If college football realignment continues, the Big Ten is not likely to be interested in Florida State, but North Carolina has a better chance of winning an offer, so one current ACC school could be a potential target for the conference.
That's according to Paul Finebaum, who in new remarks amid ongoing talk of a conference expansion suggested the Tar Heels would be a better fit.
“Once we start to see cracks in the ACC, I think the school to really look at going forward is the University of North Carolina,” he said. “If Chapel Hill calls, I think both the Big Ten and the SEC will listen. Then the question becomes, who else will come along from the ACC?”
There had been speculation that the university might consider relocating after regents at the University of North Carolina suggested the school should consider leaving the ACC in search of a more profitable situation.
But other decision-makers within the school disagreed, and rumors of North Carolina moving have since died down.
Feinebaum also said the consensus in college football circles seems to be that neither the SEC nor the Big Ten have any interest in adding Florida State if it becomes available.
The University of North Carolina was one of the so-called “Magnificent Seven” schools that rebelled against the ACC last offseason as other conferences were restructuring and asked the league for a bigger share of the pie.
The conference responded by proposing a plan to pay larger amounts of money to the more prominent schools, but that didn't seem like a good enough plan in the long run.
Florida State and Clemson sued the ACC to challenge the huge withdrawal fees the conference charges members who want to leave before 2036, when the ACC's current entitlement agreement expires.
Now we can only wait and see if Florida State or Clemson can get the settlement they want and find their way out of the ACC.
If they can do that, other schools could follow suit.
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