Proposal to deregulate conference title games moves to NCAA Council
A formal proposal for the deregulation of conference championship games, which would allow the Big 12 to have a championship game as early as 2016, was advanced to the NCAA Council this week and is expected to be approved in January, Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby told ESPN.com.
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Under current NCAA rules, conferences must have 12 members and two divisions to host a league title game. The Big 12, with only 10 teams, is the only Power 5 conference that doesn't have a title game. Football is the only sport that requires a minimum number of conference members to have a title game.
If the NCAA loosens its restrictions, the Big 12 would have the freedom to host a title game in Year 3 of the College Football Playoff.
Maybe you've heard, but the ACC has been exploring avenues to completely scrap the divisional alignment we have and create new ways to get intriguing matchups for our title. A couple ideas that have been passed around are to have the teams with the top records play, and also have the two highest ranked teams play.
My personal opinion? I am not sure I like this. I like the way in which it currently is where you need to win your division to advance to the conference title. You know what you have to do every year, and each year is its own year. Going forward, we could have scenarios where you're allowing voters to choose who they deem more worthy to play in conference title games, and I just can't get behind that.
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Makes sense actually, our division has been crap the last few years with Clemson and FSU clearly top of the ACC. That may not happen again this year but you can't tell me a 6-6 or 7-5 teams deserves to play for the conference?
If all schedules were equal, sure... But not all schedules are equal, and I would have an issue with rewarding teams who only schedule weak opponents to inflate records.
Scraping the divisions would only work if it goes hand in hand with a complete teardown and rebuild of the current conference scheduling system. As for OOC games, you really couldn't count them for anything but playoff resume builder.
Having teams with the top 2 records simply does not work year to year because of the disparity in schedules that will happen inevitably.
As for the example above of Clemson and FSU lets say. Well Clemson had its chance to win the division by playing FSU, and lost. Now with a revamped schedule it is perhaps likely that FSU and Clemson would only see each other every few years. Is that really preferable? Or maybe we only get Miami once every 3 years, etc?
I'd be quite happy with VT seeing FSU or CU every few years.
There has to be some rules governing when they can switch for a different team. For instance, if the 2nd place team in one division has 2 more CONFERENCE wins than the winner of the other division, then I am fine with having that team play against their 1st place in-division team. For instance, let's look at 2012. The ACC standings were as follows:
ATLANTIC CONF OVERALL
Florida State 7-1 12-2
Clemson 7-1 11-2
NC State 4-4 7-6
Wake Forest 3-5 5-7
Maryland 2-6 4-8
Boston College 1-7 2-10
COASTAL CONF OVERALL
North Carolina 5-3 8-4
Miami (FL) 5-3 7-5
Georgia Tech 5-3 7-7
Virginia Tech 4-4 7-6
Duke 3-5 6-7
Virginia 2-6 4-8
Both Miami and UNC were on post-season bans so GT went to the ACC Championship. I personally would have rather seen Clemson vs FSU part 2 because they were the two best teams. In that situation though, the 3rd place team in the division got in on a technicality. Regardless though, Clemson was far more deserving than any Coastal team that year. It should be a rarity that they break out of the current mold, not a common occurrence to boost TV ratings and draw exciting matchups.
And yet... Clemson had their chance to represent the Atlantic that season, and lost 49-37 against Florida State.
And that was their only loss in conference. Yet every Coastal team managed to lose at least 3. If the rule is set that there needs to be at least 2 conference wins more for the second place team in one division to play, you won't hear any complaints out of me. There needs to be a distinct set of rules, not something to be judged at a later date. You are assuming that there is some outside influence to set up the match, whereas I'm saying that there is a guideline, no different than the current setup, but that rewards a team that is far more successful than their opponents in the other division.
By those same accounts... hypothetically speaking, of course...
Lets say you have one division with 4 dominant teams, and another division with 2 alright teams in a division that was trash. Those 3 teams in the tough division don't play the top teams in the other division and all finish the year with 3 losses, cause they just beat each other up over conference play, all finishing with final records of 9-3 after laying waste to tough teams out of conference. The other division has 2 teams that coast through a weak schedule, each finishing with 1 conference loss, but overall records of 7-5, as they got wasted out of conference..
By your standard, the 2 teams from the weaker division, who got smoked when they stepped foot out of conference play would vie for the conference championship, and the strong teams would be locked out.
I don't care how they did out of conference because it is the CONFERENCE championship, not the "best team we have to offer on a national level" championship.
OOC strength isnt even the point he was making. If the two best conference records made it regardless of which division, you now have awarded valedictorian and salutatorian to the teams that only took Home Ec for four years.
If you are going to keep the two division format, you have to keep the two division winners in the title game (unless significant rules are in place).
The bitter plan
I'd be in favor of a scenario that provided more matchups for Virginia Tech against Florida State and Clemson, or just more variation in the matchups in general. The only team VT really has to play every year is UVa.
Either change the current divisional lineup, or keep it as is, but I really don't want to see Florida State and Clemson in the same division, and also playing each other a second time for the ACC Championship. That would seem to be a bad arrangement.
The Bitter Plan is a definite possibility, but I like the Teel Plan even better, as I like the matchups for VT.
http://www.dailypress.com/sports/teel-blog/dp-teel-time-more-acc-division-ideas-story.html#page=1
Has the ACC actually been doing this or just ACC Bloggers?
From what I understand the topic came up in the 2014 AD meetings about how to handle the conference title game in a changing environment.
Bob Bowlsby said the ACC was looking at new avenues. I'm not sure anyone from the ACC has actually said they're doing that.
