RALEIGH, N.C. — In an instant late last week, the ACC went from a period of relative stability — yet one not without significant questions about its long-term future — to prognostications of doom and visions of worst-case scenarios. Pick a related metaphor and they all fit the perception that suddenly surrounds the ACC: A sinking ship; the Hindenburg engulfed in a fireball; the grim reaper knocking on the door, toting a scythe.
The ACC isn’t quite there, not yet anyway, but the vibes are not good. The revelation that USC and UCLA intend to depart the Pac-12 for the Big Ten has reinforced a truth that is not new, necessarily, but one that is becoming more difficult to ignore. And that truth is this: In major college athletics, there is no longer any such thing as the Power Five.
There’s the Power Two — the Big Ten and SEC — and schools can either find a way on the train or risk the specter of being left at the station. Or, perhaps equally worse, risk the specter of taking less desirable trains to less desirable destinations (though, more literally, the likes of Starkville, Mississippi, and Fayetteville, Arkansas, and Piscataway, New Jersey, aren’t exactly resort towns).
