Re: If ACC were to be realigned , then i would really

Mascot [24]

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Jul 31, 2014, 1:40 AM

Alignment is the primary weakness for the "new" ACC. There just isn't a good option.

If you look at each of the five power conferences, all but the ACC have a somewhat sensible and natural alignment.

The SEC has a East/West separation, with the exception of Missouri being a misfit in the East. The SEC does share one negative with the ACC, in that both have grown to 14 football members and still maintain cross division rivalries with only eight conference games.

The Pac 12's North/South alignment works just fine. Each side has plenty of exposure in California for recruiting, as the state has two teams in each division. They don't have long draughts of traditional conference mates not seeing each other on the field.

The Big 12, while weakened overall, actually came out with a round robin schedule for football. Each team plays everyone else in the conference.

The Big Ten made a really smart decision with the addition of Maryland and Rutgers. People criticize the move but they don't see the big picture. It gave Penn State better exposure and presence in its own region and allowed the conference to ditch the hodgepodge Legends and Leaders and create geographic divisions. The perceived imbalance is greatly exaggerated. Wisconsin has won a lot of conference titles lately and Nebraska has a combined 8-3 record against Ohio State, Michigan State, Michigan, and Penn State of the East since they joined the Big Ten. They also got rid of all but one protected cross division rivalry in Purdue and Indiana. And in either 2015 or 2016 they are going to nine conference games. That combined with the elimination of the protected crossovers will allow the conference members to play each other regularly. And it helps to mitigate imbalance that might arise between divisions because three of your conference games will come from the opposite side anyway.

On the other hand, the ACC has divisions that aren't natural. Traditional conference members have such long stretches without seeing each other that they may as well not be in the same conference. Clemson sharing a division with Syracuse and Boston College, while going over a decade without playing traditional conference rivals, like UNC, is terrible. And in the ACC's case, a geographic alignment really would be too imbalanced. Can you imagine a division consisting of Syracuse, Boston College, Louisville, Pitt, Virginia, Virginia Tech, and Duke? Compare that to Miami, Florida State, Clemson, Georgia Tech, UNC, NCSU, and Wake Forest. It just doesn't work. I think the ACC got caught up in trying to keep up with the Jones' and rolled the dice that they could steal away Penn State. The Big Ten beat them to the punch securing Penn State by adding Maryland and Rutgers and it left the ACC bigger but less manageable.

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Maybe it's because I hate them so much and enjoy beating the snot out of them. But UNC's a good rival too.

As long as we're doing fantasy realignment though, and forgetting for a moment the current NCAA rules about divisions and championship games, I wonder if the ACC's ever tinkered with the idea of having 3 divisions (as long as there are 15 teams). Each team would play all 4 of their division opponents, then 2 each from the other 2 divisions on a rotating basis. The championship would be the two teams with the best record.

The only thing I don't like about changing the championship to "two best records" is that if they come from the same division, it's almost guaranteed that the winner knocks the loser out of the NCAA playoffs. Whereas in our current system, it's conceivable that within a single division, an undefeated team and a 1-loss team could both make said playoff.

If ACC were to be realigned , then i would really