This information is via Dinich: http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/10273908/acc-commissioner.... All the relevant information is below.
ACC commissioner John Swofford said Friday he is in favor of conferences having "the autonomy" to determine how teams qualify for their league championship games, and should the NCAA decide this spring to lighten its restrictions, the ACC would consider a different format.
Under the current structure, the NCAA requires that each conference have an equal number of teams in each division, and every team must play each opponent in its own division. Swofford said the NCAA is likely to re-evaluate those rules this spring.
"A piece of legislation may affect what we ultimately do," Swofford said. "... If some of those requirements were removed, we may schedule a little differently during the regular season than we do now, but that's to be determined."
If the NCAA lifted its title-game requirements, Swofford said the ACC would consider having the top two teams in the league play for the ACC championship, in addition to maintaining divisions, but not requiring teams to play every opponent in their division.
"If those requirements were lifted, it gives you much more flexibility in how you schedule," Swofford said. "I'm a proponent of the conferences having the autonomy to determine how they do those things."
According to Swofford, these changes wouldn't happen until after the 2014 season.
Are you for or against the top two teams in the league playing for the championship each season? (Last season that would've been a Clemson-FSU rematch.) What about the possibility of not playing each team in the division over the course of the season?
Comments
I'm not that big of a fan of the top two teams playing even if they're in the same division. That is unless you did away with divisions. It would actually make the schedules better, we wouldn't play FSU once every decade and we can still keep 4 OOC games.
Not a fan of the commissioner picking the top 2 teams even though that would have benefited us in two games. We would have played Wake twice instead of GT in the 2006 ACC CG and I think we would have played somebody else different than FSU in the inaugural ACC CG.
I think the divisional alignment of the schedule and having the divisional winners play each other is the most evenly balanced way to the championship game. How would the ACC determine the two best? Conference Schedule, Total Schedule? College Football Playoff ranking? There are so many variables to that (See the BCS) that its nearly impossible to compare apples to apples.
If the ACC gets to start moving schedules around, would that mean we would have years where we didn't play LOLUVA? Seems like a real possibility if they made these changes.
I'd have to see the final plan. But as a VT fan, this could decrease our chances of reaching the game rather than increase it; so I'd say I'm against it. Since teams won't have the same conference opponents, it will be interesting to see how ties are broken. I think since Miami hasn't panned out like the ACC had dreamed (FSU-Miami title games in Florida anyone??) and that the last 3 coastal title appearances have been made by VT, GT, Duke; I can see them making changes.
The ACC wants two top 15 or top 10 teams: like this year would have been FSU-Clemson. I don't think the ACC wants FSU-GT or FSU-Duke when neither is in the top 15 or higher. The easiest way to eliminate that is to cut the division ties and crowbar another team in.
One thing I found interesting in all of that is the fact that he's saying they would keep the divisions but not make it mandatory to play everyone in your division. If that's the case, what's the point of playing in divisions? Someone mentioned this before, but I think that the two top teams should only play under a set condition. It was mentioned on another board that if there is a team in the league that has a record that is 2 games or more better than the divisional champion, then they should play in the ACCCG. For example, if the Atlantic division has a team at 8-0 or even 7-1 in conference and then the second place team in the Atlantic is also 7-1, if the Coastal Division winner is 5-3 or worse, the 2nd place Atlantic team would play for the conference title. If the Coastal team is 6-2, they go. It needs to be an exception, not a "top two teams play regardless" rule.
Well, the next thing will be a conference playoff....
I am against this. Invites too much subjectivity. The idea of divisions is that they break down the conference teams into an even spectrum of difficulty for every team. Obviously that's not always the case because like Clemson and FSU this year they were the best team. However, the fact that FSU beat them in the regular season should mean that they don't need to face them again. Only time that would happen is when you play the same team from the other division both times. I am in favor of ditching the cross division rivals though.
Here, here on ditching cross division rivals. If there are teams that absolutely must play each other every year, stick them in the same division (VT-UVA?)
I agree, but that means FSU/Miami don't play every year (I don't care, but ACC will). I would however care if we did not play Miami every year. IMO that's our premier rivalry game.
