College football insider reveals UNC's potential standing after latest wave of realignment

Conference realignment once again bubbled to the surface in college athletics on Thursday afternoon, after news broke that the USC Trojans and the UCLA Bruins are planning to leave the Pac-12 Conference and join the Big Ten Conference as early as 2024, according to Jon Wilner. On Thursday evening, college football insider Pete Thamel joined The Paul Finebaum Show to talk about his thoughts on the North Carolina Tar Heels and their attractiveness to other conferences after the latest wave of conference realignment.

“So, I think the most compelling program is perhaps when you go to the spreadsheets and pay a lot of money to the consultants. They tell you the most valuable is North Carolina. It has an unbelievable brand. It stretches across a wide swath of a highly populated state. Their football clearly hasn’t been as successful as Clemson, there’s no question. And basketball is really only–even in a league like the ACC–a 15 percent proposition,” Thamel said.

“But I think it’s the 7th most populous state in America, Paul. (It’s actually the 9th most populous, according to World Population Review.) There’s a lot of good football players in the state of North Carolina. And just as a school brand–I think it’s the best in the entire ACC. And it’s a school you could see go North or South. Which I think is gonna be valuable, too,” the college football insider said.

Then, Thamel discussed the unimaginable thought of the Tar Heels leaving their annual rivalry with the Duke Blue Devils–one of the most famous rivalries in all of sports. “So I think if you’re North Carolina, it’s a fascinating discussion you have to have, Paul. You say, ‘Do we leave our basketball roots? Do we leave our rivalry with Duke?’ Can you imagine realignment getting to the point where it shakes the Carolina-Duke rivalry from a twice-a-year, interleague meeting? I mean, that’s where we are right now. And those conversations are happening. And I think if you’re North Carolina, you have to do that. And I’m sure you’d have to give some smelling salts to some blue bloods down in Tobacco Road, when you bring up that notion, but the world is changing. Markets are driving the forces and the pathway out is pretty linear,” Thamel said.

The thought of the North Carolina Tar Heels and the Duke Blue Devils ending their rivalry is one that will shake many college basketball and college football fans across the country to their very core. The ACC’s basketball brands have always been such a massive part of the conference and its roots. Taking the Duke-North Carolina rivalry away would certainly not be an easy pill for many of its longtime fans to swallow.

Thamel understands the gravity of the moment and he noted how, “It is really, really a compelling moment in time in college athletics right now.” The only thing certain in college football and college basketball right now is a future is full of uncertainty. The college football insider also said that conference realignment will continue to be a “black cloud of concern” hanging over the ACC for the foreseeable future.