ACC commissioner Jim Phillips took a strong tone when it came to conference members Florida State and Clemson’s lawsuits in the schools’ efforts to leave the conference.
“Forceful moments deserve forceful support and leadership,” Phillips said Monday. “I don’t know that I’ve changed at all other than I stand by everything I’ve said from the moment on the first interview I did around the Orange Bowl on ACCN to today. This is a really important time for the conference. Either you believe in what has been signed or you don’t. We are going to do everything we can to protect and to fight the league because I see a group of student-athletes there. We now have 12,200 student-athletes.
“This has been a league that started way before me, 71 years ago, and it will be a league that will be around a long time after I depart. This league deserves us to take this really serious issue and to handle it appropriately. What gives me promise and conviction about it? Because I understand I think these schools, I think I understand where we’re going. We’ve made some really good adjustments.
“This conference is bigger than any one school, or schools.”
The two premier ACC teams, who have won 12 of the past 13 conference football titles, both have active lawsuits against the conference, challenging the grant of media rights that binds the conference together. If the contract remains in effect, leaving the ACC would likely cost the programs hundreds of millions of dollars each.
The Hurricanes, meanwhile, maintain a publicly supportive stance toward the ACC.
“Here at the University of Miami, we are incredibly solid with the ACC,” UM athletic director Dan Radakovich said in March. “It’s a great conference, provides great structure, access to the college football playoff which is very, very important.
The lawsuits appear likely to drag on, and there does not appear to be any imminent change to the conference’s roster coming soon. Clemson and FSU are not expected to inform the ACC that they intend to leave for the 2025-26 seasons by the Aug. 15, 2024, deadline, according to ESPN.
“We’ve had six months of disruption, and I think we’ve handled it incredibly well,” Phillips said. “There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t spend some time on the legal cases. I don’t think that’s going to change.”
ACC Road Trip coming to Miami
The ACC Network’s popular annual canvassing of conference campuses will come to UM on Aug. 9, the conference announced.
The network’s Taylor Tannebaum, EJ Manuel, Eric Mac Lain, Andrea Adelson will come to Miami to interview coach Mario Cristobal and players while “showcasing unique aspects of each football program,” per the conference’s press release.
