MORGANTOWN, West Virginia — The landscape in college athletics is constantly shifting and all of the major conferences are always attempting to secure their place in the future of college sports.
Earlier today, Colorado became the latest school to move conferences, leaving the PAC-12 and agreeing to go back to the Big 12 Conference in 2024. However, the Big 12 is rumored to be in talks with several other schools in the PAC-12 who are now interested in potentially following Colorado to the Big 12.
The Big 12 appears to be pushing more and more to the West, which is certainly not ideal for West Virginia University, who currently only has Cincinnati within reasonable driving range for fans hoping to travel with the team. With that said, although West Virginia is in a stable conference, they could potentially consider other conferences if the right situation became available.
In an article released today by David Cook of ESPN, ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips is quoted as saying, “The ACC has been and remains highly engaged in looking at anything that makes us a better and stronger conference. We’ve spent considerable time on expansion to see if there is anything that fits. We have a tremendous group of institutions but if there was something that made us better, we would absolutely be open to it.”
Cook said the following in his article: “Since the first major realignment dominoes fell with Texas and Oklahoma’s decision to leave the Big 12 for the SEC happened in summer 2021, the ACC has explored possible expansion options, according to multiple league administrators, running models on adding a number of potential targets, including West Virginia, SMU, Oregon and Washington.”
The ACC does have the 3rd largest TV revenue package, behind only the Big Ten and SEC, and would give West Virginia an opportunity to play geographic and historic rivals. This could get interesting!