"The idea of divisions is that they break down the conference teams into an even spectrum of difficulty for every team"
In theory, yes, but then you throw in cross divisional games and you abandon that entirely. What about a year where we play BC and Wake and Miami plays FSU and clemson? Even if Miami goes undefeated in our division (God forbid), if they lose to both clemson and FSU, we could make it to the championship game just by virtue of playing the scrubs of the atlantic division.
So if we're going to be completely fair, each team should only play the other 6 schools in the division to determine who earns the right to face an atlantic division team in the championship. No one will ever go for this (nor should they), but we should toss out the argument that anything short of that is a fair set up. Actually, you could keep playing atlantic teams, but then when it comes to figuring out the division champion, you only consider those wins/losses in the case of a tiebreaker and then only after head to head.
I'm in favor of anything that helps the Hokies, and I strongly oppose all changes that hurt them.
I think my biggest issue with the way the B1G operated for years with the 11 teams was the fact that a team could go undefeated and still miss out on a conference title, a situation that I know happened at least once. The only way I would support this would be to create the schedule such that it is impossible for 3 teams to end up undefeated, which would essentially require a similar "divisional" schedule similar to the current format, but without calling them divisions and just having it rotate.
I suppose what you'd do is take teams and separate them into 7 distinct rivalry pairs, set them in opposite "divisions" (for scheduling purposes), and then each year swap a few rivalries in such a way as to balance the schedule so you play all non-rivals an equal number of times over an X-year period.
I came up with a similar system for once we move to 16 teams with rivalry "pods" instead of pairs, but felt it was unfeasible because of the fact that the "divisions" change every year. However, if you did away with the divisions and just have the two teams with the best records play for the championship, it doesn't matter who is in what division because divisions only matter for scheduling, so the average fan doesn't get confused that Virginia Tech was in the Coastal division last year and is in the Atlantic division this year. I posted this on the site a while back. If anyone is actually interested in seeing the nuts and bolts, I'll try to find the link.
The rule should be that if UVa wins the Coastal, The next best team goes to the ACCCG because nobody should have to watch UVa play another game. Eleven is already too much.
This strikes me as a knee-jerk reaction to having Duke play in the ACCCG....Somebody can't cope with that idea, apparently.
I more or less see it as a knee jerk reaction to only playing the team in the other division once every 8(?) years. There was a lot of vocal outrage to that happening. From what I gleamed it seems he's more in favor of divisions, but not having to play every team in the division each year you can do more cross divisional stuff.
Getting rid of the "6 team divisions" wordage is very important to the future of these large conferences. For a 16 team conference that plays nine conference games, four 4-Team, divisions makes more sense than two 8-team divisions.
Or what if we could keep the 16 teams as one conference, come up with some sort of computer generated ranking system based on a variety of factors - some of which we will never understand - and take the top two teams and put them in the conference championship game....
Because the BCS is dead!
Ugh, I couldn't be more oppossed to this. Sorry Clemson, you had your shot at FSU - time for Duke to get a turn. I hate the idea that a team could get left out of the championship just so a higher-ranked team (that already had a shot at the champion, generally) gets another go. I feel like this will eventually lead to an LSU-Bama rematch type scenario.
Eliminating the importance of divisions is idiotic. The simplest solution (and the best, IMHO) is just to kill the permanent crossover opponent. Play every team in your division, plus two from the other division on a rotating basis. That way, in 4 years of playing time, a player gets to face every ACC team at least once. The likelihood of rematches is also small under that scenario. This year is just a microcosm of what would happen, but overall I think intra-division rematches are awful. What if Clemson had pulled off the win in the ACCCG over FSU? Are they really better than FSU, or did they just happen to win the "right" time around?
Unless they realigned, that would blow up the annual FSU-Miami matchup. And you know the ACC covets that money.
I should also mention I'm not opposed to realigning the divisions, i.e. more North/South oriented. The ACC could put Miami and FSU in the same division and solve that one. Realignment would probably require minimum effort, really, and there are a number of ways it could be done. To me, though, you need a championship game between two division champions. I think the coaches and ADs would be behind keeping the importance of divisions, otherwise they lose the "Division Champion" title that they get even if they lose the ACCCG. If we have Clemson and FSU again, we only get one division champion and one conference champion, and maybe they aren't even the same team!
I think the divisions could be realigned, but we can't go with a strict North/South approach. If we did that, the North would be Boston College, Syracuse, Pitt, VT, UVA, Louisville, and one NC school.
Basically, the North would be the old Big East, and everyone would be mad.
