Two likely schools to join ACC football after Big 12 inevitable collapse

There is going to be a power shift in the sport of College Football. With the Oklahoma Sooners and the Texas Longhorns joining the SEC in 2025, the other power five conferences are scrambling to shift back some attention and power to themselves. The Big 12 is dissolving while the other conferences like the ACC, Big Ten, and the Pac-12 may benefit from the power shift.

The SEC will have 16 teams in their conference, for now. The ACC and the Big-Ten remain at 14 schools, while the Pac-12 has 12 schools. The rest of the schools in the Big 12 could evenly go to the ACC, Big Ten, and Pac-12 as the Big 12 dissolves.

The goal is for the ACC to get 16 total teams to match the power productivity from all 16 teams as the SEC will in 2025. There are, however, several teams, outside of the Big 12 that could join the ACC and that have ties or a rivalry to the Virginia Tech Hokies. One team, for example, that has ACC ties and a rivalry with Virginia Tech, is the West Virginia Mountaineers.

The Mountaineers left the Big East Conference after the 2011 College Football season. This was the start of the Big East dissolving as a football conference. West Virginia moving was the most surprising move through the first major conference realignment of the 2010s, considering the geographical of the Mountaineers compared to the rest of the Big 12 teams. The Mountaineers also had a solid rivalry setting with four ACC teams including Pittsburgh, Syracuse, and Virginia Tech.

Having the Mountaineers in the ACC would make sense geographically, and the move would retain a yearly rivalry with the Hokies. The Hokies and the Mountaineers have faced each other 52 times as the Mountaineers have the edge in total wins 28-23-1. The Hokies have won the three games against the Mountaineers since 2004. The latest game was the Hokies’ 31-24 home win over the Mountaineers on September 3rd, 2017. Virginia Tech and West Virginia will renew their rivalry on September 18th in Morgantown.

Another team that makes sense for the ACC to acquire is the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. The Irish have been a dedicated independent team free from the restrictions and rules from other conferences. In 2012, the Fighting Irish joined the ACC in all sports but football and hockey. This insured that the Fighting Irish would maintain TV contract rights with NBC. Notre Dame also has the freedom to extend rivalries with teams from multiple conferences. The Fighting Irish have big rivalries from teams in the Big Ten (Michigan, Michigan State, and Purdue), the Pac-12 (USC and Stanford), and the ACC (Boston College, Miami, and Pittsburgh).

Having Notre Dame in a conference would limit when some of these rivalry games are played, but there are other positive sides to this potential move to the ACC. The Fighting Irish earn about $15 million every year from television broadcasts from NBC. That is $10 less than what they would get from rights as a member of the ACC. The Fighting Irish have NBC for national exposure, which helps them in sales, fan bases around the U.S, and in recruiting. They could maintain a national exposure by succeeding in a less restrictive power five conferences like the ACC as players and teams are getting more liberties.

Despite playing the ACC the second most times in football, the Irish have only faced the Hokies, the North Carolina Wolf Pack, the Virginia Cavaliers, and the Louisville Cardinals three times in program history. The Irish have a 2-1 series lead on the Hokies. The time they ever met was on November 19th, 2016, when the Hokies defeated the Irish with a 34-31 score in South Bend, Indiana. Notre Dame has since defeated Virginia Tech in 2018 with a 45-23 score and 2019 with a 21-20 score. The Hokies didn’t play the Irish last season, where they were a temporary member of the ACC due to the impact of COVID-19.

Adding a powerhouse like the Fighting Irish would help maintain the ACC’s status as an elite powerhouse with the SEC. The Hokies would benefit from the more significant competitions brought by Notre Dame. Between the two schools of West Virginia and Notre Dame, the Hokies would have a permanent rivalry with the Mountaineers. Notre Dame would come into the ACC as immediate threats for the conference title and the College Football Playoffs.