What the ACC lacks in football success, it makes up in dumb ideas for fixing that
Only the ACC, in its relentless pursuit of football relevance, could come up with the idea of a football championship game that fails to produce a champion.
That’s the latest bright idea out of the league’s Charlotte headquarters, as relayed by commissioner Jim Phillips to ESPN last week.
Instead of having the ACC’s best team risk its status for the College Football Playoff by losing in the title game, why not have the second- and third-place teams play instead?
Brainstorming is a healthy part of the creative process, but not every idea that hits the white board needs to be run up the flagpole for public consumption.
There’s probably more promise in Phillips’ other idea: leaving the final week of the regular season flex-scheduled until the last minute, turning that into a proto-playoff where No. 1 plays No. 4 and No. 2 plays No. 3 and everyone else plays their previously scheduled opponent or the most convenient replacement.
(Not mentioned, but another option: creating last-week matchups that attempt to protect “safe” teams with easy games and bolster the schedule strength of bubble teams with harder ones.)
That would introduce some hairy travel and broadcast logistics, but those would be expensive, not insurmountable.
Now, you might ask, and rightly so, wouldn’t that mean the end of big season-ending regional rivalry games like Clemson-South Carolina and Georgia-Georgia Tech? And maybe even intraconference games like State-Carolina and Cal-Stanford, if one of those teams were in the top four? Isn’t that the whole point of this for everyone that isn’t a national-title contender, to get to the end of a long season and play those games that get talked about for the next seven months and often years beyond that?
To which the answer is another question: When was the last time anyone in college athletics made a decision that took the things people love about college sports into account when money was at stake?
Either way, if that’s how you want to try to put a thumb on the scale, flexing the schedule like a one-bid basketball league makes more sense than turning the “championship” game into a de facto consolation game.
If this is indeed a problem — if the ACC is really this insecure about its second-class football status — the real solution is obvious: Get rid of the football championship game. It’s a meaningless exercise anyway, and if you want to draw sweeping conclusions from Year 1 of the expanded CFP, it’s that taking that weekend off at the end of a long season may be more valuable than earning a first-round bye later in the month.
There were even grumbles (from Penn State coach James Franklin) that it was unfair Notre Dame didn’t have to play in a championship game. And since Notre Dame has successfully gamed every permutation of the legacy bowl system, BCS and CFP to its favor throughout its existence, following the Irish example probably isn’t the worst idea to pursue.
That’s crazy talk, though: The ACC is never going to get rid of a revenue generator. Full stop.
If there’s a ticket to be sold and a sponsor to be wooed and a broadcast window to fill, the show must go on. Something has to happen in Charlotte the week after the regular season ends.
By the time the great brains and by-the-hour consultants get done overthinking this one, the first Saturday in December may be an all-day, eight-team ACC football jamboree, like a high school passing camp.
Everyone plays one quarter … and then those winners play a quarter … and then we have a championship half!
Can you feel the excitement?
Here’s a better question. Why doesn’t the ACC stop trying to compete in a game it can never win — against schools with bigger alumni bases, bigger fan bases and bigger budgets — and focus on one it can?
The two-decade fixation on football, with almost nothing to show for it, has left ACC basketball in shambles. What was once the conference’s crown jewel has become a laughingstock. Eight of the ACC’s 18 teams went into the weekend with .500 or worse records. And not in November: In late January!
Louisville has played its way off the bubble, for now, but at Pittsburgh’s expense. North Carolina’s hopes are hanging by the thinnest thread at the same time its boosters are throwing $50 million at Bill Belichick. It’s a five-bid league at best, a three-bid league at worst, a historical embarrassment for a league that still claims basketball preeminence in its hype videos despite the mounting lack of evidence.
Turning the ACC football title game into what Vince Lombardi called a “game for losers played by losers” won’t fix either sport.
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This story was originally published January 24, 2025 at 11:44 AM with the headline "What the ACC lacks in football success, it makes up in dumb ideas for fixing that."
