The ACC salvaging relationship with FSU and Clemson the stuff of fantasy

It's just a fantasy -- it's not the real thing. Those are the opening lines of track No. 2 of Billy Joel's "Glass Houses" album. They're also the best way to describe the ACC's chances of making things right with FSU and Clemson and saving itself as a conference despite the legal battles it's waging with the Noles and Tigers according to The News & Observer's Andrew Carter.

"A tiny, fraction of a chance that the ACC could salvage its relationship with Florida State," Carter prefaced before saying, "If it could, then it could certainly do the same with Clemson. And if that happened, the league’s existential crisis, born out of a financial gap that continues to expand, could be mitigated.

"Indeed, it sounds like the stuff of fantasy. The most likely scenario is also the most damaging to the conference: that the lawsuits work their way through the courts; that eventually FSU and Clemson find the way out they’ve been looking for; that perhaps some other schools — maybe North Carolina or Miami or Virginia — eventually walk through the exit, too."

UNC and UVA likely to follow FSU and Clemson with lawsuits to crush the ACC

There's talk of peace now as ACC commissioner Jim Phillips answers reporters' questions in Amelia Island, Florida, but when the time is right, there will be even more efforts to bring the conference down from key members of the conference.

UNC and UVA are expected to join the legal fray at some point, and once two more states' flagship public universities pile it on, it'll be nearly impossible for the conference to recover from a narrative perspective.

The ACC is dying, and while the commissioner sounded somewhat convincing talking about it surviving, reality isn't going to go for Phillips' words.

There will be a Power 3 before long.