College football expansion: George W. Bush, Condi Rice lobby ACC to add schools

It's common for prestigious people to lobby on behalf of their preferred schools, but this phase of college football expansion has some very powerful friends

Two schools hoping to get in on the college football conference realignment gravy train have some friends in very high places who are lobbying the ACC to accept them, as Condoleezza Rice and former President George W. Bush are putting in a good word for Stanford and SMU, respectively, with decision makers inside the conference, per Yahoo Sports.

That news comes after the ACC appeared to decide against adding any other schools to its membership for the time being as members elected to not pursue either Stanford or Cal and it is believed the conference has decided to not strongly consider SMU.

Rice, a former U.S. National Security Advisor and Secretary of State in the Bush administration, is a professor at Stanford and serves as director of the Hoover Institution, a think tank based at the school. She is also known as a huge football fan, particularly of the Cleveland Browns, and served on the first three College Football Playoff selection committees.

Bush has deep connections to Dallas, where SMU is located, and his wife, former First Lady Laura Bush, attended the university, which is also the site of the George W. Bush Presidential Library.

Despite the apparent reluctance to make any moves, expansion remains a subject of serious debate in the ACC. 

That's despite an unofficial opinion poll inside the league that fell one vote short of the 75 percent threshold required to add new members. Insiders revealed that Clemson, Florida State, North Carolina, and NC State voted against the two Pac-12 schools.

No more votes, official or otherwise, are scheduled for the immediate future inside the ACC and no decisions are expected on the subject, especially with apparently strong divisions on the inside from those schools who have brand leverage and who are against adding any more members who would potentially cut into their revenue.

But despite those divisions, there is still conversation inside the ACC about expansion, and now two people who were once the most powerful in the world are getting in on that conversation.

(Yahoo)

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