When Bowlsby has the balls to declare a conference champ in a conference with the slogan "one true champ", then I might consider him a credible source.
Just have every team play each other every year, plus the 4 OOC games.
I wouldn't be opposed to a 17 game regular season, with the potential of 20 VT games in a year.
Not sure my liver could handle 20 games of Loeffler's offense.
Wait..does this mean they will start selling beer at the ACCCG???
Hokie13 asking the important questions
The current divisional format allows every team to be represented. As in, every team in the conference played at least one of the two teams in the championship game.
I don't think we should do away with divisions. I do, however, strongly dislike the current format. I'm not a fan of playing teams from the other division once a millennium. I think there is too much politics in the ACC for things to change drastically. We were stuck with BC for political reasons and I don't see that changing, unfortunately. Realignment is pretty tricky because there are so many overlapping annual rivalry games which many high ranking officials will resist changing.
If it were up to me, I would drop the permanent cross-over match-ups in favor of a dual rotating format similar to the one that the ACC had before the most recent expansion. Mandate Notre Dame to join as a full football member or drop the 5 game/year deal to free up non-conference opportunities for schools like Clemson, FSU, and GT since they have in-state non-conference rivalries. (If Notre Dame is going to be a snobby princess of an organization and hang on to their deal with NBC I say f*** 'em)
With 8 conference games a year (6 divisional and 2 extra-divisional) each team could cycle through each team in the conference over a 4 year period. It's not ideal, since some games would be home and others away, but it's better than playing FSU once every 8 years.
Here's an example:
Year 1:
VT-Duke Home
VT-GT Away
VT-Miami Home
VT-Pitt Away
VT-UNC Away
VT-UVA Home
-------
VT-FSU Home
VT-Wake Away
Year 2:
VT-Duke Away
VT-GT Home
VT-Miami Away
VT-Pitt Home
VT-UNC Home
VT-UVA Away
-------
VT-NCST Away
VT-Syracuse Home
It might get a bit dicey switching up the cross-divisional match-ups but I'm sure there is a way to do it (I don't feel like figuring it out at this moment)
This way we can keep the same basic format overall. Have two divisions and a Conference Championship pitting the division champions against each other. It shouldn't matter if one side of the league is stronger than the other. The true champion of the league should be able to beat anybody in the league. If you can beat each team in your own division you should have a chance to take on the team from the other side of the league which also beat everyone in their division.
Or we could just kick Pitt and Syracuse out. We were fine before we added them.
I agree with this. I think having 2 highest ranked teams play each other is going to hurt team in the other conferences at times due to pre-season rankings where teams start out. I know everyone says they don't matter but they do. The play-off rankings are pretty close to the rankings up to that point as they were with the BCS. Teams don't shuffle too much. So if you have FSU and Clemson ranked high and you have a team in the other division not ranked as high but does just as well but due to scheduling they can't really improve their ranking too much (or even if they do it may not be enough) how is it fair that the other division team gets locked out?? For example FSU and Clemson start out in the top 10 one year and VT is top 20. Lets say FSU goes undefeated in conference and maybe has 1 loss OOC to a high ranked opponent. Clemson has a loss to FSU and another ranked opponent but keeps them in the top 15. VT maybe has one conference loss but wins the division and an OOC loss to a ranked team but doesn't have other ranked opponents on the schedule to catch up and overtake Clemson. So VT remains ranked at 16 lets say FSU is top 10 Clemson top 15 and VT top 20. Does VT not deserve to play in the conference championship even when Clemson had the chance to represent the Atlantic but lost to FSU???
I also agree with getting rid of permanent cross-division rivalries. This again allows for those teams that have higher ranked cross-division rivalries to get a leg up in the ranking and therefore who would go to the ACCCG just because of who they regularly play. We play BC. BC is never going to be a power to help our SoS. Miami has FSU so if they ever do get "back" and they beat a high ranked FSU they have that edge just because that's who their cross-division rival is.
Bottom line is I think they should keep the divisions. Re-align them if you wish for more competition but don't get rid of them unless everyone is going to play everyone and there aren't enough games for that. Get rid of the rule that you need 12 teams to have a conference championship. As long as you have an even number of teams I don't see the reason you can't have one. Align them into divisions and have a championship.
I also agree with getting rid of ND. Either join the conference fully or leave. I hate how they get to dictate that. If you want to join the conference then join it fully. Don't come in half-ass and then say well we'll schedule some ACC teams every year to keep you happy.
I agree with getting rid of the assigned cross-division matchup. That alone would double the frequency of meeting all other cross-divisional foes.
Yes, some yearly rivalries would be disrupted (Florida State - Miami; UNC - NC State), but let them schedule those as out of conference games that don't count against their conference record if they want to play them every year.
Yes, it's going to be complicated no matter how you do it.
I fully endorse the Bitter Plan. The only problem is that some teams will want to keep playing cross-divisional rivals (like FSU/Miami and GT/Clemson). Solution: when the rival isn't on your conference schedule, play them as OOC games that do not count towards conference record since that is now allowed.
Simply eliminating the cross-divisional rivals in favor of two rotating cross-divisional games per year would cut in half the number of years waiting for any particular cross-divisional matchup.
But doing that alone doesn't allow FSU-Miami, NC State-UNC, and GT-Clemson to play every year. That was one of the main reasons that eliminating the cross-divisional rivals was opposed by those schools. Since they can now schedule those match-ups as OOC games, that hurdle has been cleared and we are that much closer to getting rid of the cross-divisional rivals.
(If Notre Dame is going to be a snobby princess of an organization and hang on to their deal with NBC I say f*** 'em)
Many Legs!