You could always put Miami in the north. Worked for the Senior Bowl.
just be glad we don't have stupid division names like "leaders" and "legends"
yuck!!
neither does the B1G anymore...
I did not know that! I guess I'm not the only person who thought they were bad names then..
yeah, the ACC is the only league with obscure division names based on nothing...
Pac12: North/South
B1G: East/West
SEC: East/West (though people may give them grief over Mizzou in the East)
ACC: Atlantic/Coastal
If you asked joe schmoe off the street to guess the members of all 8 divisions providing him nothing but the conference membership, he would probably get 90% of them right in the other 3 leagues...ACC would be a train wreck.
Because that game has been quite the cashcow for the conference... Miami and FSU can still play each other as an OOC game on years where they aren't scheduled as part of the conference schedule if it matters that much to them.
I really don't care about that "rematch" argument. In case you've forgotten (I know, I sometimes want to forget 2007 too), we were the beneficiary of a "rematch" at twice, in 2007 and 2008 where we lost to BC in the regular season only to beat them in the ACCCG. Also one reason I'm not too pissed about the LSU-Bama MNCG, since Bama was still probably the second best team in the nation, and then they came back to win the rematch, and left no doubt about who was the better team.
It's true, we've benefitted from the rematch scenario and at the time I didn't mind it. Homerism aside, I just think that the current state of the ACC mindset is "let's think of something needlessly complex that will probably end up causing controversy" when the simple answer is "don't do stupid stuff like force VT and BC to play one another every year for no reason." Scratch the permanent crossover and the schedule opens up. It makes for more exciting play, diverse travel and matchup experiences for all the teams, and reduces the likelihood of rematches, which also typically don't sell tickets very well (unless you are Alabama vs. LSU). Some won't like it, but I'd venture that the majority of the ACC teams would.
But the rematches in those cases are palatable, because we had proven ourselves to be the best team in the Coastal. There was no-one else in our division who deserved it more. In the Bama-LSU rematch, there were several other teams on the outside looking in, that never had a chance (Ok St, for instance). What if that was in place this year? Does Clemson go over Duke? Even though Duke never got a chance to play either Clemson or FSU, and hadn't lost since the middle of September? How is that fair?
I don't mind the rematch either, but it shouldn't be arbitrary or overly subjective. BC won the Atlantic, VT won the Coastal...we just happened to have already met. Forget 6-2 ACC...duke was 10-2 overall. Clemson already lost to FSU (only one less conference loss) and just got destroyed (again) by USC. If you are going to do this, there would need to be conditions as mentioned above.
What do we all think of the Malcom Delaney years, when VT did what they needed to get in, but got left out of the tournament anyways? Duke did what they needed and then some, and it seemed implied (to me) that the Commish wants to consider a rule change that would have put Clemson in. Had one of Duke's losses been to Clemson? Great! But put a solid algorithm (BOOM) or metric together to make it automatic...it can't have anything to do with "hey we like Clemson better in this game..."
And while we are talking better opponents for FSU, not implying VT deserved anything this year, but I don't believe any starters would be taking a break in the last two quarters if the Hokies were their opponent.
Am I the only one that actually likes the idea of seeing some new teams every once in a while. Rarely ever playing Florida State or Clemson makes for an incredibly boring schedule. I would rather play and see the marquee matchups then get lucky hiding behind our easy side of the division. I do agree though that actually deciding the 2 top teams could possibly be a mess without divisions.
I think there are easier remedies to that without abandoning division winners - that cure is just all kinds of messy and is probably worse than the disease
I found and edited a suggestion I had made before that I think is probably the best possible setup with divisions:
I would swap Duke, North Carolina, and Pitt with Florida State, BC, and Syracuse and also drop anual crossover rivalries in favor of two rotating crossovers in an 8 game conference schedule These would be the divisions:
Atlantic: Duke, Wake Forest, North Carolina, NC State, Clemson, Pittsburgh, & Louisville.
Coastal: Florida State, Miami, Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech, Virginia, Boston College, & Syracuse
Teams would play one home and one away crossover opponent each year. If they play an opponent at home, they would then go through a complete rotation before playing them again, this time as an away game. Each team would play against every cross divisional team at least once every 4 years and play in every cross divisonal team's home stadium at least once every 7 years.
