New-look ACC begins with questions surrounding the future of the conference

Last September, the ACC announced that it was expanding beginning with the 2024-25 athletic year. The conference, looking to keep up with the expanding Big Ten, SEC, and Big 12, is adding three teams this season, and on Monday, SMU officially became a member of the ACC. How strange does that sound? Well, it's going to get more stranger on Aug. 2.

In just over a month, California and Stanford will be joining the conference officially as the PAC-12 Conference that we all grew up with is no more, sadly. The addition of the two California-based schools now expands the ACC across the country and no matter how it looks on paper, it's always going to be weird seeing Cal, Stanford, and SMU as members.

ACC expansion is official, but how does the future look?

Look, let's not sugarcoat it, there are a lot more questions than answers surrounding the ACC and its future. It's been well documented that Florida State and Clemson are looking to get out of the conference and do it rather quickly. It wouldn't be surprising to see some news on this sooner rather than later.

As much as FSU and Clemson are leading the charge to leave, what does the future hold for Virginia Tech? If the ACC starts to break away, where would the Hokies end up? The SEC? The Big 12? The Big Ten? In a dream world, some believe that the SEC would be an option, but what about the Big 12 or Big Ten? So many possibilities.

Until then, we have to embrace the new ACC with SMU, Stanford, and California and the Virginia Tech football team will take the cross-country flight in early October to play at Stanford, eight days after opening ACC play at Miami. This is where we are at with realignment in college sports, no matter how odd the standings are going to look starting this fall.