Clemson football: Another round of college football realignment means certain uncertainty

With the news the UCLA and USC are abandoning the PAC-12 for the Big Ten, Clemson football is once again thrown into certain uncertainty.

What a day to start working on “5 Home and Home match-ups I’d like to see Clemson play”. Before I could put pen to proverbial paper, the news came out that USC (the more successful one) and UCLA had shocked the world and made the move to the Big 10 conference. Naturally, the only thing stronger than those shockwaves was everyone’s knee jerk reactions about college football, Clemson, and the ACC. The only thing certain right now is uncertainty.

I plan on taking a few more articles to look at the potential possibilities of it all, but let’s start with just the basic facts of everything at the moment. The moves that these 2 California schools made were shocking, yet not that surprising. The Pac 12 was in the midst of negotiating a media rights deal and, as those who follow football know, that deal was not going to be in the realm of some of its conference peers. The ACC catches a lot of flak (rightfully) for its awful Grant of Media rights deal, but even that dwarfs the Pac 12. USC and UCLA took notice and the blockbuster move by Texas and Oklahoma last summer only sped things up.

It has, of course, caused a mutual groan out of every living soul on the internet. “College football is just not the same” ….man, if I had a dollar I saw this take I would be Elon Musk. “Money ruins football” the fans say. But in the end, can you blame them for this decision? There are early figures showing that each school might receive upward of $100 million a year in the Big 10’s new media deal, as opposed to $20 million by the Pac 12.

Is it a dumb move? Yeah, one could argue that. Essentially the Trojans and Bruins will be traveling the same distance as it would take for some east coast schools to get to Europe on a weekly basis for all sports. Not to mention the complete shift in weather that these 2 schools will have to face in late November football games.

But in the immediate time after such a monumental decision, the natural reaction is to ask, “What’s next?”

What’s next for college football?

What’s next for the ACC?