Swofford on ACC division realignment

by Tony Crumpton - Assoc. Editor - Thu Jul 13 11:54:14 GMT-04:00 2017

The ACC started their 2017 ACC Football Kickoff on Thursday, and commissioner John Swofford held his annual press conference in which he discussed various subjects about the conference.

Swofford answered a question about ACC division realignment and cross-rivalries such as Duke and North Carolina State that will only play each other now once every six years.

"I don't know," Swofford said. "I don't have an answer to that really. I think that's probably one of the -- one of those challenges that any league that gets to 14 has. I mean, there's no easy solution to that. And what's right for one conference might not be right for another conference. But it's pretty much -- it's very similar in every league of our size. I think that's one of the -- you know, in an ideal world you'd love for everybody to play everybody. The next thing you love is for everybody to play everybody as often as they can, since it can't be every

year. And then beyond that, you just keep, I think, turning over, is there a better way to do this? If you ever get to the point where you just say, you know, there's not a better way to do it, that's not a good place to be. I don't care how well things are going, you need to be looking at is there a better way to do it? So far we haven't come up with one that's better than what we're doing in the minds of the majority of our schools, and that's how that works is a majority vote. Same thing with divisions."

Swofford believes that the two ACC divisions are very balanced right now.

"We haven't really talked about divisions in several years now," Swofford said. "There for a while, we talked about it and how to schedule every meeting. So I think right now where we are, things have settled in both in terms of how we schedule and in terms of the divisions, and you know, divisions can change. We all know that. Right now -- and if you look at -- surprisingly, to some, if you look at over the years the head-to-head competition with the Atlantic and Coastal, it's very close to 500. It's not imbalanced. But you know, we'll keep looking at it, but I wouldn't anticipate any change in the near future."

Honestly, with all due respect to Mr. Swofford, you got this one wrong as there is a severe imbalance in the ACC Atlantic with Clemson and Florida State. These two teams are top five type teams moving forward in the next decade and beyond and should be playing in the ACC Championship yearly in a must-see marquee national matchup, not in a knockout game in the middle of the regular season. College Football fans are smart and will turn the channel for better games if a 7-4 coastal team is playing in the ACC Championship.