Going by the rivalries listed on Wikipedia's ACC page, there were 24 inter-ACC Rivalries in 2013 (at least one, BC-Miami, isn't currently played anually). 3 of them involved Maryland and are being lost anyway. Of the remaining 21 rivalries, 15 would be played annually under these divisions and 6 would not (see chart below). I'm not sure how fierce the Pitt-Syracuse rivalry is, but I think it is mainly a cross divisional rivalry based on them coming into the conference together. UVA and UNC would lose their annual rivalry game and Clemson is by far the hardest hit losing rivalry games with BC, Florida State, Georgia Tech and Virginia.
*Red indicates Rivalries lost when Maryland left ACC, Orange indicates Rivalries not played annually in proposed divisions, green indicates games that would continue anually.
Advantages: Maintains most of the meaningful rivalry games, North Carolina schools play each other every year, Virginia tech plays rivalries with Miami, Georgia Tech, and Virginia every year. Florida State and Miami, continue to play every year. 4-3 balance of what I would consider top 7 ACC Football powers(FL St, Miami, VT, GT vs. UNC, Clemson, Louisville)
Disadvantages: Coastal deeper than Atlantic, with a stronger lower half. Atlantic teams lose annual games against a Florida team, hurts recruiting for those teams.
If balance between the divisions weren't as much of a concern I would probably swap Louisville and Florida State into the Coastal for UNC and Duke instead for divisions that would consist of:
Atlantic: Duke, Wake Forest, North Carolina, NC State, Clemson, Boston College, & Syracuse
Coastal: Florida State, Miami, Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech, Virginia, Pittsburgh, & Louisville.
This would allow BC to trade "rivalries" with Virginia Tech and Miami to continue their battle for the Leather Helmet with Clemson. I wasn't even aware that BC and Miami were considered a rivalry and since they're in different divisions currently they would actually play each other more often than they do currently. I don't think most VT fans would lament losing the BC game, especially if it meant gaining an annual match up with Louisville. I think this alignment would be the best from a rivalry standpoint. It would maintain all rivalries with trophies and the only named rivalry (not including school-school rivalries) that wouldn't be played annually would be the South's Oldest Rivalry between UVA and UNC. It would also allow for the Atlantic Division to be colloquially know as North & Carolinas, since it would consist of the Carolinas and the two Northernmost teams. Here's how the rivalry table looks under that scenario:
Edit: went back and looked at the rivalry chart compared to matchups that were played under current system with UMD in ACC. 6 weren't being played annually with the current divisions and crossover oponents:
BC-Miami
Clemson-UVA
Duke-UMD
Duke-NC St.
FL St.-UVA
UNC-Wake
Given that, I don't think a set up where 6 or 7 rivalries, 2 or 3 of which already aren't being played annually, are played a little less often (or more often in the case of those 2 or 3) is a bad compromise.
Edit 2: fixed a couple places where I had miscounted before and took extra o our of lose/losing.
I think Pitt-Syracuse has as much meaning as VT-BC. As in, we don't care, let's stop playing them.
Also...I wasn't going to say anything, but then I saw it twice...you mean "lose" and "losing". These aren't teeth, so they're not "loose". Sorry, that mistake is a pet peeve of mine that I see get made far too often online and at work.
i think Pitt-'Cuse does matter. it goes back to when PSU was independent. i think the Pitt-'cuse-PSU triad were a solid series of regional rivalries.
I had actually fixed that at least once, but I guess I only caught one of the times that I made that mistake. One of the problems with proofreading your own work is that you tend to read what you intended to write instead of what you actually wrote, even going back and rereading the post looking for it, I only noticed myself using "loosing" once.
Just be glad it wasn't farther/further or saw/seen. I'm never sure which of those I should be using.
Edit: found the other one
I had nicknamed the Atlantic in my second scenario as North and Carolinas, the Coastal in that scenario could be the "UVA never wins a divisional game" division
Keep in mind that any alignment that eliminates UVA-UNC is as much of a non-starter as an alignment that would eliminate VT-UVA.
You know what would get us playing more Atlantic teams more often? Bringing back the 9-game schedule that they implemented and then cancelled. Honestly, I think we could deal with not having a I-AA team on the slate, especially since we have UVA every year.
Regarding the divisional champions playing in the ACCCG, leave it as it is. There's plenty of precedent for that sort of thing in college football as well as all of the Big 4 leagues.
