A Senate amendment raising the power conference membership cap to 20 schools could open a door for the University of Miami.

UM, USF and FSU all lobbied for the change, which Florida Sen. Ashley Moody and Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal pushed through as part of the Protect College Sports Act (PCSA). The Senate passed the bill 77-22 on Monday, Sept. 28. The Big Ten currently has 18 members. Two open slots, rather than one, give the Hurricanes more room in the conference they have been linked to in recent reporting by The Miami Hurricane.

Moody said on X the morning after the vote that increasing the cap was important to Florida's universities and that her office got it done. Front Office Sports reported that Moody and Blumenthal successfully pushed the amendment on the Senate floor.

The PCSA is a bipartisan bill that would give the NCAA a limited antitrust exemption, establish a one-time transfer rule with immediate eligibility, codify Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) rights and set an athlete revenue-sharing cap near $49 million. About $5 million of that total would be reserved for non-revenue and Olympic sports. Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Maria Cantwell of Washington introduced the bill in May.

The Senate considered seven amendments before the final vote. One provision carries a direct cost for any school eyeing a conference switch: a three-year waiting period without conference affiliation before joining a new Power 4 league. That cooling-off clause and the rest of the realignment rules would sunset at the end of 2031.

The bill now moves to the House.

The House is scheduled to return Nov. 9, after the midterm elections on Nov. 3. If the bill is not passed and signed before the new Congress is sworn in Jan. 3, 2027, the full legislative process would have to restart. No college sports bill had previously reached the floor of either chamber, despite more than 40 reform proposals over the past six years.

"From the beginning, our objective was not to squeak by with 60 or 61 votes but to have a big bipartisan vote … President Trump is eager to sign this legislation," Cruz told reporters Monday night, as first reported by ESPN.

No public statement from UM's administration or athletic department on the amendment or Big Ten interest has surfaced. The House's lame-duck session between Nov. 9 and Jan. 3 is the next window to watch.