With news over the last week that Texas and Oklahoma were likely to leave the Big 12, and then official word yesterday that the rumors are true, there has been a lot of conversation about what those moves to the SEC mean not just for college football and college sports as a whole but specifically for the Cavaliers and the ACC.

Today, we're going to break down seven takeaways from the chaos and what it all means for the Hoos.

Texas and Oklahoma landing in the SEC doesn’t push that league ahead of the ACC. The SEC did that years ago, and cashed in on a new SEC Network owned by ESPN as well a successful round of realignment that saw Missouri and Texas A&M join the league. Texas and OU are much bigger additions than the Tigers or Aggies, so simply put: The rich are getting richer. The SEC’s TV deal was already a cash cow for its league members and their upcoming exclusive deal with ESPN is even better. Assuming that ESPN renegotiates that deal to account for the Longhorns and Sooners, every SEC team, from Alabama to Vanderbilt, will enjoy the windfall.

The ACC isn’t just behind the SEC, though. The Big Ten has had a very solid TV deal for some time and as of now is on par with the SEC in that respect. The B1G also expanded through realignment, picking off Rutgers, Maryland, and Nebraska over the course of several years.

The PAC-12 is in a similar position to the ACC to some degree. Both leagues are breaking in new commissioners and both have TV deals that they’d like to get out of. The PAC-12 has a monopoly on the west coast but also plays way too many games after most of America has turned the TV off and gone to bed. And the Big 12, with Texas and Oklahoma on their way out the door, is on the verge of extinction.

The ACC got a much-needed network from ESPN but in exchange also got a long-term TV deal that doesn’t maximize payouts. It’s not a stretch to say that SEC schools could be making double what ACC schools get from their media deal, by the time Texas and Oklahoma join the league. The B1G is also out-pacing the ACC easily in TV revenue, which helps schools get a leg up in resources, including facilities, like the one UVa is struggling to fund at the moment. The league’s on-field product hasn’t been up to par, either. Clemson has carried the banner and, since Florida State’s swoon in recent years, has been the only viable program on the national stage of late. Miami has been good here and there, but FSU has fallen off, and Virginia Tech isn’t as marketable as it was about a decade ago.

This puts the ACC in a tough spot. Some say the league has to grow or die but there aren’t a lot of options that are game changers (more on that later.) But on the flipside, if the ACC sits on its hands, the SEC and B1G could try to completely takeover the sport and pick off ACC schools with wandering eyes. Yes, the ACC has the Grant of Rights that all but keeps teams from leaving the league until 2036. But the ironclad nature of that agreement has yet to be tested. If, for example, Clemson and Florida State announce tomorrow that they are joining the SEC the lawyers will get involved but it could also cause other schools, like UVa, to see the writing on the wall and look for a way to safety.

The more likely scenario is that the ACC remains intact for the time being but if the league keeps the current TV deal, it feels like a certainty that some of its most attractive commodities will at least entertain a move to a league where they can really compete at the top of the sport.

There were reports that the ACC reached out to Texas (and perhaps Oklahoma), so saying the league was only interested in the Irish would technically be wrong. But with the Sooners and Longhorns clearly headed for the SEC, the ACC is running out of options to keep up.

There are very few moves any league can make that would even be in the same stratosphere as their rivals to the south grabbing UT and OU. But if the ACC could convince Notre Dame to come on board as a full-time member that would be a coup for the conference and allow the league to play catch up.

Adding the Irish would allow the league to redo its lackluster TV deal and surely any network would see Notre Dame as a game changer for the league’s marketability. The Irish are a bit of a unicorn from a TV standpoint, with their exclusive deal with NBC to broadcast their home contests. Like Duke basketball, the Irish are either loved or despised by many people and it shows in the ratings. According to NBC, Notre Dame averaged 4.8 million viewers per game in 2020, their most-watched season on the network since 2005. Their win over Clemson in November was the most-watched game of the college football season with over 10 million viewers and was the second-most watched Notre Dame broadcast ever on NBC.

When the Irish are good, as they were last year and have been in most recent years, they are a hot commodity.

Convincing them to join the ACC full time also likely stabilizes the league even further. The ACC’s Grant of Rights makes it harder for the SEC or B1G to pick off league members but if the sport is truly on the edge of a cliff and headed for a major shakeup the conference probably feels a bit more vulnerable. Adding Notre Dame would show schools like Clemson and Florida State that the league is still viable and that more money is on the way. If the ACC strikes out here, the Grant of Rights might keep the league together for a while, but eventually the money carrot dangling in front of schools may break things up.

