Conference Realignment: Penn State a flashy name for ACC expansion rumors

The world of College Football is getting more interesting by the day as conference realignment discussions continue to dominate discussions among fans and analysts alike.

Just in the past week, we’ve seen Texas and Oklahoma inform the Big 12 that they would not be renewing their Grant of Rights with the conference and then both schools turned around and applied for membership into the SEC. The latest reports from several national analysts is that Longhorns and Sooners will be playing in the SEC during the 2022 season.

But that’s not it.

We’ve got Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby accusing ESPN and the SEC of collusion with the belief that the television network has put the American Athletic Conference (AAC) up to picking up the remaining eight Big 12 schools and, essentially, dissolving the Big 12 as a conference.

In addition to Bowlsby’s comments, we’ve got Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff saying SEC expansion may slow the process of expanding the CFB Playoff as the other Power-5 conferences are looking to keep the SEC from gaining any more power than it already wields.

But do you know who has been awfully quiet in all of this? The ACC.

Penn State is a flashy name for the ACC in conference realignment rumors

Conference realignment is going to be a continued discussion for quite some time in the sport and we shouldn’t be surprised that many analysts are putting out potential ideas of what we might see next in response to the SEC’s move.

While the ACC has certainly made it clear that its first priority in expansion is Notre Dame, that doesn’t mean the conference isn’t looking at other options.

One of the ‘flashy’ names associated with the ACC has been Penn State.

The Big Ten has a Grant of Rights deal in place until 2023, but the relative shortness of that agreement– just two football seasons– could open up the door for teams to leave the conference if they so chose.

Because of the shortness of that media rights deal and the geographic footprint of Penn State– both in its location and in its recruiting footprint- many have floated the idea of the Nittany Lions coming to the ACC as a possibility and it makes sense in a lot of ways.

The problem, though? The Nittany Lions, at least on the surface, would be turning down a significant payday to leave their current conference and come to the ACC when looking at the television payouts.

However, if Penn State came to the ACC, it would give the conference a bargaining chip to finally renegotiate its network deal. That could open up the door for a major revenue increase and, perhaps, even leverage its pitch to Notre Dame.

All that being said, it still doesn’t seem likely — at least on the outside looking in– that Penn State would leave the Big Ten. It’s not as if the ACC has positioned itself as a conference that can come in and poach quality teams from a quality conference like the Big Ten, even if they’ve shown poor leadership in recent history.

It’s certainly fun to think about, but for now we would place this solidly in the ‘rumor’ category rather than anything that has hard substance to it.