ACC proposes title game change
ACC officials have voted to send the NCAA's Board of Directors “a piece of legislation that would grant the conferences the flexibility to determine who played in their football championship game,” ACC commissioner John Swofford told ESPN.com on Tuesday.
Swofford said the ACC faculty representatives, who were advised by the league’s athletic directors, voted in favor of the legislation at the ACC’s recent winter meetings, which were held last week in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
“We will be sending that forward,” Swofford said. “We did vote to send that forward to consideration.”
Swofford said he’s not aware of any other conference that has taken this step yet. 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. Should the NCAA lighten its restrictions, conferences would have the option to change the format...
http://espn.go.com/blog/ncfnation/post/_/id/93459/acc-votes-to-send-title-game-legislation
February 5th, 2014 at 6:47 PM ^
What's the motivation here?
Uhhh, Florida State's quarterback missed the only game they lost, but he's healthy now, so we think FSU should go to the championship game instead of NC State, which beat them in that game and thus owns the tie breaker.
Is this the kind of situation they have in mind?
Color me a cynic (or a bad speller -- cynic???), but why do I smell MONEY at the root of this evil. Ohhh, NC State, bad TV matchup with Miami... hmmm, if we said FSU would have won that game if they had Winston, and if it hadn't rained, and if....
February 5th, 2014 at 7:07 PM ^
This one is the best, by far. A total demolition job.
Gee, another thrilling Ohio State vs. Wisconsin matchup for the B1G title. What a surprise.
February 5th, 2014 at 7:36 PM ^
It's about scheduling flexibility, not going back to 1973. Right now the NCAA rules say in order to have a championship game you must have divisions and all teams in the division must play each other, no exceptions. The ACC wants to change that.
February 6th, 2014 at 11:30 AM ^
to boost sales to their conference championship game. I live in the Charlotte, NC area and get tickets to this game all the time. This year, they were giving away 50 yard line tickets. The average cost per ticket was under $10 when all was said and done. Reality is, until Miami gets their crap together and starts playing football again, it's always going to be either FSU or Clemson vs no one anyone wants to see. If I were Swafford, I'd be doing a realignment and putting Clemson on the other side of FSU. The current alignments were driven by basketball rivalries prior to them poaching the bball schools from the BE. Now that they have those schools the original rivalries can't exist anyway so they might as well blow the whole thing up. Swafford is a trainwreck.
February 5th, 2014 at 6:50 PM ^
Why do this?
February 6th, 2014 at 12:55 AM ^
February 6th, 2014 at 1:49 AM ^
when I read the OP. I can't believe the other schools in the ACC would go for this.
February 6th, 2014 at 9:49 AM ^
doesn't Notre Dame just join a conference? I don't pretend to know all of the financial and political implications of doing so, but their refusal to do so and logistical strains they put on themselves because of their refusal seem to defeating any "point" that there is or ever was. Notre Dame football is becomming a particularly ugly and equally confusing entity. I just don't get it.
February 6th, 2014 at 11:20 AM ^
It's not about Notre Dame. It's about changing the requirements about divisions. That's all it is.
February 5th, 2014 at 6:52 PM ^
February 5th, 2014 at 6:56 PM ^
Ask Bo how having the league pick champions works out . . .
February 5th, 2014 at 6:57 PM ^
February 5th, 2014 at 6:57 PM ^
February 5th, 2014 at 6:59 PM ^
I guess that allows us to speculate freely...
The SEC announces that effective immediately, conference members are only required to play 4 conference games of their own choosing, allowing them to schedule as many as 8 regular-season patsies. This should insure SEC Superiority forever, as no conference team (other than Kentucky and Vanderbilt----who cares?) is likely to ever again finish below .500...
Yep.
S-E-C! S-E-C! S-E-C!
February 5th, 2014 at 9:04 PM ^
Unless they're actually taking out an insurance policy, but that'd be... weird.
February 5th, 2014 at 8:26 PM ^
I get why they want to. The ACC coastal is garbage. They think it might have an effect in the playoff selection.
Personally I think the conference title game is dumb just for that reason. If the team from the other division with a much worse record catches the other team on a bad day, should they really be considered the best team in the conference?