Here’s the biggest problem with this for the ACC: Notre Dame has shown little willingness to leave independence. Athletic director Jack Swarbrick has said that the Irish’s one year in the ACC during the COVID season may have made fans even less willing to abandon independence for a schedule that includes the likes of Wake Forest and Louisville. The Irish have a great TV deal that they don’t have to share with anyone and have already proven that they can make the College Football Playoff as an independent. And as it seems that the playoff will be expanding, Notre Dame’s chances of qualifying will probably go up, not down, if the Irish stay independent. The calculus could change if it becomes nearly impossible to qualify for the playoff absent a conference tie-in. But for now, the ACC is going to have to really pull off an unlikely move here, and perhaps convince them that they will bend over backwards to keep them happy and rich.

Barring some sort of combination of conference (with the PAC-12, for instance) there isn’t another Notre Dame out there for the ACC. The Big 12 schools are most vulnerable now, as that league can either scrape together a few teams from the AAC that will not come close to replacing Texas or watch their league’s current teams bolt for the nearest door. The ACC could look to the AAC as well if they decide that they need to expand and blow up their TV deal, but none of those schools are a home run. UCF brings a Florida market that the ACC already has two teams in and other options, like Cincinnati or Houston, would be a marriage of convenience and not a perfect fit. Cincinnati has solid programs in a relatively big market and has a dormant rivalry with Louisville. Houston is in a major market but is nowhere near any ACC school, creating a travel nightmare of sorts. So for now, adding an AAC team would seem like a sign of desperation for the league.

There is one slam-dunk fit from a “football fit” perspective from the Big 12: West Virginia. The Mountaineers would love to switch to the ACC but the league has spurned them before and could again. WVU has improved academically since the last round of realignment, though they’d still stack up last in the ACC in academic ranking. Still, the ACC chose Louisville over more reputable academic institutions, so it’s not totally about academic record these days. The fanbase also had a notorious reputation for behavior, but there haven’t been any notable incidents of late. WVU would fit in geographically and would be able to reignite rivalries with Pittsburgh and Virginia Tech while creating new ones with border schools UVa and Louisville. But does West Virginia move the needle enough to make them worth adding?

Here’s one thing to remember, and it’s absolutely crucial to realignment: Any team added to any league needs to not only pay for themselves but also make the other teams more money.

Let’s say a conference has 10 members and their media deal pays out $300 million per year, so $30 million per school. A new school probably has to bring in $50 million in new value to truly make an impact. If ESPN felt that way, it could redo the TV deal to split $350 million among 11 schools, or a little under $32 million per school. That doesn’t move change things much. So adding a school like Navy is a virtual non-starter, unless Notre Dame demands it. They won’t move the needle enough to get a TV network to give the league way more money and if they can’t do that then the pie is split 11 ways instead of 10, which is terrible business, and won’t happen. This could apply to West Virginia, unless the TV network really wants that move to happen and will “overpay.”

This is a short one. Stop thinking or suggesting the ACC should take Vanderbilt (the SEC’s least valuable property, by the way) or bring back Maryland, and so on. Unless these programs decide they don’t like money anymore, it’s not happening. Those leagues have grant of rights agreements too, by the way. The only caveat to this would be if Notre Dame came and convinced schools to join them but that is a hair-brained scheme at best.

If you have scoured the internet for realignment news and rumors, eventually you’ve come across one that includes UVa. It would be a short list of schools that haven’t been thrown into a rumor at some point in the last week. Maybe Wake Forest? But for Virginia, the ACC is home. The Wahoos are solidly in the league, now with their in-state rival, academic compatriots (Duke, UNC, etc.), and a geographical fit. Not only that, but since the last round of realignment the school has become a de facto “basketball school,” which is synonymous with this league more so than the other power conferences.

But if Texas and Oklahoma deciding to jump thereby throws the sport into chaos with the B1G and SEC cashing in on their lucrative TV contracts, the Wahoos aren’t in as bad a spot as some of their conference rivals. First, Virginia is one of the best public universities in the country, in a relatively big east coast state, with easy access to DC and the northeast corridor. It would be naive to say that UVa has a massive fanbase compared to some of their ACC rivals, but their following certainly isn’t a limiting factor.

