Syracuse Football: ACC legal battles with Clemson, Florida St. an annoying distraction

As Syracuse football gets set to open its 2024 season at the end of August, the Atlantic Coast Conference is engaged in legal battles with two other league members, Florida State and Clemson.

I find these legal issues to be utterly annoying. I'm excited for the Orange, led by first-year head coach Fran Brown, to commence its upcoming campaign.

Yet I feel like a somewhat dark cloud is hanging over the ACC, which for this season has added new members California, SMU and Stanford.

At the center of these lawsuits between the ACC, and both Florida State and Clemson, is the league's grant of rights media deal with ESPN that expires in 2036.

If the Seminoles and Tigers brass want to leave the ACC, so be it. If those two schools want to try and get out of the grant of rights deal, and potentially significant exit fees, that is of course their right.

But with excitement building for the 2024 season in college football, and the expanded 12-team College Football Playoff, I'd love to focus on what will transpire on the field, not in courtrooms. That being said, this is not the world we live in - college football and television revenue are a big business, and every stakeholder has a different agenda.

As Syracuse football prepares to take the field, the ACC and other member schools are involved in lawsuits.

Amid the explosion of conference realignment, regarding college football, national pundits clearly view the Southeastern Conference and the Big Ten Conference as the leaders of the pack. I get that.

However, in the race for the No. 3 spot, the top contenders are the aforementioned ACC and the Big 12 Conference. Now, down the road, should Florida State, Clemson or any other league school bolt the ACC, that would be damaging to the ACC. There's no other way to slice it.

Then again, does the SEC or the Big Ten want FSU and/or Clemson? I've seen reports that perhaps not. Could the Big 12 swoop in and land the Seminoles and the Tigers? Only time will tell.

In an interview earlier this week on ESPN's SportsCenter, ACC commissioner Jim Phillips discussed the conference's legal skirmishes with Florida State and Clemson, as noted in an article by On3 national writer Griffin McVeigh.

Phillips said that the ACC will continue to fight those two schools pertaining to the ongoing lawsuits. “Listen, it’s disappointing we’re in this place,” Phillips said. “It’s a harmful, kind of, situation. But we’re going to do just that. We’re going to fight. And that’s the way it should be. When you sign an agreement twice - willingly sign - and that you are part of a group that comes together and decides this is what you want to do for the next 20 years, you should be held accountable for that. That being said, we will compartmentalize that piece of it and we will go into the football season."

Ironically, the 2024 college football season kicks off this coming Saturday, Aug. 24, when No. 10 Florida State takes on Georgia Tech in Dublin.

Without question, conference realignment, the evolving landscape of collegiate athletics, and the ACC's legal battles with two of its member institutions are huge news stories. I'm sure during the FSU-Georgia Tech game, and throughout the course of the 2024 season when ACC schools, including Syracuse football, are playing, announcers will likely bring up these legal issues.

And, to reiterate what I said above, I find that annoying, even if it's the reality we endure these days.

Phillips echoed those sentiments when he said in part, "And that’s what I’m really looking forward to, is some of the legal conversations and some of the dynamics around these cases has taken away from the ACC, taken away the incredible success that our student-athletes are having in the sport of football and across all 28 of our sports. With the kickoff this weekend, we can maybe put the legal side - legal issues to the side and we can focus on what young men and women are doing on the competitive playing field with our fall sports."

I hope that he's right in this regard. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. If Florida State and Clemson want to depart the ACC, go right ahead. What they might have to pony up in big-time dollars, that's for the courts to decide.

I acknowledge that college athletics, whether for the better, the worse or something in between, have changed forever. Realignment, the transfer portal, NIL and other factors are to "blame" for that.

Syracuse football plays its first 2024 game on Saturday, Aug. 31, when the 'Cuse will host Ohio in an non-conference contest at the JMA Wireless Dome.

I'm pumped to see what Brown, his top-flight staff and their players can achieve on the field. And when I listen to the broadcast of this game, and others that will soon follow for the Orange, I sincerely hope that I don't have to hear over and over again how the ACC is in a legal mess with Clemson and Florida State.

Is that too much to ask?