Sources: ACC expansion verdict expected in days
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Pete Thamel, ESPN
A decision on ACC expansion is expected this week, and sources told ESPN that there’s “continued momentum” toward the league adding Stanford, Cal and SMU to the league.
Early Monday morning, ACC officials were working on gathering the league’s presidents and chancellors on a call to further discuss and potentially vote on the issue.
After a weekend of conversations, a source told ESPN that the details of the potential additions are “only in pencil,” but it’s trending in the direction of happening. One of four ACC schools that had previously objected to the additions — Clemson, Florida State, NC State and North Carolina — needed to change its vote, and that is expected to happen this week.
Sources cautioned to ESPN that the situation is fluid and nothing is finalized. But the general tenor heading out of the conversations over the weekend is that the league is close to formalizing the additions.
While there’s momentum toward additions, a decision either way is coming some point in the early part of this week. This is the fourth week that ACC officials have discussed the potential additions, and there’s a now-or-never tone hanging over the next few days.
ACC commissioner Jim Phillips met with the ACC presidents in small groups last week to engage with them on the potential adds. In addition, Phillips spent the bulk of the week having smaller conversations with the four ‘no’ schools, in an effort to get them onboard with the expansion plan, multiple sources said. One source indicated Phillips would like to have a unanimous vote on expansion, because he sees this as a big win for the conference — particularly as a way to secure its future moving forward. After weeks of strife, a unanimous vote would indicate he has every league member committed and onboard with the decision.
The ACC officials are still dialing in on how to divide the pool of money that would be split up among ACC members after the three schools join.
SMU is expected to join the league with no broadcast media revenue for seven years, per ESPN sources. Cal and Stanford are both expected to initially join at approximately 30% shares.
That’s expected to create a pool of between $50-60 million annually to divide among ACC schools. Some of that will be distributed to all members, and the rest would be put into a pool for success initiatives. Part of the discussion surrounding that pool of money for the success initiatives is how to divide it to everyone’s satisfaction — taking into account CFP appearances, ACC championships, ACC championship appearances and bowl appearances. One source believes there should be a tiered approach to how the bowl money is divided up — an Orange Bowl appearance should be worth more than a Pinstripe Bowl appearance, for example. There also is ongoing discussion about how much Notre Dame should share in the added money the league will receive from the new additions.
The ACC has been discussing success initiatives since May that are expected to be implemented for the 2024-25 season. When the ACC announced those initiatives, it noted the specifics were “still in progress.”
Another source indicated that adding these three schools is essential not only for long-term security, but to help close the revenue gap with the SEC and Big Ten, which is set to grow to roughly $30 million per year. The source said this current plan is “the only thing that gets us closer to closing that gap” compared to other options that have been presented.
All three schools would be expected to enter for the 2024-25 season in all sports. The move comes after the Pac-12 spiraled in the wake of departures of eight schools in recent weeks.
ESPN’s Andrea Adelson contributed to this report.
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Neil Paine
There’s no going back now. The College Football Playoff’s expanded 12-team format made its debut last season, reshaping the postseason as we knew it and showing just how brutal the path to a national championship can be. Add in a flurry of conference realignments (with the grueling travel schedules they created), the ever-increasing influence of the transfer portal and what might be the dawn of an entirely new financial model underpinning the sport, and college football could be changing faster — and more dramatically — than at any point in its history.
As part of our efforts to keep track of these seismic changes, we are relaunching our Football Power Index (FPI) ratings and projections for the 2025 season this week. Just to refresh our memories, the FPI is a predictive rating system that estimates each FBS team’s strength (in points per game relative to the national average) on offense, defense and special teams, making adjustments for starters lost, recruiting talent and other personnel changes. Those numbers are then plugged into the schedule, and everything is simulated 20,000 times to track each team’s odds of winning its conference, making the playoff and advancing through to the national title.
The preseason forecast features plenty of familiar teams at the top, but also plenty of candidates to crash the playoff party.
