The ACC could be looking to expand into Texas, with the Dallas Morning News reporting this week that the conference has had conversations with officials at Southern Methodist University to gauge mutual interest between the two.
At first glance, just from name recognition, it would seem an odd marriage, but upon further examination, it could be a great fit for the ACC.
The obvious: bringing SMU into the conference would give the ACC a football in the Dallas/Fort Worth TV market, the fifth-biggest in the nation, according to Nielsen, with 2.96 million TV households.
The ACC already has footholds in Chicago (#3, 3.47 million households) through Notre Dame, Atlanta (#7, 2.65 million) through Georgia Tech, and Boston (#10, 2.49 million), through Boston College.
Four top 10 TV markets would tie the four that the Big Ten will have a presence in when USC and UCLA bring the Los Angeles TV market (#2, 5.74 million) into that conference’s geographic footprint.
The Big Ten’s four should come with an asterisk, because one of the four is New York (#1, 7.45 million), via … Rutgers.
There’s also an asterisk for the ACC with Notre Dame, which isn’t a football member, but does play five football games each fall against ACC opponents, and is of course a member of the conference in its other varsity sports.
Next, to academic fit: SMU is very much an academic fit with the ACC. SMU is 68th in the most recent U.S. News and World Report ranking of national universities.
Fourteen of the 15 current members rank in the top 80, with Louisville the outlier, at 187.
Finally, to athletics fit: SMU, currently a member of the AAC, fields 16 varsity sports, and the best information I can find on its athletics department outlays puts its annual revenues in the $70 million range, which would be very much on the low end in the ACC.
That said, an infusion of cash from membership in a Power 5 conference would allows the school to spend more and potentially expand its varsity offerings.
The SMU football team has been on a roll of late, going 25-10 record over the past three seasons under Sonny Dykes, who left for TCU in the offseason, and was replaced by former offensive coordinator Rhett Lashlee.
The men’s basketball program finished 2021-2022 with a 24-9 mark, and a second-round NIT defeat to Washington State.
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Chris Graham