But of course the conference title game means more tv money now so they won't get rid of it.
February 5th, 2014 at 7:01 PM ^
When Swofford mentions "the flexibility to determine who played in their football championship game" he is referring to current NCAA rules that you have to have two equal sized divisions and you have to play each team in your division in order to have a conference title. I think the ACC would like to eliminate divisions and just have the two teams with the best conf records play
February 5th, 2014 at 7:03 PM ^
"Swofford said he’s not aware of any other conference that has taken this step yet. 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. Should the NCAA lighten its restrictions, conferences would have the option to change the format. "
If I understand this correctly, then someone really needs to tell John Swofford that just because Dabo Swinney made a joke about how he'd love to play Wake Forest all season one year doesn't mean it was a serious proposal.
In all seriousness though, I understand the reasoning as simply being able to have the two best teams in your conference in your conference title game, which actually isn't a bad thing.
February 5th, 2014 at 7:03 PM ^
It allows something like what is attached;
http://www.bcinterruption.com/acc-expansion-syracuse-pittsburgh-louisvi…
Summary:
1) 9 Game Conferences Schedule, No Divisions
2) 5 Permanent Rivalry Games within conferences (instead of Divisions)
3) 4 Other Conference Games to be rotated among the other 8 schools (so you play every team ever other year or every third year if you stagger them some other way).
4) Teams with the 2 best records then can play in the Championship Game. This is more of a round robin which does not penalize conferences with incredibly weak divisions (read old Big 12 North).
Interesting idea.
February 5th, 2014 at 7:18 PM ^
Only problem being the permanent games can be a competitive advantage/disadvantage depending who you get. Otheriwse, I like it.
February 5th, 2014 at 7:49 PM ^
Yeah, having 5 permanent rivalries could make things imbalanced. Maybe two would be better, MSU and OSU. Of course, it would probably be even better if we could get Indiana or Illinois as another permanent rivalry to make our schedules more balanced. I guess 5 would work if some games were more for evening things out than for rivalry purposes.
February 5th, 2014 at 7:07 PM ^
February 6th, 2014 at 2:27 AM ^
^^^ upvoted by a fellow fan of FZ
February 5th, 2014 at 7:32 PM ^
I actually don't mind this. Just have the best two teams play at the end of the season for the championship, even if it is a rematch.
This would be favorable to me especially considering that would give us greater scheduling flexibility to not be stuck with Rutgers and Maryland every year.
The "two best teams" would be the two teams in the conference with the best conference records, then employ a series of tiebreakers (head-to-head results, common opponents, etc.)
Going back a couple years, the title games would have been:
- 2013: MSU (8-0) vs. OSU (8-0) (actual MSU vs. OSU)
- 2012: Mich* (6-2) vs. Nebraska (7-1) (actual Wisconsin vs. Nebraska)
- 2011: MSU (7-1) vs. Mich/Wisc (6-2)** (actual MSU vs Wisconsin)
*OSU, PSU ineligible.
**Would depend on tiebreaking procedures
February 5th, 2014 at 7:53 PM ^
We'd have been in two of thr last three years? Whoa.
February 5th, 2014 at 9:21 PM ^
I was curious. I'll go back to 2002 (that's when conference standings were available on ESPN). These are how the Big Ten championship games would've played out if it was simply the two best conference records.
- 2002: Iowa vs. Ohio State
- 2003**: Michigan vs. Ohio State
- 2004**: Iowa vs. Michigan
- 2005**: Penn State vs. Ohio State
- 2006**: Michigan vs. Ohio State
- 2007**: Ohio State vs. Michigan
- 2008**: Penn State vs. Ohio State
- 2009**: Iowa vs. Ohio State
- 2010**: MSU vs. Wisconsin
- 2011**: MSU vs. Wisconsin
- 2012**: Michigan* vs. Nebraska
- 2013: MSU vs. Ohio State
Appearances by school:
- OSU: 8
- Michigan: 5
- Iowa: 3
- MSU: 3
- Penn State: 2
- Wisconsin: 2
- Nebraska: 1
*OSU, PSU ineligible
**Indicates rematch of a regular season game
If you'll notice, there would have been a lot of rematches. In fact, in 10 of the last 12 years the title game would've resulted in a rematch of a regular season game. Now, personally, I don't see a big issue with it but I know the powers that be would prefer not to have a rematch. Rematches could be avoided if we used a parity-based scheduling technique where the results of one season influence the schedule of the next.