Let’s begin our tour of the data by looking at the teams most likely to win the 2025 championship.
The top of the list is dominated by SEC teams — 11 of the top 19 hail from the conference, including the two most likely champions in Texas and Georgia (and three of the top four, if you include Alabama).
A year after Ohio State and the Big Ten won the first 12-team playoff title — with only three SEC squads making the field — the FPI model expects a nation-high 4.6 playoff teams to hail from the SEC (nearly twice as many from any other) with a 61% chance that the conference produces the eventual champion.
MORE: Which CFB teams are undervalued, overrated in FPI?
SEC and Big Ten remain on top
If not an SEC team, then the championship will probably go to another familiar power conference program, with a trio of Big Ten teams — Ohio State, Penn State and Oregon — checking in next on the odds list, a year after each went to the CFP quarterfinals (or beyond). A high share of returning production could also have coach Dabo Swinney and Clemson representing the ACC in the playoff again — perhaps making it past the first round this time.
And if we’re looking for somewhat refreshed entries after down seasons, Auburn, Michigan and Oklahoma are all among the 17 most likely champions after each finished outside the top 25 in the FPI last season. All three made major moves in the offseason to spark their surges: Auburn brought in a top-10 transfer class headlined by former Sooners quarterback Jackson Arnold; Michigan brought in a big recruiting class and a few top transfers; and Oklahoma revamped its offensive core, with prized quarterback John Mateer at the helm — plus its returning production otherwise — helping vault the Sooners back into the national picture.
Playoff odds for the Group of 5
The Group of 5 is also an important part of the playoff puzzle, in no small part because of its guaranteed spot in the bracket (reserved for the fifth-highest ranked conference champion). Here are the non-power conference teams with the highest chance to make the playoff in the FPI model.
Even after losing record-setting running back Ashton Jeanty, the Broncos remain the most likely Group of 5 team to make the playoff — though Tulane (despite losing quarterback Darian Mensah and running back Makhi Hughes) and UNLV (coming off an 11-win season, but quarterback Hajj-Malik Williams has moved on) aren’t far behind. With several contenders bunched together and no clear juggernaut, the G5 race for a playoff spot is something to keep a close eye on — including its ripple effects on the rest of the bracket.
Next, let’s look at the projected top units on each side of the ball in 2025, according to the FPI.
If we want another illustration of how dominant the best teams are, the top four projected offensive teams by the FPI — Texas, Georgia, Alabama and Ohio State — are also the top four projected defensive teams, with Alabama and Texas rising 10 spots apiece from 2024 on the offensive side.
That kind of balance on both sides of the ball is what separates this year’s top contenders from the pack, especially in a postseason format that requires versatility over three or four high-stakes playoff games. The rest of the top 20 on both sides also contain some of the biggest offseason movers in those unit rankings — such as Oregon (up 11 spots on defense), Florida (up 27 spots on offense), Clemson (up 14 spots on defense), South Carolina (up 24 spots on offense) and Texas A&M and Auburn (who are up double-digit spots on both sides).
Biggest risers and fallers
Speaking of those offseason changes, let’s look at the programs that have gained (or lost) the most ground overall in the FPI entering 2025.
FAU is projected to improve by at least 25 ranking slots on offense, defense and special teams after adding quite a few transfers — including ex-Western Kentucky quarterback Caden Veltkamp — ahead of coach Zach Kittley’s first season in Boca Raton. Among power-conference teams, Florida State is looking to bounce back from last season’s nightmare with the help of a great offseason in the portal, headlined by the addition of former USC wide receiver Duce Robinson, while ACC rival, Stanford, has the nation’s 13th-highest share of production returning for 2025.
At the other end, Army has lost roughly half of its production from last season’s impressive 12-2 team, including top rusher Kanye Udoh and sack leader Elo Modozie; the FPI predicts regression will hit the Knights hard.
