This time, it is ESPN saying that the SEC needs to drop divisions.
That talk has been going around the internet for years. As soon as the ACC was set to go to 14, I made the case (I think first on TOS and then in more detail on Southern Pigskin, and there for both the ACC and SEC). Then on the large indy Syracuse board, a number of us (in addition to me and several Cuse fans, a couple of UVA fans and a few other ACC fans) have gone over every scenario of the ACC playing without divisions. And with very few differences, we came to agreement on what would work best for the ACC.
The ACC has tried to achieve that and been thwarted by the machinations of the Big Ten.
No league can just start playing without divisions and keep the Championship Game. The NCAA Rule was imported from D3. Many years ago, a D3 league was expanded to 12, and to cover the exigencies, it urged the NCAA to allow it to have 2 divisions and then to allow the division champs to play one another in a Championship Game.
The NCAA is a bureaucracy, and all bureaucracies take common sense ideas that work in one situation and make them hard rules imposed on as many other situations as possible. Long before the SEC thought about going back to 12, the NCAA had made that D3 request an Iron Rule: if you have at least 12 teams, you can play a Championship Game matching division champs, and all division members must play each other every year.
The ACC petitioned the NCAA to allow each league to decide how to select its 2 participants in a championship game, which means leagues could schedule without any sense of divisions. The Big 12 seconded the ACC proposal because it wanted to play a Championship Game without having to add 2 members. It looked as if it would pass, and then the Big Ten became openly opposed.
Now, if you know the Big Ten, you know that it would benefit from no divisions scheduling just like the ACC, SEC, and Pac. So why then did the Big Ten rally the MAC and then other G5 leagues to oppose the main part of the ACC proposal (the Big Ten was OK with the 10-member Big 12 playing a CG)?
The answer is simple: Notre Dame.
The Big Ten does not want ND in the ACC even as the 5/8ths member it is, because that is a potential threat to Big Ten football. ND as a full member of ACC football would be a definite threat to Big Ten football. And the Big Ten fears that the ACC allowed to schedule without divisions would be more likely to bring ND into full member status sooner.
That talk has been going around the internet for years. As soon as the ACC was set to go to 14, I made the case (I think first on TOS and then in more detail on Southern Pigskin, and there for both the ACC and SEC). Then on the large indy Syracuse board, a number of us (in addition to me and several Cuse fans, a couple of UVA fans and a few other ACC fans) have gone over every scenario of the ACC playing without divisions. And with very few differences, we came to agreement on what would work best for the ACC.
The ACC has tried to achieve that and been thwarted by the machinations of the Big Ten.
No league can just start playing without divisions and keep the Championship Game. The NCAA Rule was imported from D3. Many years ago, a D3 league was expanded to 12, and to cover the exigencies, it urged the NCAA to allow it to have 2 divisions and then to allow the division champs to play one another in a Championship Game.
The NCAA is a bureaucracy, and all bureaucracies take common sense ideas that work in one situation and make them hard rules imposed on as many other situations as possible. Long before the SEC thought about going back to 12, the NCAA had made that D3 request an Iron Rule: if you have at least 12 teams, you can play a Championship Game matching division champs, and all division members must play each other every year.
The ACC petitioned the NCAA to allow each league to decide how to select its 2 participants in a championship game, which means leagues could schedule without any sense of divisions. The Big 12 seconded the ACC proposal because it wanted to play a Championship Game without having to add 2 members. It looked as if it would pass, and then the Big Ten became openly opposed.
Now, if you know the Big Ten, you know that it would benefit from no divisions scheduling just like the ACC, SEC, and Pac. So why then did the Big Ten rally the MAC and then other G5 leagues to oppose the main part of the ACC proposal (the Big Ten was OK with the 10-member Big 12 playing a CG)?
The answer is simple: Notre Dame.
The Big Ten does not want ND in the ACC even as the 5/8ths member it is, because that is a potential threat to Big Ten football. ND as a full member of ACC football would be a definite threat to Big Ten football. And the Big Ten fears that the ACC allowed to schedule without divisions would be more likely to bring ND into full member status sooner.
