ACC commissioner Jim Phillips wants to be able to lay claim to the excitement the ACC is providing in Week 0 in Ireland with Georgia Tech battling FSU, the latter of which has launched a legal battle with the conference. Phillips offered an olive branch to Florida State and Clemson ahead of the 2024 season’s August 24 kickoff.
“Listen, it’s disappointing we’re in this place,” Phillips said on August 20 (h/t On3). “It’s a harmful, kind of, situation. But we’re going to do just that. We’re going to fight. And that’s the way it should be. When you sign an agreement twice — willingly sign — and that you are part of a group that comes together and decides this is what you want to do for the next 20 years, you should be held accountable for that. That being said, we will compartmentalize that piece of it and we will go into the football season.
“And that’s what I’m really looking forward to, is some of the legal conversations and some of the dynamics around these cases has taken away from the ACC, taken away the incredible success that our student-athletes are having in the sport of football and across all 28 of our sports. With the kickoff this weekend, we can maybe put the legal side — legal issues to the side and we can focus on what young men and women are doing on the competitive playing field with our fall sports.”…