And in terms of power teams that had competitive FPI ratings a year ago, Louisville is projected to drop from No. 12 to 41 after bidding farewell to quarterback Tyler Shough, wide receiver Ja’Corey Brooks, starting offensive tackle Monroe Mills, sack leader Ashton Gillotte and each of its three leading defensive backs in interceptions. Similarly, Colorado sustained heavy offseason losses, and regression might also come for Indiana and Iowa State after a pair of outstanding 11-win seasons.
(Where did the top transfer portal teams land on the most improved list? In addition to FSU and Auburn, Nebraska is up 13 spots to No. 25, Texas Tech rose nine spots to No. 35 and Texas A&M was up seven slots to No. 8. But keep an eye on Ole Miss, which was among the more active portal teams but fell eight spots in the FPI rankings anyway without quarterback Jaxson Dart.)
Best matchups in 2025?
Finally, let’s close by circling the biggest matchups of the 2025 season on our college football calendars. According to the FPI’s projected ratings for both teams, these are the most anticipated games of the season — matchups in which each squad ranks highly, helping to create a high combined matchup quality on ESPN Analytics’ 0-100 scale:
We’ll get one of the best games of the season practically right away, with Week 1 providing Texas-Ohio State — a battle of top-four preseason FPI teams — on Saturday, Aug. 30. That same day, we’ll also get LSU-Clemson, and the next day, we’ll watch Notre Dame travel to Miami to face the Hurricanes in a top-10 FPI matchup.
That sets the tone for a regular season that will feature at least one matchup rated 90 or higher in the FPI matchup quality metric almost every week. But the best week by that metric — with three games rated 90 or higher and five rated 85 or higher — is Week 14, with Ohio State-Michigan, Auburn-Alabama and all of the other usual late-season rivalry games. In addition, three other weeks — Week 5, Week 7 and Week 10 — will carry five games each with a matchup rating of 85 or higher.
That’s a loaded calendar, and it reflects how the meaning of each college football Saturday is changing. Under the old system, one bad week could doom a contender. Now, teams can afford a stumble … but the trade-off is that they also need to prove themselves over more games against top-tier teams.
Regular-season showdowns still matter, too — especially for seeding, byes and home-field advantage. But there’s also more room for redemption, which we saw embodied by both championship game combatant’s last season. And through it all, the FPI gives us a road map to help navigate what’s shaping up to be another wild and transformative season of college football.
MIAMI — Hunter Goodman tripled and doubled and the Colorado Rockies beat the Miami Marlins 3-2 on Wednesday to complete a sweep in their first series win of the season.
Rockies starter Kyle Freeland allowed two unearned runs over 6⅓ innings. Freeland (1-8) scattered four hits and struck out four for his first victory since a 4-1 win against the Milwaukee Brewers on Sept. 8, 2024.
Wins since June 2:
Colorado Rockies – 3
Scottie Scheffler – 0 pic.twitter.com/kb6sV9bI1b— Colorado Rockies (@Rockies) June 4, 2025
Colorado, which began the series with a major-league-worst 9-50 record, won its third straight for the first time this season. It was the Rockies’ first three-game sweep since they beat the San Diego Padres in May 2024.
Jake Bird got the last two outs in the seventh, Victor Vodnik pitched the eighth and Tyler Kinley closed for his second save.
The Rockies struck quickly against Marlins starter Cal Quantrill (3-6) on Goodman’s RBI triple in the first.
Consecutive doubles from Tyler Freeman and Jordan Beck in the fifth made it 2-0.
Goodman hit a leadoff double against reliever Janson Junk in the sixth, advanced on a flyout and scored on Brenton Doyle‘s sacrifice fly.
Goodman finished 7-for-13, with three homers and five RBIs in the series against Miami.
The Marlins, who lost their fourth straight, got on the board on Heriberto Hernandez‘s run-scoring single and an RBI fielder’s choice by Jesus Sanchez in the seventh.
Quantrill allowed two runs and five hits over five innings. The right-hander walked one and struck out two.
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