It’s really unlikely that UVa would find interest from the SEC at this point, unless they are simply aiming to take the sport by storm, and grow to 20+ teams. Virginia Tech is probably a better cultural fit for the league from the Commonwealth, and UVa would surely be behind schools like Clemson, Florida State, and probably UNC on the conference’s east coast wishlist. But the B1G could come calling, if they feel the ACC is vulnerable and could be next to collapse. UVa is one of five ACC schools with Association of American Universities (AAU) membership, which is a prerequisite for B1G membership (Nebraska has lost AAU status since joining the league, the rest are AAU schools). The other AAU schools in the ACC are Pittsburgh, UNC, Duke, and Georgia Tech. If that is truly a must-have, then UVa is probably right at the top of the list for the conference if they’re taking an ACC school. Virginia is a new state for the league but also borders a conference school’s state (Maryland), which was a prerequisite for membership in the past. UVa also has a rivalry with Maryland, a great overall athletic program, and a great academic profile. UNC is a more marketable brand but maybe not as good a fit for the league as UVa would be.

There is way too much standing in the way of this marriage to think it could actually happen, anytime soon. Virginia is locked into the ACC through the Grant of Rights, unless something big changes there. UVa might also be tied to Virginia Tech, after all of the political hand wringing in the state that got the Hokies into the ACC in the first place. If they don’t have a life raft (maybe the SEC), it makes it that much harder for UVa to be allowed to move by the powers that be. The same goes for UNC, who could be tied to NC State or Duke, or both. Having said that, Oklahoma just abandoned Oklahoma State on a sinking ship, so never say never. But as long as there is some sort of Power 5 football structure, even if the worst happens to the ACC, UVa should have a home somewhere.

Former Boston College athletic director Gene De Filippo said this to the Boston Globe, when asked about the league’s additions of Syracuse and Pittsburgh in 2011: “We always keep our television partners close to us. You don’t get extra money for basketball. It’s 85 percent football money. TV — ESPN — is the one who told us what to do. This was football; it had nothing to do with basketball.”

Whether he meant that ESPN literally told the ACC to add those two schools or if the league ran their preference by the network before pulling the trigger, the influence of the Worldwide Leader is clear. The ACC has an exclusive deal with ESPN, as the SEC will soon. The B1G, Big 12, and PAC-12 are all partners with both ESPN and FOX, with the B1G having the biggest relationship with FOX. Anything the ACC wants to do will get ESPN’s blessing. The biggest benefit to the ACC for adding a team not named Notre Dame is the ability to rip up the bad TV deal and get a new one from ESPN. There is no point in adding a team until ESPN tells them they are inclined to give the league a more attractive package.

This could work the other way, as well. Perhaps ESPN told the SEC that adding Texas and Oklahoma was a good idea. That’s an obvious truth, but the league could just as easily tell the ACC to add West Virginia or, alternatively, to stand pat and not waste their time looking around. There are a lot of different avenues that this could go down for UVa, the ACC and beyond, but the TV networks will be at the center of any changes, or lack thereof.

Lastly, this is something to keep in mind. Nobody saw Maryland leaving the ACC before it did. This Texas and Oklahoma move came seemingly out of nowhere, four years before the Big 12’s media deal ends. Those two schools did a great job keeping the move quiet, and several such moves could be happening now behind the scenes with various leagues and schools. It’s no secret that schools in the Big 12 are scrambling to figure out what’s next. The league can expand or it can blow up. Schools like Kansas and Iowa State are likely desperate for a B1G invite that probably isn’t coming in the immediate future, and schools like Baylor and Oklahoma State could land in the PAC-12 if the Big 12 breaks up. West Virginia wants an ACC slot, but on their own the Mountaineers might not be enough to make that worth it for the member schools. The ACC would love to add Notre Dame but as of now, that seems like a pipe dream unless ESPN steps up with a big-time deal. UVa is at home in the ACC and is on decent footing if chaos ensues.

That is the environment we see today but it can all change. Things like Grant of Rights agreements, ties between in-state schools, and membership requirements are subject to change if money talks. Binding contracts are tough to break but that’s what lawyers are for. It wouldn’t be a shock if we found out at least one ACC program was trying to determine how they could walk away from the league without going bankrupt, potentially seeing the writing on the wall that Texas and Oklahoma’s movement being the beginning of something.

For now, the safe bet is lots of rumors without a ton of movement. The Big 12 was always the most vulnerable of the leagues. Texas and Oklahoma bolting when they did was out of left field but the idea of them leaving the league has been brought up several times before. The B1G doesn’t need Kansas or Iowa State, and the ACC, at least as of now, needs to blow up its TV deal far more than it needs to add another school that isn’t in South Bend, Indiana.

And for Virginia, the Wahoos will likely be comfortable in their current league until the ship starts sinking. With the ACC schools seemingly locked in until 2036, the Cavaliers are in a stable position.

But remember, things can change, and quickly.

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