Is Florida State trying to ‘create chaos?’ ACC insiders react to Seminoles’ comments
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Andrea Adelson
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Andrea Adelson
ESPN Senior Writer
- ACC reporter.
- Joined ESPN.com in 2010.
- Graduate of the University of Florida.
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David Hale
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David Hale
ESPN Staff Writer
- ACC reporter.
- Joined ESPN in 2012.
- Graduate of the University of Delaware.
As Florida State president Richard McCullough began his remarks to his board of trustees during a virtual meeting on Wednesday, more than 2,000 people were tuned into the livestream on YouTube.
Among those were officials both in the ACC office and schools across the league. Shortly after McCullough told the board that Florida State would “very seriously” consider leaving the ACC unless there is a radical change to the conference’s revenue distribution model, the backlash from those inside the league followed.
While Florida State has made it clear it has been unhappy before, this was the first time McCullough said so publicly — the strongest sign yet that Florida State would consider leaving the league.
One ACC administrator thought it was an attempt to “strong arm” presidents to change their minds on revenue distribution. Another questioned whether trustee members even realized Florida State willingly signed the grant of rights in 2016, giving the ACC control over its media rights through the end of its television contract in 2036.
“Was this a leverage play?” one administrator asked. “It seems like there would’ve been a lot better ways of handling it.”
Based on interviews with administrators and league officials over the past several days, the league has seemingly taken an “us versus Florida State” mentality — with both public and private comments intimating as much. But the saga might be far from over as conference realignment continues in the Big Ten and Big 12. If the Big Ten decided to expand to 20 schools after adding Oregon and Washington on Friday, would it come looking at the ACC and Florida State? And how would that even work with the grant of rights question continuing to muddy the waters?
There is an Aug. 15 deadline for any conference member to give notice if it plans to leave the ACC in a year. With that date looming, there remain incredulous administrators wondering what the play is for Florida State.
“One could argue they’re just trying to create chaos and that they thought the only way to make it work would be to break the league up,” one source said. “Part of the theory here is they bang the drum real loud and eventually everybody else would panic.”
In some ways, what happened Wednesday in the board meeting was not surprising. Florida State athletic director Michael Alford has been vocal both publicly and in meetings with ADs, ACC administrators and officials that the school is not happy with both the speed and progress in addressing what is estimated to be a $30 million annual revenue gap with the SEC and Big Ten — a gap Florida State described as “insurmountable.”
In February, after feeling there was no urgency to address changing ACC revenue distribution to help close that gap, Alford sounded the first alarm, telling his board, “Something has to change because we cannot compete nationally being $30 million behind every year. It’s not one year. We’re talking about $30 million compounded year after year.”
Within three months, the ACC had a framework to address at least part of the gap: Success initiatives, which would reward teams that have on-field success in football and basketball with a larger portion of the revenue that comes with CFP and NCAA tournament appearances.
Beyond the success initiatives, Florida State has been pushing for another component to the revenue distribution: rewarding teams that generate higher television ratings and viewership with a larger share of the television money distribution. But that has gotten zero traction from ADs and presidents, frustrating Florida State further.
A number of administrators from other ACC schools questioned why Florida State felt it deserved a larger revenue share, considering its football program has not won an ACC championship or been in the College Football Playoff since 2014. Florida State has presented numbers that show they bring 15% of the value to the TV deal but get 7% of the revenue. Currently, each ACC school shares that equally.
“I would love all my colleagues in the ACC to love me in every way,” McCullough told ESPN before the board meeting. “But I have a fiduciary responsibility to Florida State, so I have to push and there are some schools that just don’t agree with my point of view.
League commissioner Jim Phillips declined comment but several athletic directors did not after Alford’s remarks Wednesday. After the board meeting, a group of ACC ADs discussed how to best address the remarks and decided North Carolina athletic director Bubba Cunningham would speak first publicly on their behalf. Cunningham told a local radio station Thursday it did the ACC no good for Florida State to be “barking like that.”
In comments to ESPN on Friday, Miami athletic director Dan Radakovich echoed what Cunningham said. “Florida State is doing what Florida State feels like it needs to do,” Radakovich said. “Each of our schools have to make their own decisions. But on top of all of it, we need to continue to try to make the ACC as strong as we can make it. We’ve got our grant of rights, we have all those other pieces that are associated with keeping ourselves together. Right now, we feel really strongly that our best course of action is to keep the ACC together and try to make it as strong as it can be.”
