Clemson Football: Will Colorado’s move to the Big 12 restart realignment?

Clemson Football participated with all their fellow conference-mates at the 2023 ACC Kickoff in Charlotte this week, and overall it was a quiet event, especially compared to last year.

The Atlantic Coast Conference thought the big story in 2022 was going to be the positive opinions about the conference’s new scheduling model and the discontinuation. Instead, the bombshell that USC and UCLA were going to leave the PAC-12 for the Big Ten quickly shifted the focus back to conference realignment and the ever-growing gap in revenue between the ACC and its peers.

While realignment made the 2022 Kickoff a bit tenuous, it was thought that realignment had calmed down and wouldn’t be a talking point this preseason. Whoever said that apparently forgot to knock on wood.

Like clockwork, realignment made another appearance around the time of the ACC Kickoff. Wednesday we learned that Colorado will be making a move back to the Big 12 Conference in 2024.

Colorado was a member of the Big 12 for several years, and its predecessor the Big 8, before leaving for the PAC in 2011. Utah joined as well, increasing the conference from the PAC-10 to the PAC-12. Now, with the departure of USC, UCLA, and Colorado after this season, the PAC would only have nine teams expected to compete in 2024.

If other programs decide to leave, they might have even fewer. There have been rumors for months that the “Four Corner Schools” – Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and Arizona State – could be making a move to the Big 12. One has now made that move official. The others might not be far behind.

Clemson Football and the ACC isn’t likely to be influenced by the realignment out west

Oregon and Washington have long been considered possible targets should the Big Ten wish to add more Pacific schools, but it remains unclear if the Big Ten wants to expand sooner than later.

This leads to the obvious question for Clemson fans: will Clemson or the ACC be involved in this round of realignment?

It is very hard to read the future, but the quick answer is no. It doesn’t appear that what is going on in the PAC-12 is going to impact the future of Clemson or the ACC. Realignment for ACC schools is directly attached to the Grant of Rights which has each school secured to the conference until at least 2036.

Movement by Colorado, the Four Corner Schools, or the Pacific Northwest schools won’t make it any easier or cheaper to get out of the ACC Grant of Rights. Again, surprises can happen, but it looks like this round of realignment will be out west, and this time we might be waving goodbye to the PAC.