Luke DeCock: The real purpose of an ACC-Big Ten-Pac-12 alliance is lost amid a lack of details

RALEIGH, N.C. — The first day of the new world of college athletics started with a 47-minute press conference that could have been an email.

The official unveiling of the new alliance between the ACC, Big Ten and Pac-12 was light on details, short on substance and long on statements that run a strong risk of coming back to haunt the three commissioners.

There’s real significance to what’s happening here, but it got lost in the jargon and constant parrying of obvious questions about the lack of any agreement in writing.

“We have trust,” the ACC’s Jim Phillips said at one point. “We’ve looked each other in the eye.”

Good luck with that.

Yes, relying on handshakes and trust in college athletics is a recipe for long-term success. Just ask the 11 of these 41 schools that were in other conferences 20 years ago. (Maryland only counts once.)

At the least, the three commissioners should have signed the press release and called it a “memorandum of understanding,” although even that was less of a blueprint and more of a free-form jazz odyssey.

“If there’s any lack of specificity in the press release, it’s because we wanted to be able to deliver 100 percent of what we promised,” Pac-12 commissioner George Kilavkoff said.

Also, the dog ate his homework.

The thing is, the gaseous cloud of fluff and naivete obscured the real purpose and real meaning of Tuesday’s “agreement among three gentlemen.”

The mere fact that three commissioners of conferences that have long considered themselves to be competition for the same pot of television dollars were aligning themselves as equals instead of rivals was earth-shaking, even if there weren’t any firm conclusions to be drawn from it.

Sometimes, a statement of intent is as effective as actual action.

So the fact that existing football contracts mean it will be years if not decades before any of this comes to light in that sport is almost beyond the point. This is one of those rare moments where saying it does make it so.

As for the lack of a binding agreement in an industry where an unstabbed back never stays that way for long, there is a strong adhesive holding these three conferences together, and it was only mentioned a handful of times.

It’s these guys against the SEC, simple as that.

(And Bob Bowlsby and the Big 12 can fend for themselves. “I’m sure Bob will figure things out and do what’s right for the Big 12,” Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren said, presumably getting the day’s biggest Zoom-muted laugh.)

All the “student-athlete” and “amateur model” happy talk merely papered over the real motivation that brought these three conferences together. The only buzzword that really mattered was “stability.” This isn’t an alliance as much as it’s an opposition party.

Despite protestations to the contrary, this is clearly a reaction to the SEC adding Oklahoma and Texas from the Big 12. It is clearly a reaction to the SEC (and Notre Dame) trying to rush through a 12-team expansion of the College Football Playoff.

Obviously, these commissioners can’t come out and say that, but instead of getting caught up in a bunch of useless rhetoric about the changing landscape of college sports and — best-case scenario — putting themselves in a position to underpromise and overdeliver, they should have spent more time talking about how this is a chance to present a united front in an industry where every conference (every school, even) is, inevitably, out for itself.

Any fool can figure out who that front would be united against.

That’s the point. That’s the message that got lost. As an “alliance,” so far this is all fragrance and no substance. As a political party, it’s a coalition of groups facing the same threat, pursuing common interests, rising up against a dominant power.

You don’t need a contract when you have the SEC looming over you.