"All three schools are outstanding" - Florida State AD praises incoming Pac-12 member schools and SMU after a long wait for an ACC membership

The ACC became the final Power Five conference to be affected by conference realignment. On Friday, conference officials approved the California Bears, Stanford Cardinal and SMU Mustangs to join the Atlantic Coast Conference ahead of the 2024 season, expanding to 18 teams.

Florida State Seminoles athletic director Michael Alford praised the incoming programs, stating:

"All three schools are outstanding academic and athletic institutions, and our vote against expansion does not reflect on their quality. We look forward to earning new revenue through the ACC’s success incentives initiative, based on our continued excellence. We’re grateful to the league for continuing to listen to our concerns." [h/t NBC Bay Area]

Despite the praise, the Seminoles were one of three programs, along with the Clemson Tigers and North Carolina Tar Heels, that voted against conference expansion and could be looking to leave the ACC.

The three schools were among a group that previously looked to break the conference's grant of rights agreement, according to Brett McMurphy of The Action Network.

McMurphy called the ACC schools ''The Magnificent 7" and wrote on X (formerly Twitter) that Clemson, FSU, Miami, UNC, NC State, Virginia and Virginia Tech have reportedly had legal discussions to find a way out of the ACC-ESPN deal, which runs through 2036.

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Paul Finebaum claims ACC is "heading towards the iceberg"

The ACC appears in a position to have 18 member programs in 2024 following the addition of the California Bears, Stanford Cardinal and SMU Mustangs. College football insider Paul Finebaum claimed that the expansion could wind up being the downfall of the conference during a recent appearance on "The Matt Barrie Show," stating:

"There is such a fissure right now in the ACC. ... I just want to congratulate the ACC for essentially voting out Clemson, North Carolina and Florida State because after what happened Friday with the admission of SMU, Cal and Stanford, they have essentially given those three a ticket out."

Finebaum continued by claiming that the league is headed toward an iceberg:

"That league, which was already teetering towards irrelevancy, has just taken on three schools that devalue an already discounted product even more, and that league is just heading towards the iceberg."

Check out Paul Finebaum's comments on the Atlantic Coast Conference below (starting at the 21:50 mark):

While the Clemson Tigers, Florida State Seminoles and North Carolina Tar Heels have been looking to leave the conference, doing so will not be as easy as it has been for Pac-12 schools. The ACC has a media rights deal that runs through 2036, and it could cost the schools plenty of money to break the agreement.