Charlotte's Bank of America Stadium signs 6-year extension to host ACC title game thru 2019 sources told @ESPN— Brett McMurphy (@McMurphyESPN) February 24, 2014
How does this affect the possibility of a different divisional format / championship game participant criteria that the league is supposedly mulling over? I guess Swofford isn't entertaining the idea of the team with the best record hosting the championship game for the foreseeable future.
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this is very good news. i think CLT has done a great job.
as far as divisions, who knows. If the NCAA drops all of its conference championship game bylaws and opens it up to the conferences, i could see the ACC doing anything from no change to a 4x4 with semi-finals to everything else in between.
maybe even 3 divisions of 5 teams each to get ND in the mix without expanding or forcing ND to 8 or 9 games. maybe ND goes to 6 games (4 division games and 1 game from each other division) and give up their separate Orange Bowl agreement as part of this agreement in order to get involved in the ACCCG race.
ACC North: BC, 'Cuse, Pitt, ND, Miami
ACC South: FSU, GT, Clemson, NCSU, Wake
ACC Central: uva, VT, UNC, Dook, L'ville
ACC will go to 9 games since ND games will now count as conference games. Top 2 division champs play in Charlotte based on:
Division winner is team with highest ACC win % (6-0 ND beats out 8-1 Miami for instance, but 8-1 Miami would beat out 5-1 ND, even if ND beat Miami). head to head would be a tie breaker for divisions with 2+ teams with identical win%.
then, picking 2 of the 3 division winners to go to CLT:
1. head to head results between the 3 (2 with best record against each other go, 6-0 ND again makes the curt here)
2. Total ACC W's (not Win %...this takes away ND's advantage of only playing 6 games if it gets this far)
3. Overall record
4. Coach's Poll Ranking after final week of regular season
Protected non-division games:
FSU-Miami
UNC-NCSU
Dook-Wake
those 6 teams will have 4/9 remaining non-division teams rotating through their schedule (up to 6 years to play everyone but ND home and home)
ND will have 2/10 non division teams rotating through schedule (10 years to play everyone home and home)
remaining 8 teams will play 5/10 non-division teams on a rotating basis. it will take longer than 4 years to play everyone home and home because of the other scheduling oddities, but i think they could get through everyone in 6 years or less (other than ND).
In any 5 year period, every school should have played every other school at least once, most home and home.
Crazy, sure, but maybe just crazy enough to work...
Until ND becomes a full member, there is no way they get access to the conference championship game. Their agreement is for a functional scheduling alignment to make their schedule faster and easier to develop and set moving forward. They've got a sweet deal in the ACC bowl pecking order. They will just continue to eat 1 of most teams 3 OOC games any given year which really isn't so bad given the exposure you get from playing ND.
I think you've got some good ideas, but you've got to cut ND out of the equation and you can't have a team be able to make it to the title game without playing the same volume of conference games as everyone else. Just not how any sports league schedules and rules, that'd be such an enormous advantage to them every year you can't allow it.
It'd basically be bringing the BCS back.
I think that's a smart move by the ACC. Charlotte was a way way better host city than Jacksonville or Tampa. Having been to 2 of the 3 sites I was more than happy to return to Charlotte for 3 years in a row (would have been 4 this past year if I hadn't moved away from the east coast). It's a fun town, with enough going on close to the stadium to have a fun weekend while you're there for the game. Flights are reasonable, as are hotels. I guess the only negative for them is that tickets have always been easy to come by outside of the 2010 Title Game; which was a great time for us Hokie fans.
I don't think given it's success there they would have been inclined to go to the PAC12 model of hosting the conference Championship game. They should still adjust the divisions and move to a 9 game schedule though.
OR, maybe we eliminate divisions altogether, ND agrees to play 7 ACC games (4 year rotation to play everyone home and home), everyone else agrees to 9, 2 ACCCG participants are the top 2 winning % teams with tie breakers as follows:
1. head to head results
2. Total ACC W's (not Win %...this takes away ND's advantage of only playing 7 games if it gets this far)
3. Overall record
4. Coach's Poll Ranking after final week of regular season
I'm gonna buy a condo in "uptown" Charlotte...cause we're going to be living there for the next 6 years!!!!!