Well, the college football world appears to be back at it, and fans couldn’t help but react in the best way they know: jokes.
Florida State called an emergency board of trustees meeting on Friday morning reportedly to discuss possible steps toward exiting the ACC, which would include challenging the conference’s grant of rights. The grant of rights, as The Athletic noted, is a “legally binding document that controls the publicity rights of a conference’s member schools and extends throughout the length of the ACC’s media rights deal with ESPN, which runs through 2036.”
After so much conference realignment news recently with teams all over the country swapping conferences, it seems we’re back at it again. And it’s not a huge surprise, especially after Florida State was left out of the four-team College Football Playoff, despite being an undefeated Power Five champion.
As ESPN reported, should Florida State opt to challenge the conference’s grant of rights, an ACC departure would be far from instantaneous and likely would involve significant legal battles.
But should that happen, where would Florida State go? Do other conferences want another member? Would a conference accepting another member come with modified revenue sharing? Would it just end up as an independent? How would it impact sports beyond football? Maybe the emergency board of trustees meeting was just a chance for people to vent and be angry?
There are a lot of questions, and many won’t be answered for a while. So college football fans reacted to the Florida State news Friday with lots of jokes:
Florida State is having its midlife crisis. Don't mind the yellow Corvette parked in front of the house. https://t.co/NcGLtyf9h1
— Adam Kramer (@KegsnEggs) December 21, 2023
I’ll summarize it “we want to leave, no other conference has extended us an invitation and leaving the ACc would cost us far more than we want to pay so let’s eat bagels and have some donuts and coffee and make it seem like we are accomplishing something ….” https://t.co/1wXGqLmj0f pic.twitter.com/xftNALe8oE
— Paul Zeise (@PaulZeise) December 21, 2023
FSU to Cal on the way out:
pic.twitter.com/K7zolrYMeV https://t.co/nMlmE2vQzU
— Andrew Hammond (@ahammALDC) December 21, 2023
FSU is hellbent on paying the rest of the ACC a ton of money to go finish fourth in the B1G, if they’re lucky. https://t.co/ygmDTwkrzt
— James Curle (@JamesCurle) December 21, 2023
never doubt motivated rich people https://t.co/LJrd3lGEcu
— Mike Golic Jr (@mikegolicjr) December 21, 2023
FSU begging to get into a real power conference like big brother UCF https://t.co/BWv3C6nDJo
— jeremy chandler taché (@jeremytache) December 21, 2023
FSU in FSU in
the ACC the SEC https://t.co/lmfOgoyw03 pic.twitter.com/JcCkm2x96F— Ben Stevens (@BenScottStevens) December 21, 2023
Florida State remains the Veruca Salt of college athletics https://t.co/GL8BMrNzXp pic.twitter.com/zilLIkSnVt
— William Qualkinbush (@QualkTalk) December 21, 2023
Cal, Stanford and SMU… https://t.co/HZh4EFq054 pic.twitter.com/aT0Nsybkvp
— Zach Heilprin (@ZachHeilprin) December 21, 2023
Florida State is still having tantrums? https://t.co/CNLhzP1xKL pic.twitter.com/aLyTwRmg3z
— Claudia (@TexasEx10) December 21, 2023
fsu in the big 12 please imagine it lmaooo https://t.co/ByIHsqcX8J
— mike taddow (@MikeTaddow) December 21, 2023
fsu out here having more money than sense again https://t.co/NOh9XGsI5C
— merrily pitt girl ☃️🎄☃️ (@the_opg_) December 21, 2023
