annual rivalries are in the pods.
we could swap NCSU for GT, but i would hate for clemson and GT to not play every year.
Yeah, you are right. This works out best.