4 Possible Reasons why the ACC was behind Championship Game Deregulation.

A few days ago it was announced that deregulation of conference championship games is expected to pass by 2016.  The ACC and the Big 12  joined forces in pushing this legislation. While the Big 12’s reasons for this seem obvious – They can have a championship game with only 10 conference teams, instead of the current required 12. The ACC’s reasoning is not as clear.

In fact the ACC is being rather vague on the topic.

The ACC has maintained it is not pursuing a specific change to determine its conference champion, just the freedom to do so.

What are 5 possible Reasons why the ACC was behind Championship Game Deregulation?

1) Move to 3 Divisions

“I think there’s some belief that ACC would play three divisions, have two highest-ranked play in postseason,” said Bob Bowlsby, chairman of the new NCAA Football Oversight Committee

Now why exactly would Bob Bowlsby say this when ESPN ACC beat writer Andrea Adelson tweets this…

Bob Bowlsby’s suggestion the ACC might move to 3 divisions has not been discussed among league ADs, so I’m not sure what he’s talking about.

— Andrea Adelson (@aadelsonESPN) April 7, 2015

This would be a possibility if a 15th team were joining the ACC. Then you have 3 Divisions of 5 teams. Only Notre Dame joining would make sense here. Notre Dame may one day join the ACC, but I don’t forsee that within the next five years. Could the ACC add another team? UCONN and Cincinnati would be the most likely candidates, but I’d be surprised if either is asked to join just for this purpose.

2) Move to no Divisions

I think this idea actually makes more sense. No Divisions would allow the top 2 teams in the ACC to play in the ACCCG. This would also allow for the most flexible scheduling with a handful of permanent opponents, and then a rotation through the rest of the ACC. Of course one of the top two teams, could knock out the other from the playoff. I’d counter that with interest in the ACCCG would be an at all time high, and a team could play their way into the playoff. Last year’s game between Georgia Tech and Florida State – the top 2 teams in the ACC, was the most anticipated ACCCG in history.

3) Notre Dame to participate in the ACC Championship Game. 

I’ve seen this theory thrown around. I don’t see this one at all. Some concessions to Notre Dame were made so they would join the ACC as a partial member, but this is going to far. I don’t see any chance of this happening. Does anyone really think established football programs like Florida State, Clemson, Louisville, Miami, Georgia Tech, or Virginia Tech would go for this. No way…

I don’t even know how this one started.

4) The ACC really has nothing in mind. They just want the freedom… 

Does anyone really believe this? I think we can safely assume, the ACC isn’t just doing this for option for the “freedom to so”. John Swofford has something up his sleeve, and he usually does, but it could be something that I haven’t listed here. Could this be way to create more frequent attractive ACC conference football matchups for an ACC Network through more flexible scheduling?

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