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ACC openly discussing dropping divisions for football

1,615 Views | 17 Replies | Last: 1 yr ago by boykin_spaniel
boykin_spaniel
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https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/33899589/acc-mulls-3-5-5-college-football-scheduling-model-effort-scrap-divisions
BearlyBeloved
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Interesting. They're talking about

"a 3-5-5 scheduling model in which league teams would play three permanent opponents, then rotate through the rest over a two-year period (five one year, five the next)."

If the Big 12 did this, then WHO should be the three permanent opponents (if three is the number) of Big 12 teams that Baylor plays every year??

Maybe:

  • TCU
  • BYU
  • Texas Tech

Of course, everybody would want Kansas as their permanent opponent!
Married A Horn
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Yeah, not a fan. The 3 that draw Kansas will always have an advantage!

But...

Houston
TCU
Tech

Let BYU go North.

And does that mean TCU would have to have us, tech, & Houston?
Married A Horn

Hutto Hippo
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BluesBear
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BearlyBeloved said:

Interesting. They're talking about

"a 3-5-5 scheduling model in which league teams would play three permanent opponents, then rotate through the rest over a two-year period (five one year, five the next)."

If the Big 12 did this, then WHO should be the three permanent opponents (if three is the number) of Big 12 teams that Baylor plays every year??

Maybe:

  • TCU
  • BYU
  • Texas Tech

Of course, everybody would want Kansas as their permanent opponent!

and Kansas would want UT as a permanent opponent as well....
BearlyBeloved
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BluesBear said:

BearlyBeloved said:

Interesting. They're talking about

"a 3-5-5 scheduling model in which league teams would play three permanent opponents, then rotate through the rest over a two-year period (five one year, five the next)."

If the Big 12 did this, then WHO should be the three permanent opponents (if three is the number) of Big 12 teams that Baylor plays every year??

Maybe:

  • TCU
  • BYU
  • Texas Tech

Of course, everybody would want Kansas as their permanent opponent!

and Kansas would want UT as a permanent opponent as well....
Losing to the Jayhawks is the REAL reason Texas is leaving the Big 12.
PartyBear
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Married A Horn said:

Yeah, not a fan. The 3 that draw Kansas will always have an advantage!

But...

Houston
TCU
Tech

Let BYU go North.

And does that mean TCU would have to have us, tech, & Houston?


BYU would have to have two other Texas schools or two the schools in Kansas other wise their travel costs would be insane.
BearlyBeloved
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PartyBear said:


BYU would have to have two other Texas schools or two the schools in Kansas other wise their travel costs would be insane.
BYU will have the biggest travel costs regardless. It's basically a similar distance from Provo to Kansas, Oklahoma, or to the schools in Texas (excepting Houston).

And even farther to Iowa St, Cincy, UCF or WVU.



blackie
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It would seem the fairest thing to do would be to pull them out of a hat. We have already seen from our divisional history that aligning geographically can lead to permanent-like situations where some teams get too much of an advantage. You could still end up with that with pulling out of a hat, but it would be more the luck of the draw versus behind closed door shenanigans. Of course with the cancers gone, the latter is less likely.
Married A Horn
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What about having divisions along the lines of a seeding type system? But since the regular season isnt the playoffs, have it structured a little differently. For example:

1 3 5 7 9 11 in Division 1.
2 4 6 8 10 12 in Division 2.

Then the extra couple of games could be the closest geographical opponents that got missed that year.
Seems pretty balanced and you can still get in rivals. (BYU's geography will never be solved - but they knew this coming in.)
Married A Horn

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Married A Horn
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That way Nebraska doesnt win the North every year by default.
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bear2be2
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The Big 12 should do divisions that ensure all important games are played annually, but this is the Big 12, so they'll probably screw it up. I don't understand why this league has so much trouble getting the simple stuff right.
CorsicanaBear
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Quote:

but this is the Big 12, so they'll probably screw it up.
UT and OU do not get a vote and UT's minion (insert picture of the Mouth of Sauron here) in the Commissioner's Chair is a lame duck. The decision on divisions will not get made until a new Commissioner is in place. The power is all in the hands of the remaining 8. That's a different decision dynamic from when all decisions were filtered by deciding first what is best for UT. Maybe we'll make better decisions for the good of the entire conference now.
Married A Horn
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Married A Horn said:

What about having divisions along the lines of a seeding type system? But since the regular season isnt the playoffs, have it structured a little differently. For example:

1 3 5 7 9 11 in Division 1.
2 4 6 8 10 12 in Division 2.

Then the extra couple of games could be the closest geographical opponents that got missed that year.
Seems pretty balanced and you can still get in rivals. (BYU's geography will never be solved - but they knew this coming in.)
Was interested in this so I went back and looked at the last few seasons to see how the Divisions would match up. I only added 1 geographical game. In a 12 team conference, there would be 5 games to start and you could add 2 geographical games and then perhaps your standings mirror. (Standings mirror is used in the NFL for scheduling a game or 2 a year).

2022 Season
Div 1: Baylor, OU, KSU, Tech, ut
Div 2: OkSt, ISU, WVU, TCU, Kan
(For Baylor: add TCU for geographical game)

(((obviously this season favors ut a lot because they would avoid Kansas next year.)))

