Spirits spirited during meeting between ACC ADs

The ACC’s athletics directors met today with commissioner Jim Phillips, and good news, everyone: they solved all of the league’s pressing issues in a matter of minutes. Clemson announced that it would leave “over Howard’s rock’s shattered rock-corpse,” which put everyone at ease.

Okay, fine, none of that happened. As far as we know.

Hey, that’s swell. Glad everyone’s still getting along okay.

I joke but I actually don’t know what proactive actions the ACC can take that make sense right now—if such actions are even possible. Could be the league is stuck in paralysis waiting to see if anybody’s jumping ship in the near term.

There’s no move out there that even begins to address the ACC’s latest existential quandary without Notre Dame first coming on board as a full member. I don’t know what else could compel ESPN to renegotiate the ACC’s regrettably lengthy television contract—that contract being the most likely cause of the conference disintegrating, if that is indeed what happens.

The ACC is in a considerably more difficult spot this time around, not only because of how the revenue situation has played out, but also because there is no Big East equivalent with attractive, poachable football brands within the ACC footprint that would be no-brainer net positives to add. The well is dry.

I should stop myself from going full-on doom-and-gloom before anything has actually transpired, but it’s getting tougher to ignore the feeling that the ACC is boxed into a corner with little recourse.