ACC, Big 10, Pac 12 Alliance: All Fluff, No Substance

Welcome our newest contributor Sam Clemons to the Junkies family. From time to time he’ll offer up his thoughts on today’s college football landscape and of course the Clemson Tigers.

The events of the last five weeks with regards to college football have been dramatic, to say the least.

The SEC’s soliciting and accepting Texas and Oklahoma into the conference sent the Big 12 and the rest of the conferences reeling to come up with answer to the questions this move will have on the future of the sport.

In the fog of war, it was reported the SEC was looking to invite Clemson and Florida State as members. After a week of feverish excitement, on my part, it was reported this was not true. The Presidents of Clemson University and Florida State University denied any communications with the SEC. This was the last we’ve heard of these unfounded rumors.

Then, this past Tuesday, the details of the agreement between the new Alliance members, the ACC, Big 10 and Pac 12 had been finalized. Reading the press release of the specifics, I was left confused by the sheer ambiguity of the document.

Like a lot of us “Allies” I had far more questions than answers and I could hear those nagging one-word questions of What? How? When? echoing in the back of my mind. Looking deeper, I can think of only one benefit and possibly, from a football perspective, the only way this document benefits anyone. By forming an alliance, voting as a unified block, the seats at the table in matters concerning the proposed expansion of the CFB Playoff, will be enough to stem the tide of the influence wielded by the new, great, super conference, the SEC. And ESPN.

Make no mistake, I don’t believe this alliance was proposed as a long term solution but if it secures fairness in the expansion of the playoff from the greedy, overreaching arms of the behemoth, it’s done that which was intended. That’s the only tangible effect of this Alliance as I see it.

No real scheduling enhancements in the short term. No opportunities for increased revenue, at least for the ACC. It appears to concern itself more with reaffirming academic issues of the student-athlete rather than athletic issues. This one fact leads me to believe it was merely a hastily formulated document without much, if any substance. For me or anyone looking for anything else within it’s words, sadly, is a futile gesture, a folly.

In the long term, the Alliance will hopefully become a foundation in which the future of all college athletics, can be built upon. To that end, that’s all we should expect. I can only hope expansion and consolidation, in the near or distant future, can deliver a fairer distribution of the much needed resources. When and how such goals will be achieved, if ever, is yet to be determined.

It is said “for God so loved the world that he created a committee.” That’s exactly what we have here, another committee. A body designed for no other reason than to produce a room filled with a never ending supply of hot air. May the good Lord have mercy on all of us on the outside looking in…you know, “the least of these.”