As one ACC administrator noted, the ACC is already losing the PR battle, with the Big 12 — a league with fewer signature programs, a lower TV valuation and no standalone network — being viewed as growing and stable, while the ACC looks to be teetering. Florida State’s public criticism of the league’s financial picture only exacerbates that problem.
At ACC media days just last month, Phillips addressed the idea that the ACC would no longer be able to compete at such a revenue disadvantage.
“We’ve had multiple TV consultants,” Phillips said. “Third is a good position but we want to gain traction financially in order to close the gap with the SEC and Big Ten.
“I think one of the presidents said it best: ‘Are we chasing a dollar amount or are we chasing success?'” Phillips continued. “I think there’s a difference there. If you’re chasing a number it takes you down a different path. If you’re chasing success competitively, every institution has an idea of what they need. So again, I feel really strongly about this league and I think people are missing it when they’re not paying attention to the results of how well the conference has done.'”
League officials and ADs thought they’d found enough common ground after contentious spring meetings in May, when it became publicly known that Clemson, Florida State, Miami, North Carolina, NC State, Virginia and Virginia Tech had discussed the grant of rights and future of the ACC among themselves — which led to a clearing of the air among the entire league. On the heels of that meeting, ACC presidents agreed to change the revenue distribution model to include the success initiatives.
With that progress made, the league has continued to look at ways to address the revenue gap — something atop Phillips’ agenda on a daily basis. While the SEC and Big Ten will be far ahead from a revenue standpoint, the ACC remains No. 3 in revenue distribution, distributing an average of nearly $40 million per school in 2021-22.
Radakovich said the payouts from the league’s TV deal have exceeded initial projections. The problem is the SEC and Big Ten negotiated new deals in a far different climate that provided them with more money.
“It’s hypersensitive, now, given all the different changes that have continued to come within intercollegiate athletics,” Radakovich said. “Needing more resources is high on the list.”
Florida State is not alone in wanting those resources, of course. That is why what happened Wednesday remained perplexing for many within the league. Multiple sources questioned where Florida State would go if it decided to leave given the current situations in the SEC (not looking to expand) and the Big Ten (adding Oregon and Washington).
Panic is a concern, another league source told ESPN, noting “everyone’s head has to be on a swivel” right now, but that making hasty decisions could create far worse long-term outcomes.
Another school official did not think making loud statements would change any decision a president makes about unevenly distributing television revenue based on ratings. “Why would my president take money out of our pocket and give it to Florida State when it would only hurt us? We need to run an athletic department, too,” one source said.
If FSU is planning to leave anyway, an athletic director said, there’s little reason to give them more money now. Instead, ACC schools could simply wait for FSU to be the one to cut a sizable check on its way out the door.
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Jorge Castillo
NEW YORK — Giancarlo Stanton, one of the first known adopters of the torpedo bat, declined Tuesday to say whether he believes using it last season caused the tendon ailments in both elbows that forced him to begin this season on the injured list.
Last month, Stanton alluded to “bat adjustments” he made last season as a possible reason for the epicondylitis, commonly known as tennis elbow, he’s dealing with.
“You’re not going to get the story you’re looking for,” Stanton said. “So, if that’s what you guys want, that ain’t going to happen.”
Stanton said he will continue using the torpedo bat when he returns from injury. The 35-year-old New York Yankees slugger, who has undergone multiple rounds of platelet-rich plasma injections to treat his elbows, shared during spring training that season-ending surgery on both elbows was a possibility. But he has progressed enough to recently begin hitting off a Trajekt — a pitching robot that simulates any pitcher’s windup, arm angle and arsenal. However, he still wouldn’t define his return as “close.”
He said he will first have to go on a minor league rehab assignment at an unknown date for an unknown period. It won’t start in the next week, he added.
“This is very unique,” Stanton said. “I definitely haven’t missed a full spring before. So, it just depends on my timing, really, how fast I get to feel comfortable in the box versus live pitching.”
While the craze of the torpedo bat (also known as the bowling pin bat) has swept the baseball world since it was revealed Saturday — while the Yankees were blasting nine home runs against the Milwaukee Brewers — that a few members of the Yankees were using one, the modified bat already had quietly spread throughout the majors in 2024. Both Stanton and former Yankees catcher Jose Trevino, now with the Cincinnati Reds, were among players who used the bats last season after being introduced to the concept by Aaron Leanhardt, an MIT-educated physicist and former minor league hitting coordinator for the organization.
