It's that time of year again. The dead period of college sports doesn't officially begin until the opening salvo of realignment rumors gets fired. That happened last week with the rumor that Florida State and Clemson are considering bolting for the Big 12.
I'm not the type that pays a lot of attention to conference realignment, and it's not that it doesn't interest me. It's that when it comes to conference realignment, I don't know what I'm talking about. I don't know how school presidents think, or faculty reps, or athletic directors, or boards. I don't know which conferences are truly interested in which schools. I don't know which schools truly want to bolt. I don't know which schools are in a fiscally advantageous position to have the opportunity to bolt. I don't know how much cash on hand the Big 12 has, in case they want to pay for the exit fees of FSU and Clemson, as they did with West Virginia.
In short, I don't know ... anything. I suppose that doesn't make me any different than every other person writing about realignment. I'm going into this article blind, for the most part, but so is everyone else covering the topic. The bottom line is that we hear 50 different realignment rumors every summer. Each one sounds plausible; it comes from a "great source" or an "insider". And then 47 of those 50 rumors turns out to be false, because the fact is that in conference realignment, the only true insiders are the conference commissioners and school officials. And those guys do a good job of keeping their mouths shut, with the exception of the folks at Florida State.
Clemson and Florida State to the Big 12?
That doesn't make any geographic sense. If Clemson and FSU were to bolt, it seems that the SEC would be the likely destination. However, when you take a closer look you see that the SEC already has the states of South Carolina and Florida covered, so adding Clemson and the Noles wouldn't make a lot of sense for them.
Last summer at this time, there was hot talk of VT joining the SEC. There was also hot talk of the Big 12 being swallowed up by the surrounding conferences - namely the SEC, Big Ten and Pac 12. With the Big 12 out of the way, Virginia Tech was poised to be in one of the four superconferences of 16 teams that people have been talking about for so long. The ACC might have been the weakest of the four superconferences, but darn it, it was going to be one of them.
In just one year, the landscape has changed. The Big 12 got new leadership, and although they lost Colorado, Missouri and Texas A&M, they added West Virginia to get back to 10 teams. They used the exit fee money they made from the departure of Colorado, Missouri and the Aggies to entice WVU, writing them a big check for their Big East exit fee. That's good use of the cash that's on hand, and it makes them a more viable league going into the future.
Over the last couple of weeks, two other events have happened that could drastically change the future landscape of college football: the decision to move towards a four team playoff, and the SEC and the Big 12 creating their own postseason bowl game for their conference champions.
At this moment, it seems as if the top three conference champions and one at-large team will make up a four-team playoff, but who really knows what will happen when that meeting takes place next month? As Will noted last week, it's very rare (VT in 2007 is the only post-ACC expansion example) that an ACC school finishes in the top four of the BCS. Just basing future projections on past history, it appears as if the ACC will be shut out of any four team playoff, and from a monetary standpoint that could be very bad for ACC schools.
Last summer I thought things were trending towards the death of the Big 12 and an eight team playoff. That would have put the Hokies in a pretty strong position. Now things are trending towards the Big 12 expanding, getting a big bowl deal with the SEC, and college football creating a four team playoff. That does not put Tech, or the ACC, in a strong position.
If people at Clemson and Florida State do want to bolt, I can think of several reasons why, and it's not necessarily about the money. In fact, a $20 million ACC exit fee would make me strongly think about not leaving the league, unless of course the Big 12 stepped up and paid most or all of the exit fee.
1: Staying in a viable league. If you win the ACC, you aren't automatically going to the playoffs. If you win the Big 12, you stand a much better chance because you had to go through Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas and West Virginia.
2: So many years of being in a basketball centric conference. The blue bloods in North Carolina rule the roost. The ACC commissioner, John Swofford, played at UNC, and he was the AD at UNC. He was the guy, who as AD of UNC back in the 1980s, recommended that the ACC tack on an extra year of the probation that the NCAA handed down to Clemson. Why didn't he do that to his own Tar Heel earlier this year when the NCAA rulings came down? If you're Clemson, and you get a chance to bolt, it would be fun to thumb your nose at that guy as you walked out the door.
3: Will the big schools break away? That's been the talk for years, that the big conferences would break away from the NCAA so they could run their own basketball tournament and decide exactly how things get done. That might happen one day, or it might not. If that happens, the ACC would not be left out. Can you imagine a basketball tournament without UNC and Duke? No way. The ACC would be a part of it, even if it's an ACC that doesn't feature FSU or Clemson. That said, most school presidents would rather be in a league that gets revenue from both the basketball and football tournaments. The ACC wouldn't be likely to be getting much money from the football playoff. The Pac 12 would be making that money more often than the ACC.
Then again, there are reasons to be against the move.
1: FSU and Clemson are going to lose just as many games, probably more, by playing Oklahoma, Texas, Oklahoma State, etc. every year. Not to mention non-conference tilts against Florida and South Carolina.
2: The schools would make a little more from the Big 12 TV contract (the Big 12 is projected to make $20 million per year versus the ACC's $17 million from TV), but they also add greatly increased travel costs. Writing a check for the volleyball team to fly to Aimes, Iowa and Manhattan, Kansas would be tough pills to swallow for athletic directors. The increased travel costs would eat into the new TV revenue quite a bit.
