The concern and frustration is 100 percent understandable.

If you're a fan of Florida State football, you don't like anything about this week's news that Oklahoma and Texas are looking to jump from the Big 12 to the SEC.

The revenue gap between the Southeastern Conference and the Atlantic Coast Conference was already troubling. The idea of "It just means more" poaching two more national brands -- with huge fan bases and decades of prestige -- leaves Seminole faithful feeling somewhere between nauseous and disgusted.

I'm not here to tell you those worries are unfounded.

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FSU was already in a difficult spot financially before the pandemic. It will be hard enough to climb out of that hole under normal circumstances. If the ACC falls even further behind the SEC -- both tangibly in terms of the product on the field and intangibly in terms of respect and status -- well, that ain't good. Especially when your arch rival is in the conference that appears to be lapping yours.

But I also am not here to tell you all hope is lost. Because I don't think it is.

As I've digested this week's news and communicated with contacts in the college athletics industry, I've settled on a few things FSU fans might want to remember in the coming days and weeks.

They certainly won't ease all of your concerns, but I do believe they're worth keeping in mind.

No. 1 -- This is not John Swofford's ACC

While I respected what Swofford accomplished in certain areas and will give him credit for pulling a few rabbits out of his hat as ACC Commissioner, there's no denying the conference got left in the dust during the final decade of his tenure.

I won't suggest he shoulders all of the blame for the ACC's woes. Part of the problem is the conference's makeup. All you need to do is look at the enrollment sizes and alumni bases of the schools in the ACC and compare them to those of the SEC and Big Ten, and you'll understand why those leagues are much more valuable to television partners.

At the same time, he clearly erred by not pushing a football-first agenda on the conference once it became obvious that sport would become the cash cow for college athletics. And letting the other conferences get such a huge head start with their television networks only compounded the problem.

Those are just two of the reasons many administrators and coaches in the ACC rejoiced when Swofford announces his retirement and the conference presidents went out and landed former Northwestern athletics director Jim Phillips as his replacement.

According to every single person I have spoken with over the last six months -- that includes the higher-ups at FSU and elsewhere in the industry -- Phillips was the best hire the ACC could have made. He is extremely bright, experienced and connected. And he might be uniquely suited to help usher the conference through these challenging times.