Condoleezza Rice and former president George W. Bush were used as representatives of Stanford and SMU, respectively, to get a push to join the ACC, according to Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports.

In an effort to stay relevant in the constantly changing landscape of college football and its conference, Stanford and SMU tried to use their most powerful representatives to convince the ACC that the schools are academically, financially and athletically stable enough to be a part of the ACC.

Rice is an alumnus of Stanford and would eventually become Secretary of State and later served on the College Football Playoff Selection Committee for three seasons. Bush’s wife, Laura, is an alumnus of SMU.

The decision to add Stanford and SMU to the ACC is still in limbo as Stanford remains in a damaged PAC-12 of four teams. SMU currently remains in the AAC.

The addition of Stanford and SMU would bring the total of teams in the ACC to 16.