ACC considering unique solution to travel issues with Stanford, Cal

According to Jon Wilner of Mercury News, the ACC is considering using new 2024 member SMU as a host city in Dallas for Stanford and Cal home games. That means that these schools may have their football games in Dallas.

Additionally, other non-football sports may be able to use this in order to limit the amount of travel for Cal, Stanford, and the rest of the ACC (who are all obviously on the East Coast) student-athletes.

If this ends up happening, this would be amazing for Cal and Stanford student-athletes who would not have to travel to the East Coast in order to play their away games. It would not take away the other main disadvantage of conference realignment which is the fact that family members could more easily travel to their games.

It is still very expensive to travel to Dallas from the West Coast (and from the East Coast, for that matter). To be fair, though, some of the games in the current Pac-12 were a very long drive from each other.

ACC considering moving Stanford, Cal games to Dallas to limit travel

If you are a student at the University of Cal or Stanford who enjoys going to college football games, this news is the absolute worst. Having Stanford or Cal move their home games to Dallas renders students much less likely to be able to attend.

Under the best circumstances, it seems like you will only have one or two home games per season with those coming against Cal/Stanford and SMU.

While more of the fault falls on Pac-12's inner management that led to its essential dissolution, this is an effect of the Big Ten poaching the Pac-12's top schools in USC and UCLA last year. College football, which is famous in many parts of America for its home crowds, will not have true home crowds for Stanford and Cal.

That's, unfortunately, the sad reality that's wrought by conference realignment.