Analysis: ACC's words not nearly as strong as one deed

• ACC officials big on talk, but conference remains susceptible to cherry-picking from Big Ten.
• Reaching a "grant of rights" with schools would help ACC land on solid ground.
• Expansion by Big Ten, SEC and Big 12 could leave ACC as shell of its former self.

All the names were there, and all the prefixes too: 12 Drs., two Frs., and one Mr., just so we're clear on the level of seriousness the presidents of the Atlantic Coast Conference wanted to project Thursday. Somehow, those titles are supposed to add weight to a statement built around words like "commitment" and "united" and calling speculation that they're all looking for the exit ramp "totally false."

But this being college sports, where nobody really trusts anybody anymore and conferences like the ACC are bound together by little more than pinky swears and billable hours, it no longer matters whether the rumors are real, imagined or somewhere in between.

Each time the ACC puts out a trite statement with nothing to turn those empty promises into unbreakable bonds, it becomes more and more obvious: The future of the conference is at the mercy of Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany and the SEC's Mike Slive. And until the ACC's schools agree to a so-called "grant of rights" like the once-shaky Big 12 did last year, those solidarity statements aren't worth the Internet bandwith it took to Tweet them.

A grant of rights, in case you haven't been following the realignment carousel for the past 2 ½ years, is powerful because it requires schools to sign their media rights to the conference for the length of the contract. In other words, if Oklahoma wanted to leave the Big 12, for instance, it couldn't bring its television rights with it to another league. In the case of the Big 12, that's about $200 million.

And that matters. That binds. That can be taken seriously.

The ACC's statement Thursday can't.

No disrespect to the fine people who work at the ACC, including commissioner John Swofford, and the well-meaning presidents who are, at this very moment, surely as "committed" as they claim.

But if the ACC could get all 14 schools to sign off on a grant of rights, it would have one. It can't, so it doesn't. And in a world where Delany can sneak into Swofford's territory in proverbial middle of the night and pluck Maryland out of the ACC like an appetizer, he can do it again. Go ahead, just ask him.

"I would describe our position as being inactive, but alert," Delany said Thursday during a panel session at the IMG Intercollegiate Athletics Forum in New York.

Alert to what? That's a little hard to figure, since Delany's conference is the only one doing the alerting these days.

Nobody wants more realignment, and if you drill down into the soul of conference commissioners and athletic directors, few of them think 16-team conferences are worth the trouble. But the conditions that spurred Delany to add Maryland and Rutgers are the same ones that would theoretically inspire him to make a run at, say, a Georgia Tech and Virginia.

And if the Big Ten makes a move, the SEC and Big 12 probably will, too. Play out that scenario to its logical conclusion, and it's pretty easy for that new 14-team ACC to be a six-team ACC that will essentially be the same group of teams currently in the Big East.

That's why, with all the power brokers in New York this week, putting out that statement seemed reactionary and a bit desperate.

The reality for most of the schools in the ACC is that the league, as it's currently configured, is the best possible place for their sports. But if there were absolute, 100 percent commitment across the conference, the grant of rights would already be signed and the likes of Georgia Tech and Virginia wouldn't need their presidents to spend time squashing rumors.

As it is, putting out a statement does little more than fan the flames.

"We, the undersigned presidents of the Atlantic Coast Conference, wish to express our commitment to preserve and protect the future of our outstanding league. We want to be clear that the speculation about ACC schools in negotiations or considering alternatives to the ACC are totally false. The presidents of the ACC are united in our commitment to a strong and enduring conference. The ACC has long been a leader in intercollegiate athletics, both academically and athletically, and the constitution of our existing and future member schools will maintain the ACC's position as one of the nation's premier conferences."

Fr. William Leahy, Boston College
Mr. James Barker, Clemson University
Dr. Richard Brodhead, Duke University
Dr. Eric Barron, Florida State University
Dr. G.P. "Bud" Peterson, Georgia Institute of Technology
Dr. James Ramsey, University of Louisville
Dr. Donna Shalala, University of Miami
Dr. Holden Thorp, University of North Carolina
Dr. Randy Woodson, North Carolina State University
Fr. John Jenkins, University of Notre Dame
Dr. Mark Nordenberg, University of Pittsburgh
Dr. Nancy Cantor, Syracuse University
Dr. Teresa Sullivan, University of Virginia
Dr. Charles Steger, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University
Dr. Nathan Hatch, Wake Forest University