As a national college football commentator, I have written about the need for divisions to be abolished in the sport for several years. The concept of the conference championship game in college football is great, but one thing the sport has always needed is a less rigid approach. Division champions playing in a conference title game, no matter what, boxed in the ACC and the other Power Five conferences.
A four-loss division champion here versus a Goliath such as Clemson or Alabama was a disaster waiting to happen … and it certainly did happen on several occasions. Conference Championship Saturday, a day which would anoint various playoff teams and represent the finale of a three-month regular-season journey, became a total bust, instead of a dramatic denouement of a riveting journey.
Clearly, the ACC finally saw the light and finally grew impatient with the limitations of a divisional system which had outlived its usefulness.
Now, the two best teams in the ACC standings will compete for the football championship in 2023. That’s how it is supposed to be. The Pac-12 didn’t even wait for next year. It implemented that specific change this year. We’ll see if the Big Ten and SEC join the party.
One thing to realize about all of this is that a conference can eliminate divisions and still have geographically-adjusted schedules. This 3-5-5 plan from the ACC could have existed a decade ago, without divisions. The Atlantic and Coastal labels could have governed this rotation system rather than confining the conference and its teams by limiting the amount of times certain opponents played each other in seven-year periods.
This is a great example of “the way things have been done” limiting human imagination and creativity. Finally, at long last, ACC leadership saw beyond the limitations of past procedure and realized what is beneficial for both its regular-season product and its postseason hopes.
Credit to everyone involved in making this happen.
