CLEMSON — It appears everyone outside of the Big Ten and SEC have had enough.

The ACC, Big 12 and all the other FBS schools are tired of being bullied by what the national media has nicknamed the “Power 2.”

It appears Congress has as well.

If you are not sure what I am talking about, the U.S. Senate’s Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation passed the Protect College Sports Act (PCSA) with a 19-9 vote last week. And through the Big Ten and SEC strongly opposed the bill, it now has a chance of going to the Senate Floor for a full vote.

Why are the Power 2 so against the PCSA, which is a bipartisan bill introduced by Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Committee Chairman Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas)?

Simply put, they lose their power, power they took from everyone else when the SEC invited Texas and Oklahoma to join the league in 2021 and a year later when the Big Ten went to Los Angeles and stole USC and UCLA from the Pac-12. They later took Oregon and Washington, too.

The two leagues used these power moves to force the rest of the FBS, including the ACC and Big 12, into giving them voting power of the College Football Playoff. They used leverage to force such moves.

What leverage?

They threatened to breakaway and form their own Super League if no one complied. They used this same strongarm tactic to get the men’s basketball tournament to expand to 72 teams.

The greed of these two conferences, and the ACC and Big 12 can take some blame here too, is what led to all the issues that have slowly drained the fun out of college athletics – NIL, transfer portal and revenue share.

With FBS football players and major Division I men’s basketball players demanding high salaries and threatening to leave with no repercussions, Congress has stepped in to clean up the mess.

“A lot of people in Washington—my Washington—and around the country think that bipartisanship is dead,” said Sen. Cantwell in a press release. “But on behalf of 500,000 athletes who are seeing their future opportunities dimmed, we decided to work together to try to address this problem. This bill stands tall on behalf of athletes. This is landmark in the protections that it gives student athletes.”

The irony in all of this is that the SEC and Big Ten have led the charge in Congress stepping in and trying to set Federal guidelines to save college athletics. Now that they have it, the Power 2 are pushing back because the PCSA is out to save college sports, not the Big Ten and SEC.

The bill will take away their right to expand their conferences, thus taking away their power to leave and form a Super Conference. The ACC and Big 12 fall in line with this, as well. Expansion will be done.

However, the Power 2 say the bill is weak and has loopholes. They are concerned that a possible third-party could take schools away to form a Super League of its own. But mainly, the two do not like that the bill requires a pool of media rights, which subsequently will even the playing field.

That part of the bill smacks the Power 2 right in face and takes away all of their power.

It’s interesting to see what happens next.

The Big Ten and SEC could pull away before the bill passes through the Senate and House to form their own league. However, if they do, there could be all kinds of ant-trust lawsuits to follow, which could ultimately kill college athletics as we know it, which is what the PCSA is all about.

Let’s just hope the Power 2 can put their petty differences aside and do what is right for college athletics.