Play college football all year round. Every team plays every team. FIXT!
Increase the rosters to 150 scholarships, add 30-40 more schools to Division I since revenue from all year round would make it possible. Fans dream but physically kids would never make it through.
I personally want them to bring back the 9 conference game schedule. GT, Clemson, FSU, and Wake (Vandy?) are just going to have to deal, one less schedule. Clemson, GT, and FSU have historically scheduled two FCS or really BAD FBS schools anyway.
Go to 9 conference games, eliminate the cross division rivals, realign the divisions, and rotate every year so that your players get a chance to play the others schools at least once!
Atlantic:
FSU
Clemson
Miami
Louisville
NC State
BC
Syracuse
Coastal:
VT
UVA
GT
UNC
Wake
Duke
Pitt
Don't think your re-alignment would go over well in NC St. Why not trade NCSt for Wake? I'm sure Wake would rather be in FSU's division (got a recent history of success there), and NCSt would not be happy to be separated from UNC
Getting rid of divisions is not the worst thing in the world. I know the knee-jerk reaction is to oppose it, but the reality is that FSU and Clemson were definitely the best two teams in the ACC this year and I would have much preferred to see them play the ACC championship in place of Duke. Set up 4 permanent rivals based on history and make the other four games rotating, resulting in us getting to play every team in the league over a three-year timeframe.
As for complex formulas, look no further than the mind-numbing scenarios we were entertaining two months ago to assess the Coastal division winner. This would likely be less confusing. First, take the best two conference records. If a tie, look at head-to-head matchups. If a tie among three or more, look at common opponents. And so forth and so on.
Another consideration is that having another quality win is good for getting a one loss ACC champion into the playoffs over an SEC team (who is not the conference champion) with one loss.
As for it helping VT to be in the weaker division and therefore having an easier path to the ACC-CG, is that really what we're all about? IMO, that is WEAK.
Looking back on records over the past few years, 2009 is the last year in which a tie-breaker would have been required. In that year, VT and Clemson were both 6-2 (while FSU was 7-1).
Also, having more teams tied, as in 2008, would be when all top teams had mediocre records (like the Coastal this year besides Duke). In those instances, no teams have really "taken care of business", so it is fine that they be subjected to whatever criteria gets set up.
I also love the idea of us being able to play any team in the conference in the championship. Many more neat match-ups on a big stage. Imagine if Miami is eventually "back" in 2015 or 2016 and we got to play them in the ACC-CG with a spot in the playoffs awaiting the winner.
As it relates to our permanent rivals, I would say UVa, Miami, and two more. I could argue for a number of teams, but these two would be the teams that most make sense. And, I think no team in the league has more than four teams for which an established rivalry is in place.
For the conference's sake- it's great to have the best team representing in the post season. If the two best teams play it almost assures at least serious consideration for the winner making the playoff regularly. This might ultimately be the best thing for the conference no matter how many feathers get ruffled an whomever gets snubbed. Im OK with it as long as there is more interdivisional play (if they exist). I would like to play FSU and Clemson every once in a while.
GO HOKIES!
#BestTeamInConferencesStadium4ACCCG
http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/writer/dennis-dodd/24483893/acc...
i vote for no divisions, each team gets 3 protected games + 5 or 6 rotating games (preferably 6, but 5 works out to a nice, clean home and home every 4 years for everyone and keeps the schools with SEC rivals happy)
VT - uva, Miami, L'ville
uva - VT, unc, Pitt
unc - uva, NCSU, dook
dook - unc, wake, 'cuse
ncsu - UNC, Clemson, wake
wake - dook, NCSU, GT
clemson - NCSU, GT, FSU
GT - Clemson, FSU, Wake
FSU - Miami, GT, Clemson
Miami - FSU, VT, BC
BC - Miami, 'cuse, L'ville
'cuse - BC, Pitt, dook
Pitt - 'cuse, L'ville, uva
L'ville - Pitt, VT, BC
for championship:
1. top 2 conference records
2. 1st tie breaker is record vs #1 or "mini conference" record if multiple teams tied(ie, avoid rematches when possible)
after that, just follow traditional tie breakers in place today starting with head to head...
