If Stanford head coach Troy Taylor has his way, the Cardinal will be in the ACC this time next year.
“I’m okay with traveling,” Taylor told ESPN. “I think players that committed to us and came here, they want to play Power 5 football, and that is our intention is with this university. I can’t imagine anything else.”
On Tuesday, Pete Thamel reported the ACC was evaluating the potential addition of Stanford and Cal. One ACC source told ESPN, “Are we really going to sit here and say two of the best institutions in the world have no value? That’s a crazy notion to me.”
Both schools’ futures in sports are up in the air with the Pac-12 set to lose eight members at the end of the season.
Taylor’s receptive comments about the ACC will likely hurt the chances of a Mountain West-Pac-12 merger. Stanford would be taking a clear step down by playing in that conference and while a move to the ACC lacks geographical logic, it fits with college football’s open borders and would allow Stanford to play teams on its level.
And as much as Stanford needs the ACC, the conference needs Stanford just as much. It needs to expand to stay relevant and to keep Florida State from leaving as soon as it gets a chance. If Florida State leaves, that would likely pave the way for the ACC to join the Pac-12 in purgatory.
We saw how much the decision to not expand hurt the Pac-12. The ACC can’t afford to sit on its hands and make the same mistake.
But why should the ACC stop at just Cal and Stanford? By including Oregon State and Washington State, the ACC’s television footprint would get even bigger while also expanding teams’ recruiting base. At the very least, the Oregon-Oregon State and Washington-Washington State rivalries could live on in college basketball’s annual Big Ten-ACC challenge.
Per ESPN’s report, Stanford officials anticipate reaching a decision on its next conference by the end of the week.
Once the oddity of Stanford joining the Atlantic Coast Conference wears off, it actually makes sense. The Cardinal would drop down several pegs by joining the American or Mountain West. The ACC, meanwhile, might not be around by the time it’s ready to negotiate its next media rights deal if it doesn’t accept Stanford (and Cal) as members.
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