So far it’s been a relatively quiet summer regarding conference realignment in college athletics.
There’s been no recent movement as Oklahoma and Texas begin football workouts in preparation for their first season in the SEC; UCLA and USC for their first campaign in the Big Ten; and Utah, Colorado, Arizona and Arizona State in the Big 12.
With some summer vacation remaining — first-semester classes at Kansas begin Aug. 26 — KU athletic director Travis Goff was recently asked if he expected any further realignment activity in the near future.
“I’ve said ‘no’ to that before and then I’ve got woken up with some of the madness,” Goff said with a smile.
“For so much of this,” he quickly added, “you (media members) are getting a lot of the same info that the practitioners are getting. I saw or read where a colleague said, another AD I think in our conference, said, ‘You try and read tea leaves. You pick up on (rumors) here, there and the other.’
“A handful of Twitter people think they have the answers. Maybe they do. But I think the reality is is most of this discussion is occurring in such a small, isolated space that the facts aren’t out there. And even making reasonably educated guesses aren’t. You (media) don’t have the ability to do that either.
“So the short answer I would say is, I don’t know that anything that I’m picking up on indicates major, imminent movement.”
He acknowledged the potential storyline brewing in the ACC, wherein two member institutions (Clemson and Florida State) are involved in lawsuits with that league over huge exit fees and grant-of-rights issues.
“More broadly speaking,” Goff said, “college athletics has its hands full. Whether it be leagues that are integrating ... we have short memory that we just brought four (BYU, UCF, Houston, Cincinnati) in last year and the four corner former Pac-12 programs (Utah, Colorado, Arizona, ASU) haven’t even started in the Big 12.
“When you think about just what we’re doing with integrating, what the Big Ten is doing with integrating their new members and this House settlement (allowing athletic departments to pay current players around $22 million per school year) and major changes, I don’t think most are looking for additional challenges to navigate.”
Still, Goff cautioned, “You’ve got to always be prepared. Just when you get comfortable is probably when it most likely is to hit. It’ll be interesting to see what will happen.”
Trouble in the ACC?
There has been some discussion this summer about the 17-team ACC.
The league has added SMU from the American Athletic Conference as well as Cal and Stanford from the Pac-12. A 17-team league would appear to be on solid footing, but there’s some trouble at play within the ranks.
“I can state that we will fight to protect the ACC and our members for as long as it takes,” ACC commissioner Jim Phillips said recently, as quoted by ESPN.com .
The league has filed a counter-suit against the two schools — Clemson and Florida State.
“We are confident in this league and that it will remain a premier conference in college athletics for the long-term future,” Phillips said. “These disputes continue to be extremely damaging, disruptive and incredibly harmful to the league.”
It’s rumored that as many as seven ACC schools would be interested in pursuing spots in other conferences. The big holdup is the grants-of-rights agreement in that league expires in 2036.
Reaching some sort of settlement with Clemson and Florida State might cause a mass exodus of ACC teams to other conferences.
“The ACC will delay this as long as they can,” Action Network’s Brett McMurphy said, as quoted by SI.com . “In a weird way, it’s almost like they’re taking a page out of that strategy book of the great Dean Smith”— a reference to the legendary North Carolina basketball coach’s renowned four-corners stall.
“They’re going to stall, they’re going to stall, they’re going to stall,” McMurphy said. “Finally, if the judge tells them you’ve got to reach a settlement, then they will do that. But until then, they’re going to hold off and hope that it’s several years and not just a couple of years,”
As to how this might affect the Big 12? That social media speculation has been led this summer by veteran reporter Greg Swaim of gregswaim.com. Based in Oklahoma, Swaim has been tracking sources that indicate the Big 12, which is now at 16 teams, at some point could pick up some ACC schools.
“I can confirm that there is now mutual interest between the #Big12 and #NCState, #VT (Virginia Tech), #CardNation (Louisville), with third-party talks currently going on,” Swaim wrote Monday on X .
“That’s no surprise, as we’ve reported this before, but the fourth team could be one of several between #TheU (Miami), #GT (Georgia Tech) and #Pitt. Of course no one is giving up on #Clemson and #FSU, but they may want far more than Yormark (Brett, Big 12 commissioner) is willing to give, both in money and longevity in grant of rights. Once the legal issues are done, this thing may happen quick for the 2026-27 athletic season.”