ie. if it's 8-0 FSU, 7-1 Clemson and 7-1 VT, Clemson is 0-1 vs FSU and VT is 0-0, VT would go, even if Clemson had beaten VT. say we see a worst case of 3 or more teams 8-0 who are all 0-0 vs each other, i would go to overall record as first tie breaker followed by record vs common opponents in ACC. i don't want to use rankings...
this is the best proposed plan I have seen, I think Andy Bitter also discussed it in a couple of his blogs and it really makes sense... I'm not opposed to the rankings as a tie-breaker, but definitely not the first tiebreaker
This is a pretty good set-up with the 3 "protected" games and no divisions, but I am vehemently opposed to your tie-breaker scenarios. Record versus #1 is inherently unfair to teams that actually play that team. The team with the best record should be pretty good and having them on your schedule penalizes you versus teams that do not play them. There is no way that a 7-1 VT should go to the championship over a 7-1 Clemson that had previously beaten that VT team, just because VT was 0-0 against FSU. Tie-breakers are used that give an approximate comparison of how the teams stack up against one another. Head to head record followed by record versus common opponents is an infinitely better comparison than 0-1 vs. 0-0 vs hypothetical other team. What if VT went 7-1 but only beat mostly scrub teams by a few points, while Clemson crushed everyone, but only lost to FSU by a field goal? Head-to-head and record against common opponents would clearly put Clemson in the title game, as they should. People complain about rematches, but who cares if they are the best two teams in the conference. That is the whole point of this thread and possible restructuring of the conference, putting the best two teams in the title game.
Florida State: "Why do we have to play Clemson again? We already beat them. If they beat us, then, at best, we're even against them, which only functions to muddle the conference, not determine a champion"
How about this: Overall top team plays against the top team that they haven't already played?
Clemson: "What the hell do you mean we cannot go to the championship instead of VT? We no longer have divisions, we have the same conference record, and we beat them. They came in third place. Since when does first and third play for the title?"
Rematches seem crappy, but they happen quite often in conference championship games. What if the hypothetical FSU-Clemson game in this scenario happened on Labor Day or in the first three weeks of the season? By the end of the season the two teams could be drastically different in terms of how well they are playing and the outcome totally unpredictable. At that point, the championship would be a better determinant of who is the better team at the end of the season.
What if FSU had already beaten the second and third best team? Does the team with the fourth best record then go to the championship? I thought that the whole point of doing away with divisions is to get the two best teams into the championship game.
Fair enough.
I'd be in favor of supporting this, but the morons who put together the schedules would find some way to mess it up entirely.
I have said this before and I will say it again.
We need to move to 4 teams per division, and 4 divisions per conference schedule. Winner of each division plays in the 4 team conference playoff. The divisions change each year depending on the team's in previous year performance. This way you get 3 mandatory games within each division, 3 cross division (1 team from other division) and either 1 or 2 can be scheduled by rivalry/interest among both teams.
I wonder if the NCAA would allow a 4 team conference playoff
I have seen a similar idea tossed around - a pod system, where teams are divided up into 4 pods, and two pods per division, where the pods rotate to different divisions every so often ... I believe the WAC used this setup at one time or another
Maybe I'm in the minority, but I like the way we have it now. I like the fact that we have 2 divisions where the primary goal is to come out on top in order to play in the ACC title game. This makes intra-division games HUGE in the big picture every year, because any potential loss there kills your chances at getting into the ACC title game. If you went with any other setup, suddenly games like VT vs Miami, VT vs GT, or FSU vs Clemson don't become as big, because if both teams end up in the tops of the conference, the result of that in-season game is meaningless. As it is now, every game is potentially huge.
In fact, I'd almost go a little farther with how we have it now. Your record against division teams is what qualifies you for the ACC Championship Game. Make it a true round robin where you don't factor in how easy or tough someone has it with their cross-division games. Whoever comes out on top in each pool plays each other for the ACC crown. (and then ideally, whoever comes out on top in the ACC would be our representative in the NCAA playoff... but thats just getting ahead of myself)
I also like having divisions like we do now as well as your idea on having division record be more important than ACC record. I would probably also put head to head results over ACC record for the Tie-breakers.
The parts of the current setup I dislike are having so much time between seeing most cross divisional opponents and being stuck with BC as a cross division rival. I had a post above that focused mainly on how you could realign the divisions and eliminate annual cross over rivalries to retain most of the existing rivalries. Its not possible to retain all of the rivalries if you eliminate annual cross over games, but as I pointed out above, 6 rivalry games weren't played annually under the current setup and its possible to get the divisions to the point that only one named rivalry/rivalry with a trophy is lost (UVA-UNC).