2021 Season
Div 1: OU, OkSt, TCU, KSU, Baylor
Div 2: ISU, ut, WVU, Tech, Kansas
(For Baylor: add Tech or ut for a geographical game)

2020 Season
Div 1: OU, ut, KSU, WVU, Tech
Div 2: Baylor, OkSt, ISU, TCU, Kansas
(For Baylor: add TCU as a geographical game)

2019 Season
Div 1: OU, ISU, TCU, KSU, OkSt
Div 2: ut, WVU, Baylor, Tech, Kansas
(For Baylor, add TCU as a geographical game)

I think this system would work even better with 12 teams. Complicated, but very fair and keeps the rivals in tact. I like it!
Married A Horn

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LagunaBear
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In starting to line the idea of either no divisions or divisions that are re-seeded each year.

Either way I would keep the league competitive and interesting.

Given that each team would play a vey one else except 2 teams, I think it would be easy to keep 1:1 rivalries. (I mean, if we went to either of these models we'd only run the risk of not playing TCU if we were one of the top 2 teams and they were one of the bottom 2. If that's the case I could live with not playing them once or twice.).

Once you go to 3 rivals then you're basically in a pod structure, and the league is too small for that.

(I'm assuming UT and OU are not included in this for now)
Married A Horn
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that's why i say 2 geographical rivals. tcu and tech will always be on our schedule. either by the seed or by using the 2 geographical rival games to catch them if missed.

i dont like 3 rivals - that's pods. i agree.

anyway, i just came up with idea and it seemed to work and was fun. no one is ever going to consider it, so, meh whatever.
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RansomBU
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https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/33940028/pac-12-scraps-divisions-ncaa-division-1-council-votes-eliminate-requirements-conference-title-games

Quote:

The NCAA Division I Council announced Wednesday that it will relax restrictions on college football's conference championship games, allowing conferences to determine the teams that would participate in their respective title game. The decision paves the way for conferences to avoid having title-game matchups determined by division winners as well as possibly eliminating divisions altogether.
It didn't take long for a Power 5 conference to change things up. Minutes after the NCAA announcement, the Pac-12 announced that starting in 2022, the conference's title game would feature the teams with the two highest winning percentages.
"Our goal is to place our two best teams in our Pac-12 Football Championship Game, which we believe will provide our conference with the best opportunity to optimize CFP invitations and ultimately win national championships," said Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff in a news release. "Today's decision is an important step towards that goal and immediately increases both fan interest in, and the media value of, our Football Championship Game."

The SEC, meanwhile, doesn't plan to make any quick changes to its divisional setup, according to commissioner Greg Sankey, as the conference prepares to grow to 16 teams with the additions of Texas and Oklahoma.
Sankey told Yahoo Sports that the SEC has had "a yearlong conversation when we go to 16 what will our divisions look like or what our schedule will look like. Those possibilities include no divisions. It is on our list. We are not going to do it in a knee-jerk way in reaction to today's decision."
In its release, the Pac-12 outlined how, in five out of the past 11 years, divisions have kept the conference's title game from featuring a different matchup that includes two teams with better rankings. In 2011 and 2012, for example, the conference title games would have featured Stanford and Oregon -- both ranked in the top 10 those two years -- had it not been for divisions, which allowed an unranked UCLA team and then a 9-5 UCLA team to play in the title game instead of an 11-1 Stanford team and an 11-1 Oregon team.
As the Pac-12 made sure to note in its announcement, the conference originally brought this motion of deregulating title games to the council. The motion, according to the Pac-12, was "unanimously supported by all FBS conferences."
This news has also been a long time coming for the ACC. In 2014, the conference first started pushing for deregulation as it relates to the divisional format, believing every league should have the right to determine how to run its championship game.
But the legislation the ACC initially proposed never passed. When commissioner Jim Phillips took over the ACC in 2021, he said the league would once again revisit this topic -- echoing the thoughts of his predecessor, John Swofford. Only, at this moment in time, deregulation has made its way across the college football landscape. Eliminating the divisional format seemed like the next logical step.
Like the Pac-12, the ACC believes scrapping the divisional format will allow for more compelling matchups, more opportunities for teams to play each other and the opportunity to get multiple teams into the College Football Playoff. Since the inception of the playoff, the ACC has made seven appearances (six of them by Clemson), while the Pac-12 has had only two appearances.
The potential scrapping of divisions will have ripple effects on conference scheduling. The Pac-12 said in its release Wednesday that even though the current conference football schedule, based on two divisions, will remain in place for the 2022 season, scheduling scenarios for seasons beyond 2022 will continue to be reviewed.
At the recently concluded ACC spring meetings in Amelia Island, Florida, the league discussed getting rid of divisions and moving to a 3-5-5 scheduling format: three permanent rivals for each team, and then rotating through the remaining 10 league teams -- five one year, five the next.
Though the ACC did not take a vote on the divisional format, all indications are this will pass at some point and go into effect for the 2023 season.
"The two drivers to this: One, is the opportunity for our student-athletes to play every school in the ACC over a four-year period of time," Phillips said last week. "The other piece of it is, I've always felt that was a local decision about how you handle your conference. You're seeing that across multiple conferences that they'd like to dictate what their championship structure looks like, and which will lead into eventually an expanded football playoff.
"You want your two best teams to have a chance to play at the end of the year for a lot of reasons."
cowboycwr
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I am fine with divisions being done away with as long as it doesn't mean schools would go a long time playing against each other like what happened in the past in the SEC where you had member schools that didn't play each other for a decade or more.

The other reason I would be against it is the potential for too many issues of deciding who goes to the championship game. I can see it coming down to tie breakers like points scored, rankings, first downs, etc. instead of division winners.
boykin_spaniel
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I think tie breakers are a worthy worry but going no divisions would allow teams to play each other much more regularly. As we saw with the time out and field goal by Aranda tie breakers are already a factor in the Big 12. That FG didn't end up mattering but it could've.
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