Big Ten Roundup (Aug. 8): Cal, Stanford Might Join ACC Instead of B1G

Cal and Stanford were rumored adds for the Big Ten last week, potentially joining Oregon and Washington, the two Pac-12 schools whose move to the B1G was announced on Friday. However, Cal and Stanford have not been added to the Big Ten, and instead might be headed to the ACC.

Daniel Olinger | Aug 8, 2023

Big Ten Roundup (Aug. 8): Cal, Stanford Might Join ACC Instead of B1G /

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Cal and Stanford in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

It sounds like a horribly played game of Mad Libs the first time you read it. Those two school are quite literally on the Pacific Coast, thousands of miles away from the home of the historic ACC. But college football realignment just does not care for your feelings or for geographic coherence in 2023.

After the California schools were rumored as the Big Ten's potential 19th and 20th teams for the 2024 season, there's now momentum for the pair to join the ACC instead.

Here's everything you need to know in today's Big Ten Roundup:

Cal and Stanford in the ACC?

It feels worth noting that a drive from Stanford University's campus to Boston College would cover more than 3,000 miles and would come out to about a 46-hour drive.

Sources: In the next 24 hours, there’s two calls for the ACC to vet and have early exploratory discussions on the potential addition of Cal and Stanford. One is for ACC athletic directors and the other for the league's presidents and chancellors.
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) August 7, 2023

For anyone asking why Cal and Stanford might do this, the answer is pretty simple — survival. The SEC has not shown interest in adding any more teams to its soon-to-be 16-team setup unless they're named Clemson and Florida State. The Big 12 already got the four schools it wanted in Colorado, Arizona, Arizona State and Utah. And while the Big Ten adding literally any team on the map can't be ruled out at this point, it *appears* that the conference is content holding at 18 teams with Oregon, Washington, USC and UCLA joining in 2024.

That means the ACC is the only option left. That conference is in a decently precarious spot itself, held together mainly by a TV contract that somehow runs through 2036, but could disintegrate at any time should Clemson and Florida State ever find an escape door.

If you're Cal or Stanford, it's either play teams over 3,000 miles away on a weekly basis, or play your football in the Mountain West.

The much better question is why would the ACC be up for doing this?

It was reported Monday by ESPN's Pete Thamel that the conference's leaders were meeting in the next 24 hours to discuss such a move, but there are very massive roadblocks toward anything happening.

The main reason behind Clemson and Florida State's not-so-secret thoughts about leaving the ACC is the equal revenue sharing model. The pair of perennial football contenders don't like that their payout is the same as Georgia Tech's, and it would likely be more of the same should Cal and Stanford be added.

The academic prestige of both schools has been noted in talks surrounding their potential moves, and for Stanford, the school's immense success in non-revenue sports also stands out. Stanford has won the LEARFIELD Directors' Cup 26 of the 29 times it has been handed out since 1995. The Cup is awarded to the most successful intercollegiate athletic department in the nation each year.

While all of that incredible success from Stanford athletics appears enticing on the surface, college football money drives all of conference realignment, and Stanford football isn't the most profitable endeavor.

It's hard to say where schools like Cal and Stanford end up with the Pac-12 — a conference that is more than a century old — essentially dying in 2024. The Big Ten was the first rumored choice, but the ACC has burst onto the scene, and if all else fails, relegation to the Mountain West could be on the table.

Cal and Stanford in the ACC?

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