Dennis Dodd "broke" the news that the NCAA is now very close to allowing deregulation of how the conferences determine their championships. Everyone knows that the B12 and the ACC were the advocates, and most people assume that the B12 wants the flexibility to have a championship game without expanding to 12 teams. But Dodd does not know what the ACC wants and the B12 commish (Bowlsby) floated a rumor that the ACC will go to three divisions of 5 schools, with ND in the mix. I am not sure how he came up with that as ND is not a full time member and is not eligible to play in the ACC champ game.
Many journalists, bloggers and posters on this board have floated suggestions. The most common suggestion, if the rules do change, is for each member to have 3 permanent rivals, and then each member plays everyone else twice in a four period. (I won't bore you with the details how that works, but with 14 members with an 8 game schedule, it does work). The most common suggestion on this board if the rules do not change, but not really suggested anywhere else, is to change the permanent members of the divisions into a north - south split. The most common suggestion posted elsewhere if the rules do not change is to flip BC to the Coastal for GT. The genesis for that idea is that it would put 2 of the 4 smaller private schools in each division, as opposed to having 3 in the Atlantic currently.
I had put forth a detail plan of the "3 permanent and 5 floating" members idea to various constituencies. The purpose of this message is not discuss that plan, but rather to share what I learned about the political realities that led to the divisions being the way they are and why they haven't changed yet. My suggestion to anyone who posts additional suggestions is to make them in line with these poltiical realities. So here goes.
What prevented GT from flipping to the Atlantic? Bottom line - their AD at the time - Radkovich - was opposed to playing both CU and FSU in the same year. The problem with this political reality is that he is now the CU AD and the ACC rep on the CFP committee. Therefore he is advising the ACC as to what is important to that committee. He is also the guy that said in early August 2014 that the ACC AD's were to meet in October to re-align the divisions. As far as I know, that meeting never happened. What does all this mean? I am not sure, but it is possible that the annual FSU-CU game could be in jeopardy. That is just a rumor that has not risen to the level of a political reality, but stay tuned.
Now for some rivalry "must haves"
1). There is one ACC member that will insist on playing three schools every year. That school is UNC and they will insist on playing Duke, UVA and NCState every year.
2). Annual rivalries that must remain, in addition to 1) above, is FSU-Miami, GT-CU, and UVA-VT. The combination of 1) above and UVA-VT makes the 3+5 plan hard to handle as VT is linked to both 1) and 2). I was able to handle it in my 3+5 plan, but it wasn't easy. Other annual rivalries that would like to be maintained are Duke-Wake and SU-BC.
3). Each member wants to play either Miami or FSU each year. No exception. None. Zero. Don't bother suggesting otherwise. Very few are willing to play both in the same year. This is actually the real impediment to doing a north-south split.
4). Under the current protocols, each member plays 6 of 7 schools in the other division twice every 12 years, but everybody plays ND about twice every 6 years. The "twice every 12 years" concept has to go. This is the biggest reason for change (well we all know the biggest reason should be to create a better football product) If ND were to join full time, there is no plan that will be accepted that will not maintain some sort of equal access to the Irish. That is not to say that this is inflexible, but to have one member play ND every year and another member play them twice every 12 years is not going to fly.
All of this assumes that the conference stays at 14 members (other than my last comment in 4) above). And there is no way to find out - or at least I cannot find out - how the ACC network negotiations are impacting the planning.
Dodd seems to insinuate that because he does not know what the ACC wants, then the ACC does not know what it wants. What an arrogant tool. I will admit that I don't know what the ACC is planning, but I believe that there are several options on the table that are being considered. What I really don't know and what concerns me is if the ACC can create the best model for the overall football product, or will certain parochial interests of individual schools not allow true effective reform. We have learned in recent years that Swofford indeed did support adding WVU in the ACC, but couldn't get it done because of certain members. We also learned that when Maryland left after that, it gave Swofford the leverage to side with the "football schools" in adding UL.
Hopefully the ACC comes up with something that adds some excitement to the product.
Many journalists, bloggers and posters on this board have floated suggestions. The most common suggestion, if the rules do change, is for each member to have 3 permanent rivals, and then each member plays everyone else twice in a four period. (I won't bore you with the details how that works, but with 14 members with an 8 game schedule, it does work). The most common suggestion on this board if the rules do not change, but not really suggested anywhere else, is to change the permanent members of the divisions into a north - south split. The most common suggestion posted elsewhere if the rules do not change is to flip BC to the Coastal for GT. The genesis for that idea is that it would put 2 of the 4 smaller private schools in each division, as opposed to having 3 in the Atlantic currently.
I had put forth a detail plan of the "3 permanent and 5 floating" members idea to various constituencies. The purpose of this message is not discuss that plan, but rather to share what I learned about the political realities that led to the divisions being the way they are and why they haven't changed yet. My suggestion to anyone who posts additional suggestions is to make them in line with these poltiical realities. So here goes.
What prevented GT from flipping to the Atlantic? Bottom line - their AD at the time - Radkovich - was opposed to playing both CU and FSU in the same year. The problem with this political reality is that he is now the CU AD and the ACC rep on the CFP committee. Therefore he is advising the ACC as to what is important to that committee. He is also the guy that said in early August 2014 that the ACC AD's were to meet in October to re-align the divisions. As far as I know, that meeting never happened. What does all this mean? I am not sure, but it is possible that the annual FSU-CU game could be in jeopardy. That is just a rumor that has not risen to the level of a political reality, but stay tuned.
Now for some rivalry "must haves"
1). There is one ACC member that will insist on playing three schools every year. That school is UNC and they will insist on playing Duke, UVA and NCState every year.
2). Annual rivalries that must remain, in addition to 1) above, is FSU-Miami, GT-CU, and UVA-VT. The combination of 1) above and UVA-VT makes the 3+5 plan hard to handle as VT is linked to both 1) and 2). I was able to handle it in my 3+5 plan, but it wasn't easy. Other annual rivalries that would like to be maintained are Duke-Wake and SU-BC.
3). Each member wants to play either Miami or FSU each year. No exception. None. Zero. Don't bother suggesting otherwise. Very few are willing to play both in the same year. This is actually the real impediment to doing a north-south split.
4). Under the current protocols, each member plays 6 of 7 schools in the other division twice every 12 years, but everybody plays ND about twice every 6 years. The "twice every 12 years" concept has to go. This is the biggest reason for change (well we all know the biggest reason should be to create a better football product) If ND were to join full time, there is no plan that will be accepted that will not maintain some sort of equal access to the Irish. That is not to say that this is inflexible, but to have one member play ND every year and another member play them twice every 12 years is not going to fly.
All of this assumes that the conference stays at 14 members (other than my last comment in 4) above). And there is no way to find out - or at least I cannot find out - how the ACC network negotiations are impacting the planning.
Dodd seems to insinuate that because he does not know what the ACC wants, then the ACC does not know what it wants. What an arrogant tool. I will admit that I don't know what the ACC is planning, but I believe that there are several options on the table that are being considered. What I really don't know and what concerns me is if the ACC can create the best model for the overall football product, or will certain parochial interests of individual schools not allow true effective reform. We have learned in recent years that Swofford indeed did support adding WVU in the ACC, but couldn't get it done because of certain members. We also learned that when Maryland left after that, it gave Swofford the leverage to side with the "football schools" in adding UL.
Hopefully the ACC comes up with something that adds some excitement to the product.
