College Football Playoff meetings in Dallas delay ACC action on possible SMU invite

SMU could still be one of three schools potentially heading to the ACC, but a call for conference presidents hasn’t been rescheduled yet, Yahoo Sports reported Tuesday.

In the meantime, ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips and leaders from other conferences will be busy Wednesday with College Football Playoff meetings in Dallas.

The Athletic reported Monday that the college football powers will be working through the unresolved problems that could arise with the 12-team CFP planned for the 2024 season.

Interest in the meeting grew after the massive realignment that left the Pac-12 in its current state, with only four teams that haven’t accepted invites to join other conferences.

The original meeting to decide whether SMU, Stanford and California could join the ACC on Monday was postponed out of respect for the University of North Carolina, where a grad student is accused of killing a faculty member on Monday.

ACC officials are reportedly still working on how to divide the pool of money that would be split among conference members after the three new schools join. That amount is expected to be between $50 million and $60 million annually.

Nothing is finalized and the details are “only in pencil” as of now, according to ESPN’s Pete Thamel.

How new revenue generated by adding members to the conference would be distributed has been a sticking point for several ACC schools, among them Florida State, Clemson and North Carolina.

SMU, Stanford and Cal agreed to revenue distribution models that would make them more appealing to ACC schools last week.

SMU would be willing to forgo its television revenue distribution from the conference for seven years, Yahoo Sports reported, while Stanford and Cal would reduce theirs for multiple years, starting at about 30%.

Three weeks ago, conference officials and university leaders met twice in three days to consider adding Stanford, Cal and SMU, but never voted, knowing they wouldn’t have the necessary 12 of 15 votes to approve expansion.

SMU, a member of the American Athletic Conference, has long indicated it wanted to move to a Power Five conference. The Big 12, which is headquartered in the Mustangs’ backyard, didn’t reciprocate the interest, and the recent demise of the Pac 12 ended the Mustangs’ hopes of hopping aboard out west.

SMU, according to people familiar with the situation, has engaged in conversations with school presidents and conference leaders from the Pac-12, Big 12 and ACC since July 2022, when USC and UCLA announced they were leaving for the Big Ten.

To leave the AAC, SMU would have to pay an early termination fee, the amount of which is unknown. The AAC’s media contract runs until 2031. Cincinnati, UCF and Houston are each paying $18 million to depart the conference this year, though a person familiar with the AAC’s thinking told The News that the number would likely be higher for SMU.

But the Mustangs aren’t letting the prospect of a hefty exit fee, or the loss of years of television revenue, deter them from the elusive goal of joining a Power Five.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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