The most important team in college football right now is not Alabama. Or Ohio State. Or Georgia. Or any other major power you might want to name. The most important team in college football right now is a basketball blue blood, North Carolina.
And that has little to do with the fact that the Tar Heels, with the hiring of Bill Belichick, are also the most talked about team in the country, supplanting Deion Sanders and Colorado.
But if you’re looking ahead, trying to make your way into college football’s top tier like, say, South Florida, then your success will likely depend on what Carolina decides to do down the line. Because depending on Carolina’s decision, you could do everything right and still have it all go wrong.
Carolina holds the key. And if anything is going to happen it will likely be in 2030 when ACC teams will only have to pay $75 million to buy their way out of the league. If Carolina leaves, and there are already strong indications that it will, the ACC is likely to collapse.
Clemson, Florida State and Miami are almost certain to follow and if that happens, the ACC no longer exists as a Power Four conference and the Big Ten and SEC move further away from the rest of college football, leaving fewer options for schools like USF to improve their position.
Very few programs in the country; North Carolina and Notre Dame might be the only two, are guaranteed to bring more value to any conference they join then the money they take out, and that essentially determines whether or not you can be a power player.
And Notre Dame doesn’t figure in this because it’s not going to join a conference. As an independent, Notre Dame doesn’t have share revenue with anyone, can schedule who it wants and is a shoo-in for the College Football Playoff anytime it wins 10 or more games.
Meanwhile, North Carolina is the state’s leading university and located in a part of the country that doesn’t currently have a Big Ten or SEC entry, and the Big Ten or the SEC are the only conferences that represent a move up for the Tar Heels.
Of course North Carolina wouldn’t leave the ACC by itself. Almost certainly, Florida State, Clemson and Miami would go with it, gutting the conference and further separating the Big Ten and SEC from everybody else. But Clemson, Florida State and Miami aren’t as important as Carolina because the SEC already has a strong presence where they are located.
If the Big Ten were to take North Carolina and Miami, which seems to be the best fit for that conference and would stick a dagger into the SEC by putting a team in South Florida, and the SEC then grabs Clemson and FSU, you don’t have much left for schools like USF to aspire to.
The ACC would be little more than a glorified American and the Big 12, already diluted by the additions of Cincinnati, Central Florida and Houston, in particular the first two which are 4-25 against traditional Big 12 teams, would be desperately treading water in an effort to keep from falling back into the pack.
Looking at it realistically, there are no good options for USF getting out of the American. And that’s true even with a new stadium on the way and improved performance on the field.
According to The Athletic.com, Memphis, historically a stronger program then USF and one with almost unlimited financial resources, recently tried to buy its way into the Big 12.
Reportedly, Memphis officials told the Big 12 presidents it wouldn’t take any revenue from the conference for five years, would provide $200 million in sponsorship money to the league over the same period of time, and, if the Big 12 felt like Memphis was hurting its competitive image, the league could kick it out before its next television deal.
There was no risk to the Big 12 and still, the presidents said no. They felt Memphis would tarnish the league’s reputation.
The problem for USF, Memphis and any others who would like to get out and move up is that on a national scale, nobody cares about them. Nobody gets up on Saturday morning and says “Wow, I really want to watch that USF-Iowa State game.”
Even in Florida or Tennessee, solid SEC country, if the choice is between watching Florida or Tennessee play and a Big 12 game involving USF or Memphis, almost everybody will watch Florida and Tennessee.
So, you can build the best facilities in the country, which USF has said it wants to do, and you can field a team capable of competing with anybody, which USF has also said it wants to do, but unless you can get national recognition for what you’re doing, it doesn’t matter. And that’s a really hard sell.
