On Friday morning, The Athletic’s Nicole Auerbach reported that the football alliance involving the Pac-12, Big Ten and ACC that her colleague Max Olson reported on last week is on its way to happening.
According to Auerbach, a formal announcement on the partnership could come as early as next week.
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In her report, Auerbach shed some more light on what the alliance will be aiming to do. Some of the key points:
- According to Auerbach, there are “many administrators” in the conferences who want the collegiate model to continue and don’t want college football to become more like a minor league system. Auerbach wrote that these administrators “worry” that the SEC’s move to add Texas and Oklahoma could lead to that, and they want to band together.
- The NCAA’s weakened leadership has helped lead to the SEC’s power move, and an alliance would theoretically help these three conferences keep pace.
- There is “hope” that the three conference commissioners “will align to delay” an expansion of the College Football Playoff, Auerbach reported. She reported that the three conferences were not represented in a recent proposal to expand the CFP to 12 teams.
- Game scheduling between teams in the conferences would likely happen.