I used the following to determine the matchups:
- Best conference record
- If two teams were tied, head to head winner advances. There was no instance where two teams tied with the same record had not played each other, in that event I think I would look at their record versus the top 3 of the conference, or something similar
- If three teams were tied, I took their win% versus each other. Interestingly this means a 1-0 (1.000) team would advance over a 1-1(0.500) team or a team that didn't play either of the other two (0-0), perhaps slightly unfair
February 5th, 2014 at 7:25 PM ^
I actually don't mind it either. The unbalanced schedules that teams (even from the same division) play are already stupid. Why not just get rid of the divisions (which mostly cause you to get stuck with the same boring games every year) and just play a bunch of mostly random conference games, and then just match up the 2 teams with the best record at the end? This isn't that much crazier than any other idea, though it works much better with 12 teams than it does with 14.
February 5th, 2014 at 7:30 PM ^
So, what's the point of having divisions?
February 5th, 2014 at 8:04 PM ^
This could possibly lead to relegation in the conference.
Or a system where you guarantee the best 6 teams play each other in the top division, 3 cross divisions.
Top two overall records play for title at end
February 5th, 2014 at 8:50 PM ^
This could be laying the ground work for a multi-division format that has been predicted for awhile. If the ACC is granted autonomy in choosing its participants in the ACC title game, they could split into four divisions (even with 14 members, uneven divisions), pick the top two for the title game.
They could then make the argument that the other division champs are just as deserving - there you go, there is your play-in to the playoff.
Obviously this situation would require adding another game to the schedule, but it would at least lay the framework.
February 5th, 2014 at 8:50 PM ^
February 5th, 2014 at 8:52 PM ^
February 5th, 2014 at 9:08 PM ^
February 5th, 2014 at 9:11 PM ^
Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!
February 6th, 2014 at 8:35 AM ^
The first step on the road to an 80-team Super Conference for NCAA football with eight ten-team divisions*? Every team in a division plays every other team in its division and has three games against teams from the other seven divisions. Allowances would be made for a 13th regular season game for teams in the Super Conference who schedule a game at Hawaii or against any of the service academies that are excluded from the Super Conference.
The eight division champions then join eight at-large teams in the NCAA Super Conference Football Playoffs. . . . March Madness Meets December Delirium!
* Consider the WINPOM Division: Wisconsin, Indiana, Notre Dame, Penn State, Pittsburgh, Purdue, Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State, and Minnesota. (Comes with the added advantage of having the seven-team WINPOM Hockey Conference with four games played against each of the other conference members for a 24-game conference season.)
February 6th, 2014 at 10:14 AM ^
February 6th, 2014 at 10:42 AM ^
February 6th, 2014 at 10:10 AM ^
February 6th, 2014 at 10:56 AM ^
I've always wanted to get rid of the divisions and just have the two best teams play. The rest is just details to be worked out, as far as locked-in rivalries and all that. But I'd much rather get rid of the divisions and 1. Play all of our non-rivals at more or less the same frequency (why should we play Rutgers and Maryland more often than Iowa or Wisconsin?) and 2. have the actual two best teams play. Program strength is fluid, and even if you try to balance divisions based on who has been best historically (and the Big 10 didn't even do that, otherwise UM/OSU/PSU wouldn't be bunched together) you're still going to end up with a lot of seasons where the two best teams play in the same division.
If the NCAA approves this, I hope the Big 10 adopts it.
February 6th, 2014 at 11:36 AM ^
this isn't a competition thing. It's a $$ thing. I live in the CLT area and go to this game just about every year for free. This year, they were giving 50 yard line tickets away. When it was all said and done, their average ticket prices was under $10 per. That changes if they get Clemson playing FSU. Schools here don't travel like those in the B1G outside of FSU and Clemson and this year the FSU fans didn't really travel all that well.