It’s been a little over 2-weeks since USC and UCLA announced their departure to the B1G. One of the devil of the details on process was how the announcement itself was presented.

Both schools broke this news by PRing that their applications to the B1G had been accepted, and that was the first ANYONE heard about it. Texas/Oklahoma was managed in similar fashion albeit with an invitation acceptance announcement.

Since the USC/UCLA coup, the ACC has put forward a couple of tepid, trial balloon responses lacking details and cohesion, while the undisputed ACC conference leader has maintained total silence on these proposals.

Graham Neff’s most recent public statements predating the USC/UCLA announcement were made in May on ‘Packer and Durham’ in the wake of news that the B1G and SEC were about to renew their more lucrative TV deals.

Neff’s comments in this interview provide direct insight into the new AD’s thoughts on the status quo.


"Lot of momentum around, you know, now's the time, and what that looks like structurally for college athletics, for division one," Neff said.

“There just seems to be a whole lot of momentum around now, there needs to be change, for a lot of obvious reasons, and now's the time.

From an industry standpoint, or a Power-5 standpoint, you know, what does it look like. There's been a lot of options and discussions and there's still a lot of questions to be answered. But I think if there's one thing that has a lot of coalescence around not only our league, but the industry is now is the time. Now's the window to effect change."
-Graham Neff, 5/13/2022


When contrasted against Jim Phillip’s “loose relationship” proposal, Neff seems to articulate a bolder vision that transcends merely rearranging the conference deck chairs.

It’s also not unreasonable to think Clemson had already begun exploring options before the B1G expansion news even dropped, and when/if that news hits, it’ll hit like a ton of bricks, not via a series of water drop torture, rumor tweets. We’ll all just wake up one morning as new SEC(or less likely B1G) members in waiting.

And for now, total silence. Silence from Neff, Dabo, and the BOT.

…and the silence speaks volumes.