Here's my thing...
If you go based like I have above, suddenly, you can look at the cross-divisional games as just more of your OOC schedule, and would put everyone not in your division on the same level as ND, where the games count for National ranking, but little else. Still give everyone a cross-divisional rival, because you have to keep NCSU/UNC, FSU/Miami, Clemson/GT fans happy, but those games suddenly just become about the trophy or bragging rights at stake. This also leaves you with the option for the ACC to scrap the rotation and schedule the remaining cross divisional games in a way they see fit to create more attractive matchups, to expand our national television presence, while still keeping the integrity of our round robin. You could have annual games where you have VT playing Clemson, FSU, UofL and it won't impact our ability to make the ACC Championship Game.
For the love of ... PLEASE eliminate the divisions. The current divisions have done nothing to help the league. The last couple years the division has been decided the first week of October when Clemson and FSU played each other.
Each ACC team gets one rival they play every year. (Ours would be UVA) The rest of the schedule is random. Some years you may play most of the better teams, some years you get a lighter schedule. Variety is what makes life interesting.
One year VTs schedule may look like this...
Home
Miami
NC State
BC
Clemson
Road
Louisville
UVA
Syracuse
UNC
Following Year
Home
Pitt
FSU
UVA
Duke
Road
Clemson
Wake
GT
NC State
I think with this scenario, each ACC team would never go more than a year without playing another ACC team, and would never go more than 4 years without playing another ACC team at home. All this with an 8 game schedule.
Top 2 teams play for the ACC title game. Tie-breakers are determined by conference head-head results.
I want them to just tell Notre Dame to nut up or get out, add a 16th school and switch to a 9 game schedule. Lose the permanent cross division rivals. You play the other 7 teams and a rotating 2 teams from the other division every year.
If you have to realign to keep a rivalry, do so. Other than Miami-FSU, are there any cross-division rivals that actually mean anything to the other schools? I know UVA- Louisville and VT-BC nobody cares about.
I think GT-Clemson is pretty important to those two schools, but other than that and Miami-FSU, I agree that the cross-divisional rival set-up is worthless. The only real reason cross-divisional rivals were created was so the ACC could have their precious Miami-FSU ACC Championship Game and still let Miami play FSU every year. They tried to have their cake and eat it too, but it has only back-fired and is now a vestigial part of the conference, a reminder of a poor decision made when the divisions were first created. Basically, cross-divisional rivals are the ACC's appendix.
So either swap GT for FSU or Miami for Clemson and be done with it. I am sure Clemson would love not to have to play FSU every year.
As much as it would create imbalance in the league, it might be best just to divide us up north and south and play away.
I really think, though, that there is enough flexibility with the rivalries that we could fit the important rivalries within divisions. We'd just end up with both Virginia and Florida schools in the same division due to the rivalries between FSU/Miami, VT/Miami, VT/UVA, UVA/UNC, UNC/NCST.
So match up FSU, Miami, VT, UVA, NCST, UNC, GT, and Clem in one division. There's the ACC South.
Then the Big East (Pitt/BC/Syracuse/Louisville) plus Wake, Duke, ND, and Navy in the ACC North.
Should do pretty well in minimizing travel costs, too. The cost would still be suboptimal, but should be close. These divisions would be WAY unbalanced as far as football prowess is concerned, but would maintain all important rivalries (plus ND would get Pitt, BC, and Navy every year).
See my post above to find it quickly look for the two charts that are mostly green with some orange and red rows mixed in or do a Ctrl+F and search for "North & Carolinas"
I think the only big issue I see in your bracket is that you separated UNC and Duke. I am not sure that would fly. Even if the football rivalry between the two is relatively lopsided. Louisville and Notre Dame would love that north division as they would have a good chance of making the championship game every year. The ACC south would vary rarely go undefeated as they murder each other.
110% agreed about the North and South. Undefeated would matter less in the new world of playoff system(s), however.
I don't think UNC and Dook consider themselves rivals in the same vein in the football world. Since I'm an alum of neither school, I can't say for sure.
