NC State AD: 'Came to a different conclusion' after changes to ACC expansion proposal

By Brian Murphy, WRAL

NC State delivered the key vote in approving the ACC's western expansion earlier this month, but its athletic director Friday disputed the notion that the school flipped its vote to allow Cal, Stanford and SMU to join the league.

Instead, Boo Corrigan said the final expansion proposal presented to NC State was far different from an earlier version that the Wolfpack did not support.

"The troubling thing to me was the idea that there was any flipping," Corrigan told NC State's Council on Athletics on Friday afternoon. "To me, a flipping of a vote means here's what it is, you take a lot of pressure and there's a lot of pressure to change your mind.

"... It was one thing and then it became something completely different. When it became something completely different, the chancellor and I had spent a lot of time talking about it, we voted for expansion."

Friday was the first meeting of the council, which includes faculty and several student-athletes, since the Sept. 1 expansion vote.

NC State, after being opposed to expansion in early August, voted along with 11 other schools, including non-football member Notre Dame, to add the western schools. Clemson, Florida State and North Carolina voted against expansion and publicly acknowledged those votes. Expansion required at least 75% approval or 12 yes votes.

"The terms were different and what it meant from a travel standpoint," Corrigan told WRAL after the meeting. "There were a number of questions that were asked by the chancellors after the first time. And as we looked at the new questions and the new answers, we came to a different conclusion."

NC State sponsors 22 sports. Corrigan told the council that football, wrestling, volleyball, gymnastics, basketball (men and women), soccer (men and women's) and tennis (men and women) would be impacted.

While travel logistics are being worked out by a group of senior women administrators in the conference, Corrigan said football would travel to California no more than three times in a seven-year period and that no other sport would go to the West Coast in back-to-back years.

Among the travel plans and schedule models being considered are using four- or five-team pods, staying within divisions and/or moving to a regional schedule, Corrigan said. The ACC will meet in mid-October and, Corrigan said, "we're hopeful to come out with a greater fidelity on what it's going to look like."

NC State chancellor Randy Woodson, who cast the vote, has not elaborated on his decision outside of a statement issued the day of the vote.

"The NC State brand, and historical competitiveness of our programs, is already well-recognized and established," NC State chancellor Randy Woodson said in a statement to WRAL. "The addition of these outstanding universities gives us even greater opportunities to build on the Wolfpack's national presence, which in turn will generate more long-term benefits for our student-athletes, our athletic programs and our loyal fan base."

Corrigan said the academic profile of the three new schools, including two private schools in Stanford and SMU, fit the ACC, which will have 10 public schools and eight private schools after expansion. The new schools join July 1.

"How do we balance high-end athletics and high-end academics, and that's why those two schools fit," Corrigan said in reference to Cal and Stanford.

He said one of the reasons that SMU was added to gain television access and exposure in the Dallas market and that all of the conference expansion moves across the country were made for financial reasons, the ACC's included.

Corrigan, entering his second year as chairman of the College Football Playoff committee, said he has thought a lot about whether it makes sense for college football to have a commissioner or an executive director given what is happening with the transfer portal and NIL and realignment. He said does not think the CFP would be the group to run it.

"It would be a different group," he said.

What that top-level of college football looks like, including how many conferences and teams are in that level, is far from certain. The council also received a quick overview of on-going legal challenges to the NCAA, particularly ones dealing with NIL restrictions and employment status.

"I think there very well could be a break at some point," Corrigan told the council in response to questions about future conference realignment.

The new-look ACC is also studying its conference basketball schedule, particularly after the league received a disappointing five bids to the NCAA Tournament in 2022 and 2023.

Corrigan said he is part of a committee studying whether the ACC should remain at 20 conference games. He said the league is currently "obligated by ESPN to play 20 games in conference."

"Do we stick with 20?" he said. "Do we go to 18? Do we try to bring back something like the old-school Dixie Classic and some of those things? Do we look at things a little bit differently than we have in the past in order to get to those 20 games?"

NC State, North Carolina, Duke and Wake Forest played the eight-team Dixie Classic (1949 to 1960) and later the four-team Big Four Tournament (1971 to 1981). The games did not count in the ACC standings.