Of the ACC dispute, Swaim wrote Monday: “Both sides tiring and will likely settle.”
KU focusing on KU
Goff was asked how much he thinks about what could potentially happen in the ACC.
“We’ve tried to simplify,” the Jayhawks AD said, indicating he’s been too busy serving as KU’s athletic director in the Big 12 to contemplate another conference’s issues. “I think this is the way I try and think about it and I hope we as a department process it … we try and simplify some of the noise around conference realignment by it further encouraging us to focus on what can we do to make the University of Kansas and Kansas athletics the best it can be.
“And the reality remains we’ve got a long way to go for us to be the best version of ourselves. And we all feel strongly and our chancellor feels strongly, my department certainly feels strongly that the best version of Kansas or reasonably close to the best version of Kansas that can exist is absolutely going to be competing at the highest levels in whatever some future version of the top tier of college athletics looks like.
“There’s no debate about that, but we’ve got to continue to invest in and facilitate those kinds of aspirations. And I’m not talking about conference affiliation aspirations. I’m talking about just being the best version of ourselves. And so if we’re doing that, then I think we’re doing the most impactful work as it relates to that. And the other part of it is, hey, a couple pretty impressive and proven programs (Texas and Oklahoma) have departed the Big 12.
“And we see that as a window for KU to be a bigger player in our league in a lot of ways. There’s no reason that Kansas can’t be the leader in the Big 12. So we’re excited about that opportunity.”
Current conference landscape
Here’s a quick look at some of the country’s major conferences as football season begins.
Close to home, the Big 12, which lost Texas and Oklahoma to the 16-team SEC, has added former Pac-12 schools Utah, Arizona, Arizona State and Colorado. The league’s membership stands at 16 now.
The Pac-12 is down to two schools: Oregon State and Washington State. USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington are now part of the 18-team Big Ten; Cal and Stanford are now in the 17-team ACC, which has also added SMU (formerly of the American Athletic Conference, or AAC).
The AAC, to make up for the loss of SMU, added Army as a football-only member and has 14 teams.
Oregon State and Washington State, the holdovers in the Pac-12, were competitive in football a year ago. Each was ranked in the AP Top 25 at one point during the 2023 season, and those two have struck a scheduling arrangement with the Mountain West for the 2024-25 school year to play six Mountain West games apiece.
Oregon State and Washington State could conceivably join the Mountain West at some point or try to revive the Pac-12 in some fashion. The Big East, which does not play football, remains at 11 teams.
Conference membership
Big Ten (18 teams) : Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Nebraska, Northwestern, Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue, Rutgers, UCLA, USC, Oregon, Washington, Wisconsin.
SEC (16 teams): Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, LSU, Mississippi State, Missouri, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Texas A&M, Vanderbilt.
Big 12 (16 teams) : Arizona, Arizona State, Baylor, BYU, Cincinnati, Colorado, Houston, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, TCU, Texas Tech, UCF, Utah, West Virginia.
ACC (17 teams) : Boston College, Cal, Clemson, Duke, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Louisville, Miami, North Carolina State, North Carolina, Pitt, SMU, Stanford, Syracuse, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest. Notre Dame is a non-football member of the league, remaining an independent in football.
Pac-12 (2 teams): Oregon State, Washington.
AAC (14 teams playing football): Army (football only), Charlotte, East Carolina, FAU, Memphis, Navy (football only), North Texas, Rice, Temple, Tulane, Tulsa, UAB, USF, UTSA, Wichita State (non football).
Conference USA (10 teams) : FIU, Jacksonville State, Kennesaw State, Liberty, Louisiana Tech, Middle Tennessee, New Mexico State, Sam Houston, UTEP, Western Kentucky. Missouri State joins in 2025.
Big East (11 teams): UConn, Marquette, Creighton, Seton Hall, Saint John’s, Providence, Villanova, Butler, Xavier, Georgetown, DePaul.
Mountain West (12 teams) : Air Force, Boise State, Colorado State, Hawaii, New Mexico, Nevada, Fresno State, San Diego State, San Jose State, UNLV, Utah State, Wyoming.
Missouri Valley (11 teams): Illinois State, Indiana State, Northern Iowa, Southern Illinois, Missouri State, Murray State, Youngstown State, North Dakota, North Dakota State, South Dakota, South Dakota State.
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