ACC, Big Ten and Pac-12 announce alliance to “protect the college model”



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The ACC, Big Ten and Pac-12 announced that they would form an alliance and work together “on a collaborative approach surrounding the future evolution of varsity athletics and programming” after Texas and Oklahoma decided to join the SEC.

Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren, ACC’s Jim Phillips and Pac-12’s George Kliavkoff admitted they had been talking about the idea for several weeks, but they made it happen on Tuesday.

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Less than a month ago, Texas and Oklahoma left ship for the Southeastern Conference. The three conferences therefore felt the need to create an alliance of 41 schools in order to maintain a certain stability at the top of college football.

“In the history of varsity athletics, an expansion from one conference has usually led to another to another and another,” said Phillips. “And for the three of us, we felt the stabilization of the current environment, through Division I and FBS – in Power Five in particular – it was a chance for a new direction, a new initiative which I think does not ‘has never been done before. “

The NCAA is in the process of giving conferences and schools more responsibility to take charge of varsity athletics, especially as they hope to expand the college football playoffs in the near future.

“I wouldn’t say this is a reaction to Texas and Oklahoma joining the SEC, but to be totally frank you have to assess what’s going on in the varsity track landscape,” he said. added Warren.

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The ACC, Big Ten, and Pac-12 have attempted to make a bold statement by unveiling the alliance, but without any concrete plans in place, it will start as a simple pledge to act with mutual interests in mind.

“I hope this will bring much needed stability to varsity athletics,” Warren concluded. “I also think it will help people understand where everyone stands. Some of the events of the past two months have shaken the foundations of varsity athletics.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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