Sapakoff: Clemson, UNC, Miami must give the ACC an ultimatum

Jul 5, 2022, 4:58 PM

Article - Post and Courier:

Sapakoff: Clemson, UNC, Miami must give the ACC an ultimatum, deadline
9 hrs ago

Gene Sapakoff is the oldest, fastest, hardest-hitting sports journalist in S.C. As columnist at The Post and Courier he covers Clemson, South Carolina and other interesting things. He likes food and has won the prestigious Judson Chapman Award 3 times.

Facing the most seismic shift in college football since the advent of the forward pass in 1906, this is no time for Clemson to look backward.

The ACC was great while it lasted. From Roman Gabriel and Lawrence Taylor to Charlie Ward and Trevor Lawrence. All that incredible basketball stuff, too.

But with the move of Southern Cal and UCLA to the Big Ten and the suddenly mismanaged ACC facing minor league status, it’s time for Clemson and the few other relevant ACC athletic departments to flex.

“I’d be more than surprised if Clemson is in the ACC three years from now,” a former Clemson Board of Trustees member said July 1. “It will be the SEC, or whatever the SEC is called then.”

Probably still the SEC, and less than three years from now.

And a bigger SEC that’s joined with a bigger Big Ten as part of a two-conference system basically run by ESPN (SEC) and FOX (Big Ten). Let’s call it The Super League, for reference (if not heaven’s) sake.

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It’s hard to find a responsible party in college athletics who thinks the 16-school SEC (counting Texas and Oklahoma) and 16-school Big Ten are done expanding. Or that it won’t happen sooner than later.

Which puts these expansion candidates on the clock, ranked roughly in order of Super League attractiveness:

1. Notre Dame. Obviously a clear No. 1, and losing College Football Playoff leverage by the hot summer week.

2. North Carolina. The most popular athletic brand in the ninth-most populous state in America. Though geographic footprints are so last decade, this is one of the few schools that fits into either SEC or Big Ten expansion models.

3. Washington. The next-best West Coast option after Southern Cal and UCLA, or maybe better than UCLA.

4. Clemson. SEC-style brand loyalty with current credibility on the big stage after winning national titles in 2016 and 2018 and six of the last seven ACC championships.

5. Miami. That South Florida talent base, and great road trip exposure for other programs.

6. Florida State. Clemson without a lake, or recent success.

7. Oregon. A solid property at the right time.

8. Arizona State with the edge over a bunch of other candidates. Big, growing market. Sun Devils should be way better in football.

This is a heavyweight campaign.

Which is why Clemson should politely approach ACC headquarters (taking a scenic shortcut to Greensboro to avoid I-85 traffic delays) with the following demand: Find a way to get Notre Dame in the ACC and adopt a new revenue sharing plan based on football meritocracy, which might be the only way to interest Notre Dame. Or else.

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Why the Clemson urgency

Few schools in the expansion mix face the urgency of Clemson.

The SEC and Big Ten have pulled away from the other three “Power Five” conferences to the extent there is no more Power Five.

Smart, creative football decisions from ACC management seem unlikely in that ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips in February was more out front than anyone. Strangely, he voted against expanding the College Football Playoff to 12 teams, a move college football fans overwhelmingly want, explaining that the sport needs to fix itself before fixing the playoff.

The Southern Cal and UCLA jump makes the so-called “Alliance” between the ACC, Big Ten and Pac-12 a farce.

The entire Big Ten just tapped into the L.A. market as name, image and likeness opportunities take recruiting precedent.

Meanwhile, Clemson has future schedules peppered with games against Wake Forest, Duke, Pittsburgh, Syracuse …

Well, you get the point.

Mainly, Clemson, low in the ACC in endowment funds per student but tops in football prestige, has to act before its per-year ACC revenue sharing money gets doubled up by the SEC’s ESPN and Big Ten’s FOX payouts.

Such disparity will make bolting from the ACC grant of rights agreement that runs until 2036 worth the financial and/or legal risk.

It’s frustrating and sad, losing all the ACC ties that run deep throughout so many sports. But unlike Southern Cal and UCLA, Clemson for the most part wouldn’t be switching time zones or food cultures to cozy up with the SEC.

‘Layers of complications’
There’s been super conference talk from Seattle to Coral Gables for a long time, serious buzz for more than a year.

“It might not be exactly like the NFL with 16 teams and four divisions in each conference, but a two-conference set-up type of alignment with something like 20-24 member universities each, that (perhaps) is what we might end up with,” an associate athletic director with an SEC East school said July 1. “But there are layers of complications.”

Among those complications are making sense of longer trips and more difficult travel obligations for athletes in all sports, and the legal minefield that will come if The Super League tries to weed out schools traditionally less committed to football.

Travel can be addressed, the associate AD said, with heavily regionalized scheduling, less so for men’s and women’s basketball but more so for the more minor sports.

The weeding out process is surprisingly less complex. The Super League could adopt new standards to get rid of, say, Vanderbilt, but the less-valuable football properties of the Pac-12, Big 12 and ACC are easily left behind.

What happens to the rest of the ACC when Clemson and a few others bolt?

Hard to say, but probably some kind of “alliance” with the Big 12, Pac-12, Mountain West and other conferences more or less able to support complete football madness that will soon involve salaried players.

But unless the ACC soon adds Notre Dame as a football member, Clemson must complete a historic forward pass.

Follow Gene Sapakoff on Twitter @sapakoff

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Sapakoff: Clemson, UNC, Miami must give the ACC an ultimatum

Cornholio can suck me.***

Re: Cornholio can suck me.***

He's right up there w/ Finebum...heh...heh***

Washington better than UCLA? Oregon #7 in attractiveness?

"Clemson must give the ACC an ultimatum"...

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