North Carolina Tar Heels: ACC Expansion Stalled?

With the PAC-12 seeing a mass exodus, how does the ACC (and the North Carolina Tar Heels) feel about the conference expanding?

Earlier this week it appeared that the ACC and North Carolina Tar Heels were going to potentially see expansion take place by adding members from the PAC-12 (or PAC-4) conference with the University of California and Stanford University.

However, just as they have in the past several weeks, things have moved quickly this week in regard to conference realignment. Unfortunately for Stanford and Cal, not in a good way. The ACC and presidents have met several times this week to vote and discuss the pros (if there are any?) and cons of adding two schools over 2,500 miles away to the conference.

For the ACC to agree on expanding the conference, 75% of the vote (12 of 15 members) must be in favor of the decision. It has been reported for the last two days that four schools have voted against the additions of Stanford and Cal, but the public hasn’t known which institutions were voting in which direction.

However, all of that became public on Friday evening, as first reported by Pat Forde with Sports Illustrated.

It was reported that 11 of the 15 ACC schools were in favor (or “soft-voting” yes) of the additions to expand the conference, just one vote shy of expansion. However, which schools were against it?

The obvious for anyone that has followed this of late was Clemson and Florida State. Both programs have made it well-known that they would like out of the Grant of Rights and to leave the conference as soon as possible. Expansion would just make it that much tougher for them to leave.

The other two votes opposed were NC State and North Carolina. Are the four schools voting against Cal and Stanford looking out for the best interest of the conference and their student-athletes by not adding games on the other side of the country? Or are they voting against these two schools to avoid the ACC from gaining strength in numbers in hopes of breaking through the ironclad Grant of Rights? Maybe both.

These four schools were labeled part of the “Magnificent Seven” back in mid-May, so to see their names isn’t totally shocking. The question becomes will another member be able to flip one of these four schools to a yes in order to meet the 75% requirement?

We know that Notre Dame has been an avid supporter of adding Cal and Stanford… the reasoning?

Some disagree that Notre Dame should even have a full say in this decision. Conference realignment is being driven by college football and the money involved in the sport and the Fighting Irish continue to refuse to join the ACC as a full-time member. So why should they have a say in a decision that is football based?

The Irish play Stanford annually. So it isn’t any secret that they would love for that game to count as one of the five ACC games they are required to play as part of their “association” with the ACC.

The deadline date for any institution to leave or join the Atlantic Coast Conference for the 2024-2025 season is August 15th, 2023. This ultimately means that if any member is going to sway a vote to expand or if any member is going to file to leave the conference for next year, they have until Tuesday to do so.

What do North Carolina Tar Heel fans think about the decision to vote against expanding with Cal and Stanford?

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