Nebraska Football can breathe easy as ACC expansion plans fall away

Nebraska football fans can now find breathe easy as the window for a team to exit the ACC before the 2024-2025 season has closed.

The talk of the summer has been what the college football landscape will look like in 2024 and beyond. The good news is, at least some of the continental drift going on over the last few months has finally settled down.

Nebraska football will have some new conference rivals in 2024, but barring something truly bizarre, none of those conference rivals will come from the ACC.  An important deadline for the Atlantic Coast Conference has come and gone with no departures, despite strong rumors a few weeks back.

There was quite a bit of talk that Florida State and Clemson might look towards greener pastures much the same way Colorado, Arizona, Utah, Arizona State, Washington and Oregon did in July. However, the ACC’s Grant of Rights (the rights to broadcasts member teams games) is pretty ironclad.

A major part of the ACC Grant of Rights is that teams must have alerted the conference of intent to departure by August 15 if they wanted to be out by 2024. That deadline came and went with no movement.

Nebraska football and the rest of the Big Ten were far from the only people watching closely. The SEC was at least willing to listen to the Tigers and Seminoles if they wanted to come calling. The Miami Hurricanes were also rumored to be interested in joining in-state rival Florida in the same conference.

Nebraska football still in the Big 18

Obviously, that the ACC is still intact as of August 16, 2023, doesn’t mean realignment is over for good. The Pac-12 is still down to the Pac-4.

The Big 18 is almost certainly going to be looking to be the Big 20 at some point in the very near future. But at least for the next few months, Nebraska football can focus on the here and now. And getting ready for a future with USC, UCLA, Washington, and Oregon as conference foes.