Report: ACC to vet California and Stanford as potential additions

Well, well, well, conference realignment for the summer may not be over yet. According to ESPN’s Pete Thamel, the Pac-12 could undergo further dismantling as the ACC is now exploring California and Stanford as expansion options in their league.

Here was Thamel’s report of the ACC’s intrigue with some schools on the United States’ other major coast:

“Sources: In the next 24 hours, there’s two calls for the ACC to vet and have early exploratory discussions on the potential addition of Cal and Stanford. One is for ACC athletic directors and the other for the league’s presidents and chancellors.”

Pac-12 teams also receiving interest from AAC

From On3’s Eric Prisbell

The American Athletic Conference is also interested in adding any or all of the four remaining Pac-12 Conference schools, sources with direct knowledge of the league’s strategy told On3 on Monday.

If California, Stanford, Oregon State and Washington State are looking for a stable new home, the AAC believes it would be an ideal league for the so-called Pac-4. The AAC is interested in adding as many as all four of the schools, a source said, which would expand its membership to 18.

“We would be a good landing spot for those schools given our existing ESPN deal, which has a strong linear component, along with our major cities and institutional profiles,” one source said.

The conversations that are ensuing now are likely between the remaining Pac-12 schools and schools in the AAC, rather than between conference offices. A merger is not said to be in play at the moment; it would entail a variety of complicating factors. Instead, the AAC is focused on potentially adding Pac-12 schools.

Friday’s mass exodus of five Pac-12 schools – Oregon and Washington to the Big Ten Conference; Arizona, Arizona State and Utah to the Big 12 Conference – opened a range of possibilities for the remaining Pac-12 schools. And there’s no indication, much less certainty, that the four will act as one bloc.

California’s Board of Regents has scheduled a call for Tuesday morning at 7 a.m. PST. A closed session, the agenda is a discussion on “UC Berkeley Pac-12 Conference Membership.”