Anthony Volpe, Jazz Chisholm Jr., Cody Bellinger, Paul Goldschmidt and Austin Wells were among the Yankees who used torpedo bats during their season-opening sweep of the Brewers.
Stanton explained he has changed bats before. He said he has usually adjusted the length. Sometimes, he opts for lighter bats at the end of the long season. In the past, when knuckleballers were more common in the majors, he’d opt for heavier lumber.
Last year, he said he simply chose his usual bat but with a different barrel after experimenting with a few models.
“I mean, it makes a lot of sense,” Stanton said. “But it’s, like, why hasn’t anyone thought of it in 100-plus years? So, it’s explained simply and then you try it and as long as it’s comfortable in your hands [it works]. We’re creatures of habit, so the bat’s got to feel kind of like a glove or an extension of your arm.”
Stanton went on to lead the majors with an average bat velocity of 81.2 mph — nearly 3 mph ahead of the competition. He had a rebound, but not spectacular, regular season in which he batted .233 with 27 home runs and a .773 OPS before clubbing seven home runs in 14 playoff games.
“It’s not like [it was] unreal all of a sudden for me,” Stanton said.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone described the torpedo bats “as the evolution of equipment” comparable to getting fitted for new golf clubs. He said the organization is not pushing players to use them and insisted the science is more complicated than just picking a bat with a different barrel.
“There’s a lot more to it than, ‘I’ll take the torpedo bat on the shelf over there — 34 [inches], 32 [ounces],'” Boone said. “Our guys are way more invested in it than that. And really personalized, really work with our players in creating this stuff. But it’s equipment evolving.”
As players around the majors order torpedo bats in droves after the Yankees’ barrage over the weekend — they clubbed a record-tying 13 homers in two games against the Brewers — Boone alluded to the notion that, though everyone is aware of the concept, not every organization can optimize its usage.
“You’re trying to just, where you can on the margins, move the needle a little bit,” Boone said. “And that’s really all you’re going to do. I don’t think this is some revelation to where we’re going to be; it’s not related to the weekend that we had, for example. Like, I don’t think it’s that. Maybe in some cases, for some players, it may help them incrementally. That’s how I view it.”
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Eli Lederman
USC secured the commitment of former Oregon defensive tackle pledge Tomuhini Topui on Tuesday, a source told ESPN, handing the Trojans their latest recruiting victory in the 2026 cycle over the Big Ten rival Ducks.
Topui, ESPN’s No. 3 defensive tackle and No. 72 overall recruit in the 2026 class, spent five and half months committed to Oregon before pulling his pledge from the program on March 27. Topui attended USC’s initial spring camp practice that afternoon, and seven days later the 6-foot-4, 295-pound defender gave the Trojans his pledge to become the sixth ESPN 300 defender in the program’s 2026 class.
Topui’s commitment gives USC its 10th ESPN 300 pledge this cycle — more than any other program nationally — and pulls a fourth top-100 recruit into the impressive defensive class the Trojans are building this spring. Alongside Topui, USC’s defensive class includes in-state cornerbacks R.J. Sermons (No. 26 in ESPN Junior 300) and Brandon Lockhart (No. 77); four-star outside linebacker Xavier Griffin (No. 27) out of Gainesville, Georgia; and two more defensive line pledges between Jaimeon Winfield (No. 143) and Simote Katoanga (No. 174).
The Trojans are working to reestablish their local recruiting presence in the 2026 class under newly hired general manager Chad Bowden. Topui not only gives the Trojans their 11th in-state commit in the cycle, but his pledge represents a potentially important step toward revamping the program’s pipeline to perennial local powerhouse Mater Dei High School, too.
Topui will enter his senior season this fall at Mater Dei, the program that has produced a long line of USC stars including Matt Leinart, Matt Barkley and Amon-Ra St. Brown. However, if Topui ultimately signs with the program later this year, he’ll mark the Trojans’ first Mater Dei signee since the 2022 cycle, when USC pulled three top-300 prospects — Domani Jackson, Raleek Brown and C.J. Williams — from the high school program based in Santa Ana, California.
Topui’s flip to the Trojans also adds another layer to a recruiting rivalry rekindling between USC and Oregon in the 2026 cycle.
Tuesday’s commitment comes less than two months after coach Lincoln Riley and the Trojans flipped four-star Oregon quarterback pledge Jonas Williams, ESPN’s No. 2 dual-threat quarterback in 2026. USC is expected to continue targeting several Ducks commits this spring, including four-star offensive tackle Kodi Greene, another top prospect out of Mater Dei.
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