Miami president says ACC is in college football's 'second tier,' discusses moving to SEC, Big Ten

Miami president Joe Echevarria says his school is a ‘proud member of the ACC’ but is open to conference realignment talks

Miami president Joe Echevarria says his school is a As the Protect College Sports Act awaits its fate in the House of Representatives, the top programs in the ACC are fighting for changes that would stop another round of conference expansion and make it harder for member teams to leave for the Big Ten or the SEC. Among the schools leading the charge to change the expansion cap provision in the bill is the University of Miami, where president Joe Echevarria doesn't mince words about the Hurricanes' desire to be part of college football's elite. Echevarria discussed the Hurricanes' future plans in an extremely candid interview with Yahoo Sports. He explained that their desire to join the SEC or Big Ten has nothing to do with displeasure with the ACC, but rather the realities of the current college football landscape — bluntly saying "we sit in the second tier." "You cannot lock us into a conference," Echevarria says.

"The fact is that we won about every game you could win last year and maxed out in revenue in our current [ACC] sharing model. And we made the same amount of money as other institutions [in the Big Ten and SEC] whose football programs operate at different levels of investment and performance." The financial reality of modern college football is that