Think of it this way: VT and LOLUVA play against each other in all sports. We only really care deeply about football. If UVA beats us in football, it ruins my season. If they beat us in lacrosse, basketball, field hockey, underwater basketweaving, whatever, that doesn't even register on my radar. LOLUVA understands this. If they beat us in track, no UVA alum I know hangs it over my head. But if they beat us in football, I'll never hear the end of it. We care about that sport, and they know it. I can't tell how seriously they take it in Hooville, doesn't look like much.
UNC and Dook, however, both care very deeply about basketball. So their rivalry exists because of that. Football surely didn't matter much to the Dookies until this year, and maybe it still doesn't to most of them.
Think about Alabama/Auburn, too. The Iron Bowl matters more than anything. But who cares about basketball. If one beats the other in basketball, you'd probably get a conversation like this:
Auburn: We beat you in basketball!
Alabama: Basketwhat?
vs the Iron Bowl:
Auburn: We beat you in football
Alabama: I HATE YOU AND EVERYTHING YOU STAND FOR. I HOPE ALL THE BAD THINGS IN THE WORLD HAPPEN TO YOU AND ONLY YOU. A POX ON YOUR TREES.
I thought that, when it came to football, UNC and NCST considered each other their main rivals. Can anyone out there confirm or deny? So I think dividing up UNC and Dook would be OK for football.
Having said all that, I still think:
No divisions should exist
Everyone should play their 3 biggest rivals every year
Rotate 3 games per year among 6 mid-level rivals (schools you've played more than not)
Rotate 2 games per year among the other 6 schools (assuming we go to 16 teams).
This would add up to 8 conference games per year
Every player who stayed for four years would end up playing 14 of the other 15 teams in the conference during their tenure (I'd rather have all 16, but it isn't of paramount importance)
We'd get a home-and-home with everyone in every six year cycle
No contrived trophies like the Big Ten has (this isn't related to anything else but if we ended up creating a Land Grant Trophy just to have one I'd have to kick my own ass)
what if ACC could get super creative with this? it would be tricky, but if they could get their SEC (or any other OOC) rivals to move their games up one week, The ACC could eliminate divisions, schedule 7 games and save the last Saturday prior to conference championship Saturday as sort of a "shake-out" week. have everyone schedule an OOC game (crempuff, rival or otherwise) the 2nd to last week of reg season after everyone has played their 7th ACC game the 3rd to last week of season. this gives league an extra week for logistics.
For example, last year (ignoring divisions and knowing it's a bad example since Clemson and FSU were both clear 1 and 2) you would have had something like this in ACC week 8 (had to tweak some things since 8/14 teams played their 8th ACC game at home last year, but if it was planned for, 7 teams would need a home game going into the unscheduled 8th week of ACC play):
3.GT (5-2) @ 1.FSU (7-0)
4.Duke (5-2) @ 2.Clemson (6-1)
7.Miami (4-3) @ 13.NCSU (0-7)
6.VT (4-3) @ 10.'Cuse (3-4)
5.BC (4-3) @ 14.uva (0-7)
8.UNC (4-3) @ 11.Wake (2-5)
12.umd (2-5) @ 9.Pitt (3-4)
primary scheduling logic:
1. no rematches from first 7 games
2. everyone ends up with 4 home / 4 away (so the 7 host teams for ACC week 8 already know they are hosting a football game when the schedule comes out, they just don't know which ACC team is coming).
3. match up any top teams who haven't played in first 7 games
4. do best to ensure any/all tiebreakers remaining after 8th game can rely on head-to-head
Top 2 standing after ACC week 8 (final week of reg season) go to Charlotte.
That weekend is hard enough being Thanksgiving. Not knowing the opponent until the last minute is not going to help ticket sales. Plus the ACC is contracted for a Black Friday game, adding am extra wrinkle.
Swafford is probably trying to get ND to join in full in football and be able to keep their less than full ACC schedule (I can see Swaff saying the ACC would have its division champs play each other unless ND was ranked higher than one of them, in which case ND would play UNC in South Bend for the title). Actually, under current rules I don't think anything prevents the ACC from shuffling its divisions and certainly its schedules as often as it wishes, and if so, what does this rule change really give him?
If the NCAA does make this change, it needs to be coupled with a limitation on multiple teams from the same conference making the playoffs, i.e., conferences, you may arrange your conference schedules and pick your champions as you wish, but your champion is the only one in the playoff.