3: Florida State and Clemson stand better chances of going undefeated in football in the ACC than they would in the Big 12. That would increase their chances of actually making a football Final Four.
4: Nobody truly likes moving. Whether it's from house to house, or conference to conference. It's annoying, and there's a lot of red tape and paperwork involved.
I'm sure there are countless other reasons for and against the move. We could sit here all day and do this.
But the big question is this: if Clemson and Florida State do happen to move to the Big 12, where would that leave Virginia Tech?
Hokies in Limbo?
Some people will tell you that Virginia Tech could have moved to the SEC last summer had they so chosen. I have no idea, and I'm not going to venture a guess either way. The past is irrelevant, and the only thing that matters is where the dominos fall if Clemson and FSU leave the ACC high and dry.
In my opinion, that would gut the league from a football standpoint. Not necessarily in the short-term, but the long-term. Those programs have been down, but they both have the potential to be very good. They are in talent rich areas, they have a lot of donors who love football, and they both recruit very well.
Could Virginia Tech survive in the ACC without FSU and Clemson? Sure, and they would probably win it almost every year, but what would that get them? Unless they went undefeated, a spot in the playoffs would probably be out. Could the ACC keep their tie-in with the Orange Bowl? I'm not so sure. Tech fans are tired of going to that bowl, and nobody else in the league would travel to it either. If I were the Orange Bowl, I'd try to go make a deal with the Big Ten, whose fans would flock to south Florida in the winter. We could end up seeing a scenario where Tech, as ACC Champions, heads to the Chick-fil-A Bowl to face the fifth place SEC team.
I've changed my way of thinking in the past year. Back when I thought the ACC would have automatic access in an eight-team playoff, I loved the thought of Tech getting into the playoffs almost every year, or every other year. Now that I know it's probably going to be a four-team playoff, and the ACC probably isn't going to see a dime of that playoff money, it's a little bit scary. If Clemson and FSU bolt, then what do you do? With those schools leaving, and UNC, Duke, Maryland and Syracuse all in the league, you know where this is headed. Basketball. I love college hoops, but that's not where Virginia Tech's bread is buttered.
At that point I think you have to give NC State a call and reach out to the SEC in a unified front. I'm not saying Tech should jump at the first chance, but they should find out if the SEC is interested in moving to 16 teams. If they are, and Tech is one of their top targets (I like to think we would be, if they decide to move in that direction), then the VT administration should seriously consider the move.
Here's how a 16-team SEC would look, with every single southeastern state included. Pardon my limited Photoshop skills.
Looks pretty cool, right? It makes sense geographically. South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee and Florida would be in the same division, in my SEC at least. That would be at least two awesome road trips each year.
Tech would not win a bunch of SEC Championships, nor would they make a bunch of SEC Championship Games. But Florida has been down for the last couple of seasons, and I think the Hokies would have had one heck of a battle with South Carolina and Georgia for the king of the SEC East. That sounds pretty fun, up until the part where you lose to Alabama or LSU for the SEC Championship.
Here are a couple of things that concern me:
1: What if the SEC doesn't want to expand to 16 teams? An SEC official recently told Big 12 interim commissioner Chuck Neinas, "Don't expand beyond 12 because 14 becomes unruly." Apparently some in the SEC are already regretting their decision to add Texas A&M and Missouri. It makes scheduling a real pain, and adding two more teams would only add to the problems. What if Clemson and FSU bolt, but the SEC decides they are fine with 14 schools? Will Tech be stuck with no option except to stay in a bad, politically diminished football league?
2: Would Tech be active or reactive? Athletic directors don't have much to do with the process, but even if they did, Jim Weaver doesn't put in too many full days in the Merryman Center because of his health. President Charles Steger is rapidly approaching retirement, and he's got his hands full with the April 16th lawsuit and yet another tuition increase that caused an extra round of important meetings. He's a busy guy right now. His day planner is already full.
3: What if state politics joins Virginia Tech and UVA at the hip? It happened back in 2003, to Virginia Tech's benefit. Would the same relationship hold the Hokies back this time around?
As I've hinted before, from a leadership perspective I don't like where Virginia Tech has backed itself. Weaver is a sharp guy, but his physical condition isn't good. I have no issue with Charles Steger at all, but his plate is full right now, and it's not his fault. He's is very close to retiring as well. At this point, I don't think anybody is steering the boat. We've just gone full sails, and we're going to end up wherever the wind blows us. Hopefully it sends us to a warm, tropical location rather than some rocky shoals.
It concerns me, and it should concern you too. At the same time, Clemson and Florida State might not leave. Actually, they probably won't leave. Last year at this time, "good sources" said FSU and Clemson were "gone to the SEC". Later they said that VT was headed to the SEC. They've said Notre Dame was going to the Big Ten, ACC, Big 12, etc. Conference realignment ... where you just toss a bunch of rumors out there and you don't have to care if you are wrong, because most other people are wrong too.
Don't expect to hear any news soon. It will be another month (June 20th) before the meetings that decide what type of a playoff we are heading to, and how the money will get divided up. What happens at that meeting could influence the decisions of Florida State and Clemson. It could even influence the decision of the Big 12 on whether or not to expand at all.
It's only May 21st. A summer full of rumors and "inside info" awaits us.